Point spread grows for Cincinnati vs. Arizona State football game
The Arizona State Sun Devils are preparing for their longest road trip of the season by resetting their body clocks and moving their practices and meetings up an hour.
They're also leaving earlier than usual, flying to Cincinnati on Thursday to give themselves more time to adjust to the Eastern Time Zone and the 9 a.m. MST Saturday kickoff vs. the Cincinnati Bearcats.
In his Monday press conference, Arizona State coach Kenny Dillingham was clear on how difficult of a task this will be.
"If you look at right now in college football, traveling three time zones and the win percentage, like I told our guys, is very, very, very low," Dillingham said. "If you just looked at that, and you didn't even look at the football teams, you just said 'who's traveling three time zones?' and you bet on the other team, you're gonna win the majority because it's such a challenge. Especially for college athletes who maybe don't go to be when they should like a pro athlete does when he's preparing to do that."
Arizona State (5-1, 2-1) entered the week as 2.5-point underdogs to Cincinnati (4-2, 2-1). On Tuesday the spread jumped to 3.5 points.
ESPN's Football Power Index give the Sun Devils a 38.3% chance of beating the Bearcats.
The Sun Devils are coming off a 27-19 home victory over No. 16 Utah in which they were 6-point underdogs. They're 1-1 on the road this season, with a win over Texas State and a loss to Texas Tech.
Here are the latest betting odds on the Arizona State at Cincinnati Big 12 football matchup from FanDuel Sportsbook:
Arizona State at Cincinnati Betting Odds
Moneyline: Arizona State +126, Cincinnati -152
Spread: Cincinnati -3.5 (-105)
Over/Under: 52.5
More Arizona State & Big 12 Analysis
Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. One of his favorite memories was covering the 1999 Fiesta Bowl - the first BCS National Championship Game - at Sun Devil Stadium.