Colorado
vs.
Colorado State
Week 1
College Football Pick
8/29/14
In state rivals Colorado and Colorado State kick off their 2014 college football seasons at Sports Authority Field in Denver. Currently Colorado is favored by 2.5 to 3 points at most sportsbooks. 5 dimes sportsbook has the Buffs -2.5 -120 with a total of 64.
Last season is was Colorado State that had the better season going 8-6 and beating Washington State in the New Mexico Bowl while the Buffaloes struggled to a 4-8 finish and were home for the holidays. With that said, in this annual clash last season, it was Colorado coming out on top 41-27.
Last years Game was close on the scoreboard but in the stat column is was a mismatch with the Buffaloes having a 24-16 first down edge and a 509 to 295 total yardage edge. They return 8 starters on both sides of the ball and look to improve on that 4 win total from a year ago. The Rams return 5 on offense and 7 on defense.
Our Score Prediction model uses last years data with a few tweaks the first couple of weeks of the new season. It has predicted a final score of 36-36 in this Game. It doesn’t get any closer than that. Generally, in a Game where we have no strong opinion either way, we’d side with Our model, which would mean taking the points in this one. Colorado State has the revenge angle working for them as well which can be an extremely powerful motivator.
But we’re going to buck the model here. Not a strong opinion, but the Buffaloes should have the better talent here. If the rebuilding process is going to work with Mike MACIntyre at the wheel, we’d look for an improvement on those 4 wins from a year ago and if that’s going to happen, winning non Conference Games is a must since their PAC-12 Schedule is no cake walk. Colorado -2.5 -115 (betonline)