I AM HUGE (3-4 YTD 43%) WEEK 3 PICKS AND ANALYSIS

Liberty +13 over Western Kentucky

How could you not bet on a team that is led by Coach Hugh “Make the call” Freeze and their former President Jerry “Cuckhold Me” Falwell, Jr.   Oh yeah, Liberty had their kids on campus all last spring because they think COVID-19 is a hoax.  Liberty coach Hugh Freeze praised the school's strong numbers, saying the team had not had a positive COVID-19 test in three weeks, but he added that the school hadn't actually performed a single test in the past two weeks because no players showed symptoms of the virus.  So it’s likely we’ll see Liberty’s starting lineup with no COVID holdouts.  Despite the 3 ring circus surrounding the university, Liberty football doesn’t just pray to play well.  They have a feisty squad and play the double digit underdog role well, since they can score points.

The public loves to blow the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers, but their offense is fraudulent.  They only scored 21 points last week against a Louisville team that offered 33 points per game last year.    Last week WKU was outgained by Louisville 487 yards to 248 yards.  Two of WKU’s touchdowns were on a 1 yard drive and a 4 yard drive and their last touchdown was late in the game garbage.  On the other side of the ball, the WKU defense had trouble keeping the Louisville QB from running for first downs and they may face a similar athlete this week in Liberty’s QB (Auburn transfer Malik Willis, one of 3 QB’s who may see playing time).   

Liberty won 8 games last year and in their last 11 games they were only beaten by 13 points one time.   Liberty did lose some key offensive players, but they have enough talent under Hugh Freeze’s Escort offense and up tempo passing attack to cause trouble to the Hilltopper defense.    Four of the top five receivers are back, including TE Johnny Huntley, as are 3 of their offensive linemen.     Their returning senior RB Joshua Mack is likely to go for 1000 yards this season.  Now familiar with Coach Freeze’s system, they will be better offensively in 2020 than they were last year when they averaged 33.8 points per game.  No doubt Jerry Falwell, Jr will like to watch!

I think that Liberty won’t have any trouble getting 3 touchdowns and likely 24 points on Saturday.  So the key will be keeping WKU from scoring 37 points in order to cover.  Even though the Hilltoppers were down big for most of the game last week, they still ran the ball 60% of the plays (for only 3.4 yards per carry), which means they don’t have a ton of confidence in their QB who had a QB rating of 44 last week and only hit on 10 of 23 passes.  I do think that WKU will have success running the ball against the Flames, since Liberty is undersized up front on defense.  However, when you’re the double digit underdog, having your opponent run the ball isn’t a bad thing.

“You can’t kick off early enough for me. I don’t like sitting around the hotel all day,” Freeze said.  We know what happened last time he sat around in his hotel room with his Ole Miss cellphone.  I already “made the call” to my bookie and have locked in the doggy Flames +13.

I think I'd be tempted to wait for 14 , 14 ' if I was gonna play on Liberty.

Good Luck  

Just in case your bookie didn't answer the phone , you can get + 15 at Heritage right now .

Im on the same page--Id bet WKy L.W. vs L'Ville and they were more awful than the score indicates--yes I know L'Ville is a decent team but they just had their way all over the place against WKY AA@ WKYs 2 scores were just flukes...Liberty is right about at WKY's level so getting +13 is most generous, seems like a high scoring affair as well since defense will be in short supply

I'm considering Liberty Moneyline personally. I agree though that is a value bet for sure. Maybe I'll take the points solo and parley the ml

get 'em this week 

Baylor -6.5 Houston

Remember back in the day, you’d go out in the street and pick sides then play touch football?  The fat kid would always get picked last but then when you played tackle football on grass, he’d get his revenge.  The point of the story is, you never knew who you’d be playing until the last minute.  Up until last week, Baylor and Houston had no idea they’d be playing one another.  Houston’s first two games were postponed.  Even though the schools are only a few hours apart, they haven’t played each other in 25 years.  So who has the advantage?  I would bet on the fat kid.

Last year, the Baylor Mike Bears were 11-3 and a couple of plays away from beating Oklahoma for the Big 12 championship and making the CFB playoff.  On the other hand, the Houston Cougars were a hot mess, finishing 4-8 after their talented QB decided to sit out the season.    Baylor lost their head coach from last year, but went out and hired Dave Aranda who was the Associate Head Coach of the championship LSU team.  The guy’s a winner.  Houston did not lose their head coach, who could not handle the adversity of losing his QB last year.  Houston has a lot of their team back this year, but I don’t know how you put a 4-8 AAC team in the same class as the Big 12 elite.

Baylor’s QB, Charlie Brewer is a straight up stud.  All he does is take massive hits, get up and throw touchdowns.  Last season he threw for 3,161 yards and 21 touchdowns while completing 64.5 percent of his passes.  He also likes to tuck it and run to get first downs.   Baylor also has John Lovett coming back at RB, who is looking at a 1000 yard season.  Baylor returns 4 out of 5 starters from the O-line.  The skill players have mastered their super high tempo offense which Aranda plans to continue.  Houston’s defense is their weakness, having given up 34 points per game last year.  Baylor is going to score and score and score, stressing the Houston defense until they capitulate, so laying 6.5 points is inconsequential. 

Baylor is ready to play.   “I think that we’ve got a lot of guys coming back with a lot of experience,” Brewer said. “We’ve got guys on defense like Terrel (Bernard), who’s such a great leader and will get those guys ready. The coaching staff that came in…they’re awesome. They’ve had a lot of success elsewhere so I don’t think it’ll change coming here.”

If you believe that Baylor is still up there with Oklahoma and Texas, then it’s really hard not to like them in this game.  Even if Houston was the elite AAC team (which they are certainly not) it would be hard to like them in this game.  Neither team plays much defense, so the story is which quarterback do you have more faith in to make the throws in their respective game opener?  Houston is going with a backup QB from last year.  Baylor has  a non-concussed Charlie Brewer.  I’ll lay the wood and go with the Bears -6.5.

Appalachian State -4 Marshall

We are Marshall…..but we still aren’t any good.  Last season Marshall was a meh 8-5 team that lost to Charlotte and MTSU.  When they stepped up in class against UCF and Cincinnati they got bitch slapped by an average of 30 points.  I can’t give any credibility at all to Marshall’s victory over EKU, which is basically a high school team, since EKU got beat up just as badly by West Virginia in the following week.   So the only eye test is to look at last year’s team and see how much better / worse they’d be.  Marshall does have eight starters are back on offense, and their running back Knox is a straight up beast and a legit 1000 yard runner.  But at the QB position, they are going with redshirt freshman Grant Wells, whose only other FBS offer was from Charlotte.  That’s basically meh.  On defense, they lost 3 of their best 5 players.    It’s difficult to project that they will be any better than last year’s team.   They lost 3 of the 4 starters on their D line, and that’s not going to be good against the pass happy Mountaineers.  In order to beat, Appalachian State, they will need to be a lot better.

Appalachian State has a new head coach but the same old Mountaineers are expected to be in the top 25 all year and certainly is the favorite to be the Sun Belt champ.  They return their 3 year starting QB, Zac Thomas,  the Sun Belt's best quarterback.  Last season he completed 62.7 percent of his attempts for 2,718 yards, 28 touchdowns and six interceptions.  Oh by the way, 4 of his 5 starters on the O-line are back.

Now then, Appalachian State  beat Charlotte last week by 15 points (yes the same Charlotte team that beat Marshall last year).  However if you look closer, you’ll see that Appalachian State outgained Charlotte 512 yards to 286.   The Mountaineers had 3 turnovers in the red zone, including a fumble at the 1 yard line on their first drive of the game.  Throw in a missed 34 yard FG and you can see that the Mountaineers could have easily won this game by more than 30 points.    Charlotte was 7-6 last year and obviously a much tougher opponent than Marshall had in their first game.  If Appalachian State had cleaned it up and actually beaten Charlotte by 30 points, this would be a double digit spread.   So I see some value here and am jumping on the Mountaineers to stay undefeated, ranked and a money maker by laying the 4 points.

NICE WRITE UPS !!

Notre Dame / USF Under 48.5

Normally I stay away from betting totals, but in this case the math is very compelling.  In addition, I did get to watch both teams play last week. 

South Florida scored 27 points on The Citadel (an FCS team) but 7 of those points were gift wrapped when the Citadel punter, kicking from the end zone, punted the ball straight up into the air and it was caught in the end zone by a South Florida defender.  It would have been hilarious if I hadn’t have bet on the Citadel to cover.  Other than that, South Florida really didn’t do much on offense, even with 3 Citadel turnovers to help them.   Their starting QB was 11 for 16 for 68 yards passing against a less than athletic and certainly not speedy Citadel secondary.    While they had overall decent success running the football, the 302 yards on the ground were somewhat misleading.  They weren’t able to get anything going between the tackels at all.  They were able to secure a few long runs by getting to the edge when The Citadel just didn’t have the speed to get to the corner.   This isn’t going  to happen against the Notre Dame defense.  South Florida will not have much success running the ball and, if behind in the game and forced to throw, the Bulls quarterback is not very good at all.  Duke, who has a far superior offense than South Florida, struggled to post 13 points against the Irish last week.  I don’t expect South Florida to score more than 10 points, if they can even get a TD.

On the other side of the ball, South Florida was much better.  They really handled the Citadel’s dual threat quarterback very well.  Also, I was impressed with the aggressiveness of the Bull’s secondary as they came up to make some good hard tackles to keep The Citadel from moving the chains.  They also had a very good pass rush which kept the Citadel QB from making accurate throws.  Their defense looked to be much better than what Duke was showing against Notre Dame and Notre Dame could only score 27 points. Notre Dame’s offense was less than spectacular.  They elected to run the ball 58% of the time last week, which is always a clock eater if they choose that ratio again.  I expect them to do so, since they will likely have more than a 2 score lead for most of the game.   

The Irish defense was very good and I think will be the cornerstone of their success all season, with potentially 4 All Americans on that side of the ball.  They were aggressive and confusing with the blitz last week and if they use that game plan again, South Florida is going to be in big trouble as their receivers are not good enough to get separation from the excellent Notre Dame secondary. The Duke QB was never comfortable in the pocket.   If needed, the Irish defense was terrific in the Red Zone and on the goal line as well.  It was a strong all-around performance for the defense, which got quality play from all three levels.

I expect a workmanlike, efficient offensive performance by Notre Dame on Saturday where they establish the line of scrimmage and run the ball and move the chains.  Coach Kelly doesn’t want to show the ACC too much in this non-league contest so I don’t anticipate a blowout which won’t prove anything.  I look for ND to score in the high 20’s or low 30’s.  Taking the UNDER 48.5 in a boring and uneventful Irish victory.

Love the Baylor and App State play. 

Excellent work! 

Gl this week huge! 

UCF -7.5 Georgia Tech

This game should be called the Pinocchio Bowl because these were the last two teams coached by George “The Liar” O’Leary.  Speaking of fake news, anyone who got excited about the Georgia Tech victory over Florida State needs to put down the crack pipe.  When are we going to learn that Florida State is a flat out hot mess and a close victory over this team impresses no one.   The Yellow Jackets are still in a state of transition as half of their athletes on offense are relics from the Paul Johnson triple option days.   They were only 3-9 last year and far from being a bowl team. 

On the other hand UCF was a juggernaut, going 10-3 on the season.  Their 3 losses were by a total of 7 points.   Anyone who thinks this team is going to cool off this season will be sadly mistaken.  They are a marquee Florida team and now have access to the best athletes the state has to offer when it comes to recruiting (I mean what can be better than Disneyworld during a pandemic?).  UCF has – count ‘em – 16 starters back from last year’s team.  They would be my pick for the best Group of 5 team in the country and candidate for a New Year’s 6 appearance.  Their QB, Dillon Gabriel, started last year as a freshman and everyone knows the biggest gains come between freshman and sophomore year.  He had one of the best seasons nationally for a freshman, passing for 3,653 yards, 29 touchdowns and just seven interceptions.  Their offense finished second nationally in total offense (540.5 yards) and fifth in scoring (43.4), and Coach Heupel, I am sure, will come up with some cool schemes to keep things rolling in 2020.

The UCF defense gave up only 23 points per game last year and they return 6 starters (two of the 8 returning starters opted out – sucks for them).  Georgia Tech only averaged 16.7 points per game last year and, true to form, scored only 16 points last week against the Seminoles – and that was with the benefit of 3 turnover gifts from Florida State.  They are starting a true freshman QB.   For the life of me, I can’t see why this line isn’t at least 14 points.  Seriously, you’re looking at a legit top 10 team teeing off against a below average squad.

I don’t think the Yellow Jackets are ready for this kind of up tempo assault and if they get behind too much, the defense just gets broken and receivers get more and more open.  As evidence of this, UCF covered this 7.5 point spread in 9 of their 10 wins last year.   I see the Yellow Jackets walking into a can of Raid on Saturday.  Give me the Knights, lay the 7.5 points.

I’m in.  At 14.5

Houston's new coach took advantage of the new redshirt rules to sit all his best  players after 4 games to rebuild around so last years record reflected that.  The offense is loaded and can compete with anyone. The secondary is going to be their strongest part of their team also..gl

Love the Bears this week too.

Will take a deeper look at that Ga Tech-UCF match-up. You make some really good points in your argument for UCF. TY.

Take'em to the pay window!  Very much appreciate your time and effort you put into your write ups! I really like the Baylor play. 

Sad about losing the Baylor game....

Nice write up bro 

Liberty in a dogfight now!

Liberty covers by winning outright!  1-0 for the week.

Darn ND goes in for the meaningless TD with 2:15 left...!   1-1 for the week.