Going to Caesars Sports Book in Atlantic City this weekend for some football action...here are my picks for the week...analysis to follow...which ones do you like? (and why?)
ARMY -4.5 rice
PENN STATE - 49.5 kent
ohio +17.5 KENTUCKY
N ILLINOIS -14.5 buffalo
OLE MISS - 33.5 georgia southern
ARMY -4.5 rice
We all remember the blockbuster movie hit “Black Knight” starring Martin Lawrence. At the end of the movie he defeated the evil Percival and gets the girl. Today’s Black Knights from West Point have nothing to fear when the Rice Owls travel up the Hudson. This is my best bet on the board. When Army gets the ball, there is no secret of what they plan to do. They will run run run the ball. They have run the ball on 91% of their plays this season and are averaging 6.8 yards per carry. Army has played 2 games so far, overwhelming both of their opponents, beating Lehigh 42-7 and FAU 24-7. Sagarin has Rice rated about 22 points better than Lehigh, so Army has a cushion there on the point spread (beating Lehigh by 35 minus 22 equals 13 points better than Rice). FAU’s power rating is identical to Rice and Army covered that spread by 17 against FAU.
Turning to Rice, they lost to Houston by the score of 33-7 and Massey has Army ranked higher than Houston. Rice also lost to Sam Houston by the score of 34-14 and Sagarin has Army ranked 4 points better than Sam Houston. Every way you look at comparative score, Army covers this spread easily.
Clearly Rice has a problem on offense, and Army doesn’t have a problem with defense. They are actually playing very good defense, giving up only 7 points per game. Rice did score a lot of points against Texas Southern, but Texas Southern is ranked 252 out of 263 division 1 teams. Nothing to see here..keep moving on. Rice is going to try to move the ball on the back of EJ Warner and his passing, but the number of possessions that Rice gets in this game will certainly be 10 or less. He hasn’t had tremendous luck so far, averaging only 4.9 yards per pass attempt. He had already thrown 4 interceptions against 3 touchdowns. He’s not very good and is ranked near the botton of FBS quarterbacks so far. Sorry..unlike his Dad, he may be stocking grocery shelves. Rice won’t have luck running the ball against the disciplined Army defense. If you exclude the Texas Southern game, you’ll see that Rice is only averaging 2.9 yards per carry. You know what happens when you can’t run the ball on the road? You lose…that’s what happens.
Defensively, Rice is going to have all kinds of problems stopping Army. Army has only one lost fumble so far this season, so clearly QB Daily has good ball control skills. Sam Houston and Houston had little trouble against Rice, gaining 415 yards on the ground on 88 carries for 4.7 yards per carry. If Army gets 65 offensive plays in this game, they could very easily get over 500 yards rushing against the Owls. Since they run the ball all of the time, even if the game is in hand, they will keep marching down the field late in the game when they get the ball and likely get into the Rice red zone with every possession. Rice won’t have a chance for a back door cover, especially since Army ranks in the top 5 in Red Zone defense. Call this game 28-10 for the guys who protect our freedom, sending home the eggheads back to Houston. Easy cover for Army.
PENN STATE - 49.5 kent
What is it about James Franklin that makes him so obnoxious? Was it because he said he only wants to recruit players with hot girlfriends because that means the players must be condident? Or is it because when he hosts a body bag game, he doesn’t mind running up the score. For example, last season Penn State played UMass who was ranked #131 and the Nittany Lions blew them out 63-0. Earlier in the season, PSU hosted FCS Delaware. The result, another 63-7 destruction. It seems like Penn State likes to score 63 points against bad teams. So you guessed it, they are a bunch of bullies.
Well this week, they are getting the worst of the worst. Crosby Stills Nash and Young are going to have to write another sad song about how bad this football team is. They need to change their nickname from the Golden Flashes to the Golden Showers and have some guy dressed up as a urinal running around the football field with all of the fans sissing on him. Yeah, they are that bad.
Penn State, ranked #7 in the country, held a pretty decent West Virginia offense to only 246 yards and 1 touchdown and 2.3 yards per carry. Against Pitt, WVU had 398 yards of offense and 4.2 yards per carry to give you an idea of how PSU smothered them. Now here’s the rub, in their next game, the Penn State defense did not play well against Soylent Green and the team trailed for much of the game. Fortunately, the Penn State offense bailed them out with a pretty good day running the ball – 234 yards and 6.3 yards per tote to allow them to escape with a 34-27 victory. Now you can bet that Coach Franklin, with the benefit of a bye week, really gave it to his team over the last 2 weeks of practice for taking their MAC opponent lightly and probably called out the defense for being a bunch of pussies for letting Bowling Green score 27 points. One would have to be an idiot of they don’t think that the Penn State defense is not going to be fired up for this horrid Kent offense. It is highly likely that they will pitch a shutout in this game. The Golden Showers could only muster 17 points against middle of the road FCS team St. Francis. Last week against Tennessee was a complete embarrassment, as Kent State was down 65-0 at the half. There is no way…no way…that Kent will find the end zone against Penn State.
Being generous, I would say Kent scores 6 points in this game. That means Penn State will need to score 56 to cover. They’ll probably score 63 points again for the cover, sending the home team home happy. It’s crazy to lay that many points…but there cannot be a bigger disparity in this game. Penn State will certainly be able to name the score and the defense will be proud enough at home to keep Kent out of the end zone. So count the touchdowns and likely we’ll see this covered by the first half. I’m all over Penn State this week.
ohio +17.5 KENTUCKY
This game is a horrible spot for Kentucky. They were so close to knocking off Georgia last week, they probably can still taste it in their mouths. Unfortunately for the Cats, it was not meant to be. So after a brutal defensive battle in front of their immensely disappointed fans, they had to slog back to practice and watch hours of film on Ohio. This is a game that no Kentucky fans will have interest in going to, after last week’s disappointment. Kentucky has to travel to Ole Siss next week and if anyone thinks they are not looking ahead to that game, they are on serious dope. Look, we already know what happens when Kentucky is not prepared and doesn’t play well – week 2 against South Carolina, they got smoked by the score of 31-6. The Kentucky offense has had some serious problems getting going. They are averaging 16.3 points per game this season, and that includes a game against swiss cheese defense of Southern Siss (yes they scored 31 points against Southern Miss, but South Florida put up 49 on Southern Miss and that’s after It’s really tough to cover 17.5 points when you only score 16.3 points per game.
If Kentucky could only score 31 on Southern Siss when Southern Siss had 2 turnovers, it’s difficult to see them scoring more than 27 against Ohio. So it’s really up to Ohio to find a way to score 10 points in this game in order to make it extremely difficult for Kentucky to cover. The Bobcat offense has been pretty good, averaging 23.3 points per game. They like to run the ball, doing it 60% of the time and why not…they are averaging 5.2 yards per carry. Ohio’s Anthony Tyus III is the seventh-leading rusher in the FBS, having run for 367 yards on 49 carries with four touchdowns. If they can move the chains on the ground, that will certainly limit the number of possessions for the Wildcat inept offense. That’s a big “if” since Kentucky is proud of their run defense. Fortunately for Ohio, their QB Parker Navarro has been very efficient, completing 68.5% of his passes, which is a great way to keep drives going. Navarro doesn’t mind scrambling for first downs either; he has run for 107 net yards and two touchdowns. Compare that to Kentucky’s Brock Vandagriff (52.8 percent passing, 313 yards, three touchdowns) – not great.
At the end of the day, Ohio is one of the better teams in the MAC. They won’t beat Kentucky on the road BUT why would you lay 17.5 points when the favorite has only averaged 261 total yards per game, rating them 128th in the country. I just like the points here in a game that will likely be low scoring. Going with the dog, even though they are the Bobcats.
N ILLINOIS -14.5 buffalo
Was that really Northern Illinois pushing Notre Dame all over the field? Was that really Notre Dame making Purdue their prison bitches? I think yes to both. The good news is that NIU had a week off to sleep off their glory and get back down to business against an inferior Buffalo Bulls team. Buffalo has had two nice showings this season, but both of these wins were against very weak opponents – FCS Lafayette (who struggled to beat Monmouth) and UMASS who is 0-3 and giving up 33 points per game. When Buffalo lined up against a good team, Missouri, they got completely annihilated, 38-0, and only had 169 yards of offense. They proved to be fraudulent offensively as their QB play was atrocious in that game. Their QB, Ogbonna, was 6 for 20 for 55 yards passing in that game. Not good.
This is where NIU has the clear advantage. Their play at the QB position has been nothing less than stellar. Ethan Hampton has been off the charts, completing 71.8% of his passes for 13.5 yards per chuck. He has thrown for 6 TD’s against zero interceptions and has a QB rating of 235.9. Those are Madden numbers. The kid is the real deal and the fact that the Huskies will be playing at home in front of an adoring crowd will make this game even more special for the #23 ranked Huskies.
The Huskies are averaging 251 yards rushing and 296 yards passing per game, with both in the top 30 in the nation. Northern Illinois has a tough defense as well that is allowing 14.5 points per game, which is 37th best, and 292 yards per game, which is 40th. In contrast, Buffalo is 105th in scoring and 121st in total offense. The Huskies were able to stifle Notre Dame into 3-of-10 on third-down conversions so it’s likely they can keep Buffalo from reaching the end zone more than twice. The Huskies have a veteran secondary that will lock down the ineffective Buffalo QB and likely force him into throwing some ill advised passes, and turning the ball over. It is likely the Bulls will be playing from behind, and the gap in the score will widen rather than having them trade points. Playing at home will be the difference maker in securing the cover for the favorites. Go Huskies.
@iamhuge
I commend you for all the time I know you put into these, I do the same but not nearly as many games, the less games, the better I do. Looking at your analysis of Northern Illinois and Buffalo, if I knew nothing about them, in reality I know nothing about Buffalo and not much more about NIU, I would think this line would be 3 TDs or more but it's currently only 13.5. I look at the total I see it's only 43. Glance over some info about these teams, it's likely low scoring, the winning team might hit 24, might. Which means the losing team, assuming Buffalo, can't score more than 10 to cover the line, possible. Not a lot of leeway here though, one fluke play in a lower scoring game, and the favorite goes down in flames. Playing Devil's advocate here, looking at the line almost looks like a "setup," everyone thinking about the win over Notre Dame and the bye week, winning by 2 TDs at home looks juicy. This is just how my mind works, many years of doing this, many. Just based on that, it wouldn't be a game I would play, doesn't mean you won't win, you might and I certainly hope you do, but something smells to me. When that happens I scroll down to the next game. First thing I do is eliminate games, the few that are left will eventually become only 1 or 2, again, that's just me, what works for me. I wish you the best, you continue your due diligence and the money will come. Best of luck this weekend!
@iamhuge
The Kentucky/Southern Miss game was called with 8 minutes left in the 3rd quarter
so they scored 31 in a little over 2 quarters so that score is misleading.
Kentucky is going to get the passing game going and will try to score as many
points as possible to get the offense some confidence with Ole Miss coming
I expect Kentucky to pour it on. Kentucky wins 38-14
fair points all. Not a ton of info to go on but the disparity in quarterback play is what was most attractive to me.
best of luck to you
OLE MISS - 33.5 georgia southern
Ole Siss is one of the top teams in the nation. There is no doubt about that and Lane Kiffin loves offense, there’s no doubt about that. They are playing in Oxford today and the tailgates there are legendary. So let’s look at the numbers. The Rebels beat Furman 76-0. Sagarin has Georgia Southern ranked 14 points better than Furman, so the math says Ole Miss beats GA Southern by 62 points. The Rebels beat Middle Tennessee 52-3, Sagarin has Georgia Southern ranked 13 points better than MTSU so the math says Ole Miss beats GA Southern by 36 points. The Rebels beat Wake Forest 40-6, Sagarin has Georgia Southern ranked 2 points worse than Wake Forest so the math says Ole Miss beats GA Southern by 36 points. So based on Ole Miss entire body of work, the math says that they should cover this spread. Their defense has been fantastic, giving up only 3 points per game and their offense has also been great, scoring 56 points per game. Not much to complain about at all.
What makes this bet even more compelling is that Georgia Southern is particularly fraudulent. While they scored 45 points against Boise State, and that seems impressive, they only had 451 yards of offense in that game, meaning that they really should have scored in the low 30’s and lost that game by 2 TD’s. A close win over a bad Nevada team was even less impressive, as GA Southern had only 285 yards of offense and could rush the ball for only 2.2 yards per carry. Similarly against FCS SC State, their 42 points scored in that game should have been much lower – as they were only able to generate 318 yards of offense against the Bulldogs. The Eagles are a pass heavy team, electing to throw the ball on 56% of their offensive plays. Their running attack has been impotent all season, even against weak opponents, averaging only 3.7 yards per carry. Ole Miss has held their opponents to something like 1.1 yards per carry and less than 40 yards per game. You know what happens when you can’t run the ball on the road in a hostile environment? You lose…that’s what happens.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that Ole Miss can score as many points as it wants in this game. Jaxson Dart has thrown for 1,172 yards, 8 touchdowns, and an interception on 83% passing. Remember, Boise State put up 56 points on Georgia Southern. The Eagles giving up more than 290 yards per game on the ground and they are ranked 100 in FBS in defending the pass. Overall, their defense is in the bottom 5 of all of college football. It’s very likely that Ole Miss will not punt the ball the entire game. Certainly a one sided affair, and 33.5 points will not seem like a lot when they are covering this by the 2 half kickoff. I’m laying the points and taking the Rebs.
@iamhuge
Ol Miss was my play/write up last week, I even threw a couple bucks on them to cut down the nets +1300. This season with the 12 teams, a loaded SEC, anything can happen, no one or even two dominant teams. GL today!
Established in 1995,
Hot Forum Topics
