Not a strong start to week 2, but we certainly finished strong.
SYRACUSE +14.5 vs. LOUISVILLE (LOSS):
Wow, the final score and box score are not really indicative of what this game looked like. There are several takeaways, and I’m sure I will touch on this later in the week on my podcast about line value for week 3. Lamar Jackson was insane in this game, throwing for more than 400 yards, and rushing for 199 with 5 total TD’s. What’s hidden in this game is his poor accuracy as he completed just 20 of his 39 passes. Louisville gave Syracuse so many opportunities to take the momentum and run with it, and I was very disappointing in Syracuse offense. They ran a ton of plays, but there were many 3 and outs along the way. This was 35-21 at the half, and 42-28 to start the 4th quarter before Louisville scored 20 straight to close the game. There were plenty of opportunities for Syracuse to cover this game, but they just could not establish that rhythm that this offense needs to.
I do think the hype train for Lamar Jackson will end this week against Florida State. I think we are getting a couple extra points because of the way he looked, and I would lean towards Florida State. On the flip side I do think Syracuse is going to give some teams some issues down the road as they are already 14.5 point under dogs against South Florida this week, but they are going to need to pull a major upset to be part of our College Bowl Predictions.
Army vs. Rice +8.5 (LOSS ATS)
Well this game was not at all what we expected after opening up 7-0 Rice on a beautiful throw by Tyler Stehling. Stehling was absolutely atrocious from there. I saw him miss at least 10 receivers down field wide open. He was completely inaccurate and most times he had a clean pocket to throw from. The 6’6 QB was not impressive at all and it makes me wonder. How bad are the backup QB’s on this team? Stehling over threw 3 guys deep that were running wide open.
I also wonder why this team did not run the ball more? Why are they throwing it 30+ times against Army when they have the size that they do up front on the offensive line.
Army, once again did what they needed to do. They were high on my list, and now they start the season 2-0 for the first time since 1996. I’m a little bit upset that I bet against them after I was so high on them in the off season, but I thought they would struggle against Rice here after a huge 30 point ATS win last Friday.
MISS ST -1 / UNC -1.5 TEASER (WIN) – NOW 22-5 L2 SEASONS
We gave out teasers on Mississippi State and North Carolina, and we did not need the points as it turned out both teams were able to win and cover the spread set by Vegas. My philosophy behind these plays is to find line value under or over a key number. We did that here at under 3 points. I also like to take teams off a big win and play against them, or teams that did not look as bad as they should have the week before where there is some mistakes on the line.
I thought that was the case for both teams and their match ups. Miss State was hosting South Carolina who was coming off a road win at Vanderbilt as an under dog. There was no way I thought South Carolina was going to win again on the road in the SEC as a road dog under Will Muschamp. I’m sorry it was just not going to happen. The other thing I liked was the fact that Miss State was coming off a loss to South Alabama as a 4 TD favorite and the line in fact was 4 points higher than it would have been if these teams played. Miss State dominated this game 485 total yards to 243, and our cover was never in question as it was 24-0 at half time.
For North Carolina we had a similar situation. Illinois blew out an FCS foe, and people were getting excited about the Lovie Smith era. North Carolina lost to Georgia the week before, but were up 24-14 in that game. They only lost because they gave up big plays, and they were going up against a very good defense. Illinois is not a big threat offense for big plays and their defense is extremely young and it clearly showed in the final score of 48-23. I was most impressed by the pass defense which held an experienced QB, Wes Lunt to 17/35 and 127 passing yards.
VIRGINIA TECH +11.5 vs. TENNESSEE (LOSS ATS)
Honestly this final score looks like a total beat down by Tennessee as they went on to win and easily cover the spread 45-24, but take a look at the team stats.
The key here was the turnovers as Virginia Tech turned it over 5 times. The other shitty part is that they simply teased us by going up 14-0 to start the game. At that point I felt really good about where we stood on the weekend despite the slow start. You open up 14-0 lead as a double digit dog and you expect to win 9 times out of 10. You turn the ball over 5 times you also expect to lose.
There are several takeaways we can take from this game when we are looking at future NCAAF PICKS. Tennessee is going to continue to be over value despite losing this game on paper. They were just 3-13 on third down and allowed 46% completions. They were also -70 yards in this game and Josh Dobbs looks like a very average QB so far this year. Tennessee is a 27.5 point favorite this week with their rival Florida on deck.. Hard to get back up for a game after the “game of the century.” Classic hang over spot that I will take a strong look at. Virginia Tech, is a team I will back in the future, but not this week as they are 6 point favorites to Boston College. I think it might be tough for them to get up for the game considering they just played in the biggest game of the year.
TCU / Arkansas Under 58.5 (LOSS)
I played the under, because I thought we had tremendous value with both defenses being the strength of their teams. I think we had it right, but for the second weekend in a row a match up that looked like an easy win on the under went to over time and we end up losing. That’s some bad luck, but I guess it’s always a threat when you play the under in these college games. This game was 20-7 to start the 4th quarter and was another I thought we had considering we had 31.5 points to work with, but there were 29 points scored in the 4th, and 23 in the double OT match up. I think both teams are dangerous opponents in their conference and Arkansas may not have deserved to win this game as they were nearly -200 yards of total offense, but got 2 turnovers.
BYU / UTAH Under 45 (WIN)
Pace is significantly down for BYU this season as they moved away from the spread to an NFL pro style offense under new offensive coordinator Ty Detmer. That was a huge reason why I bet the under in this game, but I think we were very lucky to get the under in this one when you consider it was a very sloppy game. There was a total of 9 turnovers in this game, and 6 by Utah who definitely did not deserve to win this game. I guess I probably would not rush to back either one of these teams in the future based on what I saw.
Washington State / Boise State (WIN)
This was our top play of the day, and we are now 78-46 ATS in our career for max rated College Football Picks Against The Spread. This game was a bit dicey late as Boise State was up 31-14 in the 4th quarter, but their QB is not good enough to take Boise State to the college football playoff. Brett Rypien, threw 3 interceptions in this game, and they could not stay on the field with just 3-10 on third down. This game started with a pick six from Luke Falk to Tyler Horton so that kind of freaked me out a bit, but we were able to get the back door cover if you want to call it that. Washington State had the ball with a chance to win late. They also were +100 yards in this game and were better on third down. They went for it 5 times on 4th down and that was the killer as they were only successful two times.
Takeaways for me is that Washington State is not as bad as week 1, and Boise State is not as good as week 1. What should be concerning for Boise fans is the fact that they had just 22 minutes in time of possession to a team that just likes to throw the ball a bunch. Boise is off this coming week I believe while Washington State hosts Idaho.
