Oddsmakers View West Virginia as Slim Favorite Over Cincinnati Despite Losing Skid

More indicative of the perception of Cincinnati than West Virginia, the Mountaineers open the new week as a favorite for their Week 7 matchup against the Bearcats.

Placed as a 1.5-point favorite at the start of the week by both DraftKings and FanDuel, WVU hopes to find their first conference win and avoid falling to a losing mark overall on Saturday afternoon. West Virginia will host Cincinnati at Milan Puskar Stadium at noon ET.

However, Rich Rodriguez knows his team is vulnerable to lose to anyone if his defense doesn’t improve. WVU is now 3-3 and 0-2 in the Big 12 after suffering a 52-31 loss to Arizona. West Virginia started out the season with three-straight wins, including one over a then ranked Virginia team.

The defense allowed Arizona to hang 45 of their 52 total points on them on Saturday, which followed giving up 577 yards and 45 points at Iowa State and 609 yards and 41 points against Oklahoma State.

“It’s really frustrating. I think our fans were fantastic. They showed up today. I thought it was a great crowd. They tried to lift our defense up,” said Rodriguezabout the defense letting down the offense. Offensively, Mike Hawkins, Cam Cook, who did fumble twice, and company racked up 522 yards and 31 points. In the week prior, they put up 518 yards and 42 points, losing a shootout to Iowa State. And the week before that, they reached 476 yards in a 41-24 loss to Oklahoma State.

Conversely, Cincinnati is coming off a bye week. The Bearcats are 4-1, but only 1-0 in the Big 12 and also have a loss to Arizona on their season resume.

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