GeauxCap

Adding NC State Team Total Over 30.5 (1 unit) 

@ceveche88

 Thanks man! Super important element that has improved my picks over the years. 

@steponaduck

Just watched the presser.. Absolutely brutal. That’s one of those losses that stuck with me through the weekend. One of those games that reminds you how powerless we are as bettors. At least try to run it once! Oh well onto the next week. 

Six Point Teaser:  Florida vs Utah Under 54 & UCF -27.5 vs Kent State (-120; 2 units) 

A teaser in week 1 of college football.. what could possibly go wrong LOL. I don’t play these often and don’t really recommend them long term but I cracked here. In all seriousness, I liked the numbers I was able to get on these games so I took a shot with a teaser. Starting with Utah. I think my head will explode if I search Cam Rising on google or twitter one more time. My best guess is he either doesn’t play and if he does, he is extremely limited. Either way I think this points to the under. I also expect Utah to play complementary football in either situation. Look for them to lean on the running game, win the field position battle and take their field goals when they can get them.

On the other side, I’m not as down on Florida as others are. I actually think Graham Mertz is a capable quarterback. Just because it doesn’t work out at one school doesn’t mean it won’t at another (unless your name is Hank Bachmeier). Wisconsin may not have been the right fit for him but it’s not crazy to say that the Florida passing game might actually improve with him replacing Richardson. Anthony Richardson may have been a first round talent but he was not a good college quarterback from a passing standpoint. Anyways, the strength of Florida’s offense is in the running back room. Look for them to lean on them early in the season. Defensively, Florida should be more confident in their front 7 than the secondary. I think that bodes well for an under in a game where i expect Utah and OC Andy Ludwig to run the ball somewhere between 30-40 times this game. Even if they aren’t have success I don’t see them giving up on it. As long as Florida can limit the explosive runs, they’ll be in good shape. 

As far as UCF and Kent State, I’ll keep it short and sweet. Kent State might be really really bad this year. UCF should be able to name the score in this one. One thing I look for in covering point spreads is pace of play. UCF will get off enough plays to cover this number twice if they want to.

Going to start with Thursday games and games I’ve locked in already. Apologies if the best of the number is gone. Some of these week 1 lines have been up for a while but I haven’t had a chance to write down my thoughts with work and life! 

NC State -14 vs UConn - 2 units

Tricky spot for NC State but I think there’s value on NC State here. This handicap started with what I would make the line on a neutral field. I’d have NC State favored by closer to 20 points. So that mixed with the fact that I don’t really respect UConn’s home field advantage I felt like 14.5 was a tad short. Obviously in week 1 on the road anything can happen so I found a cheap -14 for -120.

As far as X’s and O’s, I like the fact that Brennan Armstrong is reunited with his old offensive coordinator Robert Anae. When Armstrong is right, he can be lethal. I expect the NC State offense to be a lot more explosive this year. NC State added a WR transfer from Clemson and another from Rice who I actually expect to be a big contributor. I also expect Anae to find creative ways to get the ball to Julian Gray who has big play potential. There are question marks in the running game but with the experience on the OL it’s not a big concern.

For UCONN, they are solid up front on both the offensive and defensive line. I actually don’t expect NC State to just lean on them all game but I would still be surprised if UConn had any success running the ball in this one. That’s not a good recipe especially given the fact that NC State’s secondary has a chance to be an elite group. If UConn can’t get the ground game going and they don’t have much success through the air, I just don’t know where the points are coming from to cover this number.

The x factor here is obviously new UCONN QB and Maine transfer Joe Fagnano. I’m assuming he won the job because of the upside he provides in the passing game but again, this secondary will be tough to crack. The speed of this NC State defense will make passing windows a lot smaller than he saw at Maine at the FCS level. In two games against FBS competition (kinda) New Mexico and Boston College. Fagnano was 12 for 27 with 96 passing yards and 1 interception vs New Mexico and 21 of 43 for 289 yards with 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions vs Boston College. I expect him to find success behind a better offensive line than he probably had at Maine but not in this matchup. 

NC State didn’t punt  a single time in this game last year and put up almost 500 yards of total offense. I don’t expect that to change much. Lastly, NC State head coach Dave Doeren typically has his teams well prepared. They may lose games but they are a buttoned up program. If there’s a team I trust laying two touchdowns on the road early in the season, it’s a team coached by Doeren.

USC vs San Jose State

This was a pretty entertaining game. Good call to everyone who was on the over here. Definitely the right side. Offensively, USC looks like they’ll have another top 5 offense.  Their new freshman receiver Zachariah Branch is a game changer. He had 166 all purpose yards with one receiving touchdown and a dynamic kick off return. Already starting to hear some Reggie Bush chatter. I’m not read to go that far yet but I will say he’s the type of player that will hurt you if he gets 10-15 touches a game.Not too much to be worried about on that side of the ball though I would’ve liked to see their offensive line control San Jose state a little more than they did. San Jose’s D line felt like they got the better of USC more than a few times, forcing a few pressures and hurries.

Defensively, I’m not ready to push the panic button for USC. Obviously giving up 28 points and almost 400 total yards to a mountain west team isn’t great but SJSU is no slouch. Chevan Cordeiro is actually one of the better QBs USC will face this year. San Jose State flashed signs of a top 30 offense. I wasn’t impressed by them especially given the fact that their best receiver was out with an injury. USC’s defense may be better than last year, just this isn’t the game we would’ve seen the results. I do think USC’s big transfer from Georgia, Bear Alexander is in for a rude awakening though. Felt like he saw a fair share of chips and double teams. There’s a difference in playing on a defensive front with multiple first rounders at Georgia where they can’t key in on stopping one guy and USC where you’re the top dog. I didn’t feel like he made much of an impact because he didn’t see a lot of 1:1 match ups. Overall, I’ll wait for more data points on USC but the way that offense looked, this defense just needs to be average for the Trojans to take a step forward this year. 

@gman21000

 Thanks Gman! Good luck this year. 

@Whodat0921

 I hear ya. I would say Hawaii exceeded expectations even when they were down. Box scores obviously don’t tell always tell the final story but it felt like Hawaii earned that cover. When I say a team outplayed another team I’m usually speaking in terms of the point spread. 

@Mskeets

 Man. Right there with ya..  Happens to the best of em. Just how it goes sometimes but it’s a long season! Good luck. 

Hawaii vs Vanderbilt

Hawaii was another surprise that a lot of folks on this forum saw coming. Thanks to them, I locked in Hawaii +9 and +240 vs Stanford a few weeks ago. I thought Hawaii’s quarterback played well. He showed a good understanding of the offense. Would like to see him take better care of the ball. The goal line interception really killed them. Hawaii really outplayed Vandy in this one and it’s kinda going under the radar. They outgained Vandy 391 to 297. Had 6.5 yards per play to Vandy’s 5.3. Averaged almost 10 yards per pass attempt and more first downs. The biggest bright spot to me was Hawaii’s trench play. They really held up at the point of attack, holding Vandy to 39 rushing yards. If they continue to play like that, they will surprise some teams this year, especially at home.

Quick note on the Stanford game. I do think anything under 4 points is an overreaction to what we just saw. The line certainly should’ve came down a little but without having seen this Stanford team, I don’t see much value at Hawaii at +3.5 or +150 or anything like that.

UTEP vs Jacksonville State

Holy Dana Dimmel LOL. Another one that hurt if you were on UTEP like me but to be honest they deserved to lose that game lol. I’ll get to the playcalling later. Rich Rod and Jacksonville state definitely showed that they belong. They ran for 208 yards on 4.73 yards per carry. Their defense is a step behind as expected but rushing for over 200 yards against one of the better run stopping defense in Week 0 is definitely an accomplishment. Now for the fighting Dana Dimmels. They outgained Jax St by almost 100 yards and averaged 5 yards per play. Very rarely would I say a team that dominated the box score like UTEP deserved to lose but the decision making in that final sequence they deserved to be punished for it. For those that weren’t watching, UTEP was in scoring position with under a minute left and opted to throw the ball on both 3rd & 1 and 4th & 1. Not to mention the 3rd down play call was a low percentage goal line fade. These are the types of decisions that get head coaches fired. 

UMASS vs New Mexico State

Okay UMASS!! They are definitely not the worst team in the country any more (look out FIU). All jokes, aside this was a really solid performance from UMASS. The box score got a little wonky with 48 points scored in the 4th quarter but make no mistake about it, UMASS will be competitive this year. This defense plays fast and they are aggressive. Offensively, they were pretty balanced. They also took care of the ball which is critical when facing teams that are more talented than you. On the other side of the ball, I just don’t understand the Diego Pavia hype. This kid is just reckless. He feels like a turnover or negative play waiting to happen. The box score looked okay going 16 for 27 with 248 passing yards and two interceptions but I just think this kid will lose you more games than he wins because of decision making. The pick 6 he threw at the end of the game was a really poor read of a somewhat basic cover 2 zone coverage. No excuse for an FBS level quarterback. I'm having a hard time finding three wins on this New Mexico state schedule now. 

Going to try and post these every sunday or monday if I can. Will probably pick 5-7 games once we have a full week of games. I may try and do a weekly post for the teams playing multiple QB’s  (Bama, Ohio State, UCLA) early in the season. I watch all of these games live or a condensed version on Youtube. Tough week for me with a big donut on the board. We'll get em next week. This is and will always be a safe space to rant for anyone that needs it lol!

Navy vs Notre Dame

This one was over quickly. A few things stood out to me from this one. One was the speed on Notre Dame’s defense. It felt like they were just a step faster than Navy. Notre Dame just ate up space and angles all game. Second was Notre Dame’s playcalling. I was skeptical on the offensive coordinator hire but I thought Parker called a solid game. He used some interesting personnel packages and wasn’t too predictable. He had a good feel for when to call the homerun shot and sneak in screens against the blitz. Obviously it’s a lot easier to call plays when your offense is averaging almost 6 yards a carry so we’ll see what happens when ND faces NC State, Clemson & USC but still an impressive performance from the Irish. I wouldn’t be too worried if I was a Navy fan or season win total ticket holder, Notre Dame showed an elite defense with a solid offense. The one thing that would concern me is them only completing 3 passes after the talk all off season was about this modernized offense. Overall, a complete, disciplined performance for Marcus Freeman and the Irish. 

Ohio vs San Diego

If you were on Ohio like me, this one hurt. Ohio +3 or better felt like the right side in this one after watching the game but SDSU ML at the closing price also felt like the right side too if that makes sense. The trajectory of this game obviously changed when Rourke got injured but Ohio still had a chance to at the very least cover the spread. This game was won/lost in the red zone. SDSU converted on all 3 of their trips and Ohio was 2/4. I thought the Ohio defense was better than expected but SDSU’s offense was also lacking at times. Ohio outgained SDSU 380 to 309 but also ran 26 more plays. Ohio’s three interceptions were really the story of the game. One of them wasn’t the backup, Harris’ fault, he was hit as he was throwing but he definitely held onto the ball a little too long all game. He was obviously in a tough spot coming off the bench on the road in week 0 but lack of first team reps don’t really explain poor decision making. SDSU’s defense looked a notch down from the normal defense we are used to seeing from them, giving up 380 total yards, 278 through the air and allowing 26 first downs. It was week 0 so we’ll see what happens when they get to conference play. Overall, Ohio should be okay if they get Rourke back and SDSU will have to make some improvements defensively before facing teams like UCLA, Oregon State, Boise State and San Jose State. I don’t know if they’ll be able to match the offensive output of those teams.

Don’t bet much preseason but I read a rather interesting post on here on one of these games LOL. Had to play it because I think we all know how these things tend to go. I’ll let the smart ones read between the lines on that. 

Carolina Panthers -4 vs Detroit Lions (1 unit)

Tennessee Titan ML (-140) vs New England Patriots (1 unit)

I also lean chargers but locking in 3 NFL games and a CFL game the night before CFB season starts is just asking my bankroll for trouble! Good luck everyone. 

LOL Welcome back Train!! 

SMU to win American Athletic Conference +400 (2 units)

A lot to like here with SMU. Starts with the quarterback, Preston Stone who will be replacing Tanner Mordecai. I think Stone is capable of putting up some of the same video game type numbers Mordecai did under head coach and OC Rhett Lashlee. I also like the fact that Stone was able to redshirt last year and learn the system. I don’t expect much of a learning curve for Stone as a first year starter because of his familiarity with the offense.

Next, the defense… which was just dreadful at times. The game against Houston last year where they gave up over 700 yards of total offense was a classic. SMU did a lot of work in the portal and also return 8 starters from a defense that really has no where to go but up. They’ve got a plethora of talent from Miami on the defensive side of the ball and their secondary should be much improved with 7 transfers. The way their offense is set up, we really just need this side of the ball to be serviceable. If the defense can take a big step forward they have a chance at upsetting TCU or Oklahoma in the non conference slate.

I like the fact that SMU avoids Tulane and UTSA. On paper this looks like the most talented team in the AAC. If they put it all together they should definitely be in the title game. Give me SMU to win the conference for two units in their second year under Rhett Lashlee.

Good luck this season Duck! 

Utep ML -115 (2 units)

Adding another one for Week 0. The handicap here starts with Jacksonville State’s run game and UTEP’s ability to stop it. If Jacksonville State can run the ball as effectively as they did last year against FCS competition, they’ll be hard to beat. I just don’t think they’ll be very successful running the ball in this one.

UTEP returns seven starters from a defense that gave up 136 rushing yards per game and held three opponents under 100 yards rushing including holding conference USA champs, UTSA to 76 rushing yards on 33 attempts for 2.3 yards per carry last year in a wacky game to end the season. UTEP took in 7 Juco D-line transfers so they should have one of the deeper fronts in the league. Jacksonville State averaged 45 rush attempts per game last year and I don’t see that changing even with a step up in class. The defensive side of the ball is where I see Jacksonville State having the most trouble making the transition from the FCS level. They just don’t have FBS level size or skill on that side of the ball yet. I think teams will try to bully them in the trenches and it’ll start with UTEP in week 0. UTEP might have the best running back in the conference in Deion Hankins who I expect to have a thousand yard rushing season this year. UTEP also has the best receiver in the conference in Tyrin Smith who is an SEC-caliber player who actually transferred to Texas A&M this spring before returning to UTEP.

The one x factor in this game is Jacksonville State head coach, Rich Rod. I have questions about him as a head coach but I really respect what he can do offensively as a playcaller. He is capable of devising a game plan to keep a team off-balanced all game. I expect a few week 0 wrinkles that could lead to points early but UTEP should be able to make adjustments to Jacksonville State’s tempo. I’ll take a team that I expect to be in the Conference title game with a short price on the ML to open the season.

@combato

 Joey Knish’s voice  

Lot of value on Clemson. Especially if Garrett Riley is the real deal. Like the pick. Good luck! 

I looked long and hard at this game too. Cal laying close to double digits on the road definitely makes you think. Haven’t locked anything in yet but I do respect Justin Wilcox as a HC. They return 17 starters from a team that had some sneaky good performances last year vs teams like Notre Dame & USC. Sam Jackson at QB with Spavitol back as OC may get things going. 

North Texas returns 15 starters but they are transitioning to a 3-3-5 defense which will take some time to learn. Don’t love their ULM transfer QB but their running back room is loaded. I’ll probably end up staying off this game because of all the unknowns but I’ll be watching closely to see if there’s value on NT vs FIU or Cal vs Auburn the following weeks.