Kansas vs BYU Odds & Picks Week 12: Betting Against No. 7 BYU, Here's Why!

The No. 7 BYU Cougars are a narrow 2.5-point home favorite at FanDuel for their Week 12 matchup with the Kansas Jayhawks, while to total is coming in at 56.5 points

Before we lay down the pick, gotta give you some numbers from the meeting in Lawrence last season. Kansas (-9.5) beat BYU 38-27, barely covering the spread, and it went Over the listed total of 56.

Kansas vs BYU Odds Week 12

Kansas vs BYU, Nov. 16, 10:15 pm ET

Odds as of Nov. 13 at FanDuel

Kansas vs BYU Pick Week 12

BYU +2.5 (-102) at FanDuel

Hmmmmm. So, you're looking at this game and notice that BYU, a perfect 9-0, the No. 7 team in the AP Top 25 and the No. 9 team in the College Football Playoff Rankings is at home and ONLY -2.5 points over Kansas. A Kansas team that is kinda ugly at 3-6 and not ranked anywhere. WHAT? Gotta read the tea leaves.

Start with this very wild and very strange season for the Jayhawks. They opened the season with a 48-3 CRUSH job against Lindenwood, a team so bad they can't even be called a cupcake. More like a Twinkie. Then they went into a five-game dive, losing to Illinois, UNLV, West Virginia, TCU and Arizona State. We're talking about a 9-4 team from 2023 that went bowling.

Then came the game against Houston, a YUGE 42-14 win for Kansas. The Jayhawks tangled with intrastate rival Kansas State next, a top-25 team, and came up on the short end of a 29-27 score. Last week, they rocked Iowa State, another top-25 team, 45-36. Why the sudden uptick? Gotta believe that Kansas QB Jalon Daniels is one of the reasons.

After the ugly early season when Daniels had EIGHT INTs in six games, he has become a new guy, putting EIGHT TDs on the board in the last three games, with only one INT. Quite an about face.

The other reason is the juice that Kansas is getting from the running game. Against a very tough Cyclones defense, the Jayhawks put 237 yards in the bank, 116 for Devin Neal, 68 for Daniels and 56 for Daniel Hishaw. Kansas went over 200 yards rushing against Houston and had 192 against K-State. And we know that BYU will be generous to the Kansas ground game because we remember that they were GASHED for 269 yards by Oklahoma State.

Check Out The Best CFB Week 12 Promos Here

Then we go to our LEGOmetrics and break down BYU's perfect 9-0 record. Six of the nine wins came against teams with losing records and they were lucky to squeeze past Utah last week, 22-21. The Cougars got a gift defensive holding call after Utah sacked their QB. The call was so questionable that the Utah AD Mark Harlan busted into the post game presser and said, “I’ve been an athletic director for 12 years. This game was absolutely stolen from us.” That cost him $40 large! YIKES!

BYU was playing against a backup QB, Utah's Brandon Rose, who has exactly two games under his belt in his entire career. The Y's QB, Jake Retzlaff, was kinda shaky, completing only 15 of 33 (45.5%) for just 219 yards with NO TDs. And the running game managed to carve out only 120 yards. Of course, when you're shopping, and if the line stays at 2.5, plz buy the hook and push the Jayhawks to +3.

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