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The late game on the Friday college football double-header features a Pac 12 North matchup between
2-1 Stanford and 2-1 Oregon State. Lines makers have made the visiting Cardinal a 15.5 point favorite with the total off the board because of the uncertain status of Stanford quarterback Kevin Hogan who is nursing an ankle injury. Hogan will attempt to practice today (Thursday) and his availability will be announced on Friday.
Fresh off their upset win at USC last week, this could be a classic let down spot for the Tree. There is also the possibility that David Shaw might chose to sit Hogan here with home games vs. Arizona and UCLA on deck. Hogan’s backup is Keller Chryst, a 6’3″ 233 local product out of Palo Alto who has thrown one pass this year. The Stanford defense is not the stop unit we’ve become accustomed to the last five years and good teams have found ways to run the ball on them.
Oregon State is in a state of flux with a new coach, a new quarterback and just two returning starters on offense. The Beavers are a run oriented team this year under ex-Utah State/Wisconsin head man Gary Andersen. Oregon State ran the ball for 281 and 303 yards respectively in wins over Weber State and San Jose but were stopped cold by a staunch Michigan Wolverine run defense that allowed OSU just 59 yards on 33 carries. The Beaver defense has not been bad to this point but faces much better here and moves way up in class in its Pac 12 schedule.
Stanford has dominated the series of late winning the last five meetings while going 4-0-1 against the points. Nine of the L13 have gone under the total. Stanford is just 3-7 as a road favorite under Shaw after going 12-2 in that role from 2010-2012. The Beavers were just 1-4 as a home dog with Mike Riley and Sean Mannion the last couple of years. This is a tough game to handicap until the status of Hogan has been established.