Oregon State
vs.
Minnesota
College Football Pick
Current Odds
9/1/16
The Minnesota Gophers will Host the Oregon State Beavers to kick off their 2016 college football season on Thursday night, September 1st, at 9pm est. The Game will be televised by the Big 10 Network. The Gophers opened as -8.5 point favorites back in June at 5 dimes sportsbook and that price has gradually increased to -13 over the summer. The current posted total is 50.5.
Neither of these teams had much to brag about in 2015 but it’s safe to say the Beavers had the much worse season. They were just 2-10 on the year with no Pac-12 wins and for the most part, simply weren’t competitive in the majority of their Games. You can read Our 2016 Oregon State preview here.
The Gophers were 5-7 during the regular season last year, but received a bowl bid due to there not being enough bowl eligible teams. They won their bowl Game 21-14 over Central Michigan to end the year with 6 wins. But the glaring difference between Minnesota and Oregon State was that the Gophers were competitive just about every time they took the field in 2015. That includes a 6 point loss to #2 TCU, a 3 point loss to #15 Michigan and a respectable 28-14 loss to #1 Ohio State. You can read Our 2016 Minnesota preview here.
If we plug this Game into Our Score Prediction model as if it were played at the very end of last season, Minnesota comes up 31-17 winner. If we use data from only the last 7 Games of last season, that margin increases even more. If this Game were played last year, the Gophers would have likely been a 13 to 14 point favorite in the Game. Oddmakers apparently felt the Beavers would be a little more competitive this year as they opened the Game Minnesota -8.5. Bettors disagreed though, pushing the number to where it now sits at -13. Shows you how much emphasis bettors place on LAST season.
So, what do we think? Well, in this spot, we think the oddsmakers may have had the right idea. The Gophers have lost some key players on both the offensive and defensive lines and also have to deal with the growing pains associated with a team anytime a new head coach takes over, even when that coach was on the staff as a defensive coordinator. We’ll now get to see if Tracy Claeys is head coach material.
Minnesota may have been competitive against some solid programs last year but in their 6 wins, they couldn’t extend a margin. Their wins were by 3, 3, 3, 9 and 7 and they also managed to blow out Purdue 41-13. There was some struggling on both sides of the ball in Minnesota last year.
We’d expect Oregon State to be chomping at the bit to get this season going and put that 2-10 year, their worst season since 1996, behind them. We’ expect a huge effort to open the year. Not sure it will be enough to spring the upset but think this one has the potential to be a close Game. We’ll watch the number here and hope we see +14 or better. If we don’t see +14, we’ll still side with the Beavers as we think there’s some value here. Oregon State +13.