VERNON CROY'S **SATURDAY NIGHT NCAAF SMASH**
3* Take Stanford

This weekend features a good Pac-10 matchup between Stanford and Arizona. While it should be a close game, statistical analysis tells us that the Stanford Cardinal will emerge victorious on the day. What tells us this exactly? Let's look at the details. The line for this weekends game is Arizona -5. Arizona is bad playing as the favorite and Stanford is good playing as the underdog. Over the last three years, the Wildcats are 1-4 in games that they were 3.5-10 point favorites. They are also 0-1 this season. On the other side of the ball, the Cardinal is 3-2 over the last three years when coming in as an underdog of 3.5-10 points. This game should be no different. The Cardinal is 3-1 against conference opponents this year and this is a conference matchup. Another interesting fact is that Stanford is better at playing on a grass field as they will be this weekend. The Cardinal is 3-1 on the season on a grass field. At the same time the Wildcats are 0-2 on the season. Even though it might seem irrelevant, it is a trend that can not be overlooked completely. Another interesting trend dates back all the way to 1992. Stanford is 5-1 against the spread versus Arizona. That tells us that they have pretty much dominated against the spread against the Wildcats over the last several years. In the last three years, the Cardinal is 1-0 versus the Wildcats. Expect history to repeat itself on Saturday. This season, the Arizona Wildcats are 1-3 in every lined game that they have played in. It sounds as if they do not take pressure and the spotlight very well. Their wins have come against some weak teams, while they lost two games to stronger teams. They lost to Iowa and Washington. Therefore, they are yet to beat a good team on the season. When the final whistle blows this weekend, expect the Stanford Cardinal to come out on top so grab the points.