Tweet
Week 1 - 5-3
Week 2 - 3-5
Week 3 - 5-2
Thursday -
Texas A&M +2.5 @ Miami - The Sagarin ratings have the Aggies 10 pts higher than the Hurricanes, for whatever that's worth. The Aggies are the way better offense and probably just as good on defense and likely have a better than even chance of winning SU here vs a Hurricane team that only went 7-6 last year beating up on weak teams (except for the one quality win vs Boston College 17-14) and was blown out by 38 pts by Oklahoma earlier this year.
Friday -
Oklahoma -23 @ Tulsa - Oklahoma has blown out the competition so far this year by margins of 69, 38 and 51 with one of those opponents being the Miami Hurricanes. Tulsa is coming of a draining 55-47 revenge win against BYU in which they gave up almost 700 yds of offense. Now they've got Oklahoma one week before opening Conference USA play vs UAB. If BYU can tag them for almost 700 yds I'd hate to think what Oklahoma might be able to do. Oklahoma shouldn't be looking ahead yet with Colorado on deck.
Saturday -
Oregon -16.5 @ Stanford - Oregon racked up close to 550 yds on pretty much this same team last year in a 48-10 win and almost 600 yds in 2005 in a 44-20 win. Oregon has won it's 3 games this year by margins of 21, 32 and 31 against much better competition than Stanford. I think the only reason the line is so low here is maybe because Oregon has Cal coming up next week and may be tempted to look past this game. Not sure it matters much though. 8 of Stanfords 11 losses last year were by 21 or more.
Purdue - 13.5 @ Minnesota - The Gophers are horrendous on defense and have to be emotionally drained after the past 3 games, a 31-32 loss in OT to Bowling Green, a 3OT 41-35 win vs Miami-Ohio and a wild 39-42 pt loss at Fla. Atl. Now they get their toughest test yet to open Big 10 play vs a Purdue team that has outscored opponents 149-52 in the first 3 games with most of those opponents points coming in the 2nd half after the game was put away. Purdue should be able to put up about 60 here.
S. Carolina +17 @ LSU - Here's a recap of LSU's games from last year. Easy wins of 45-3 vs UL Lafayette, 45-3 vs Arizona, 49-7 vs Tulane, their yearly dismantling of Miss St 48-17, 49-10 over Kentucky and 38-6 over Fresno St. How about the rest of the SEC? Loss at Auburn 3-7, Loss at Florida 10-23, Win at Tennessee by 4, Win at Alabama by 14, Win at Ole Miss by 3 in OT, Win at Arkansas by 5. Granted, their toughest games were on the road but you can see that they only beat one decent SEC team by 14 and the others were either losses or wins by 5 or under. Four of South Carolina's five losses were by 7 or under (all SEC games) and the other was by 18 (0-18 @ Georgia) a game they have got revenge for already this year. Bottom line is LSU is not as dominating against the better teams in the SEC and 17 pts is a ton of pts.
New Mexico St. +17 @ Auburn - As bad as Auburn has been this year, this is the kind of game they seem to cover. New Mexico St has a hell of a passing attack though as they have amassed almost 1200 yds passing so far this year in only 3 games and have averaged about 33 pts. Auburn on the other hand has already lost to S. Florida and Miss St. at home and had to score 14 pts in the final 2 mins to beat Kansas St. Plus, this is a sandwich game for Auburn coming off of that Miss St game last week and kicking off next week with 5 consecutive SEC matchups starting with a biggee at Florida.
Michigan St -12.5 @ Notre Dame - The Irish have been outscored 102-13 in their 3 games so far. They have only scored 6 pts on offense....in 3 games! Their total rushing yds in those 3 games....how about -14 yds. Yep, they're going backwards. They are averaging about 10 FD's per game. Mich St on the other hand has amassed 67 FD's in their 3 games and over 1300 yds of offense with close to 600 yds rushing. That's a pretty balanced attack. Notre Dame will be lucky to be competitve against Duke and Stanford this year, probably the only 2 games they'll have a chance in.
Week 2 - 3-5
Week 3 - 5-2
Thursday -
Texas A&M +2.5 @ Miami - The Sagarin ratings have the Aggies 10 pts higher than the Hurricanes, for whatever that's worth. The Aggies are the way better offense and probably just as good on defense and likely have a better than even chance of winning SU here vs a Hurricane team that only went 7-6 last year beating up on weak teams (except for the one quality win vs Boston College 17-14) and was blown out by 38 pts by Oklahoma earlier this year.
Friday -
Oklahoma -23 @ Tulsa - Oklahoma has blown out the competition so far this year by margins of 69, 38 and 51 with one of those opponents being the Miami Hurricanes. Tulsa is coming of a draining 55-47 revenge win against BYU in which they gave up almost 700 yds of offense. Now they've got Oklahoma one week before opening Conference USA play vs UAB. If BYU can tag them for almost 700 yds I'd hate to think what Oklahoma might be able to do. Oklahoma shouldn't be looking ahead yet with Colorado on deck.
Saturday -
Oregon -16.5 @ Stanford - Oregon racked up close to 550 yds on pretty much this same team last year in a 48-10 win and almost 600 yds in 2005 in a 44-20 win. Oregon has won it's 3 games this year by margins of 21, 32 and 31 against much better competition than Stanford. I think the only reason the line is so low here is maybe because Oregon has Cal coming up next week and may be tempted to look past this game. Not sure it matters much though. 8 of Stanfords 11 losses last year were by 21 or more.
Purdue - 13.5 @ Minnesota - The Gophers are horrendous on defense and have to be emotionally drained after the past 3 games, a 31-32 loss in OT to Bowling Green, a 3OT 41-35 win vs Miami-Ohio and a wild 39-42 pt loss at Fla. Atl. Now they get their toughest test yet to open Big 10 play vs a Purdue team that has outscored opponents 149-52 in the first 3 games with most of those opponents points coming in the 2nd half after the game was put away. Purdue should be able to put up about 60 here.
S. Carolina +17 @ LSU - Here's a recap of LSU's games from last year. Easy wins of 45-3 vs UL Lafayette, 45-3 vs Arizona, 49-7 vs Tulane, their yearly dismantling of Miss St 48-17, 49-10 over Kentucky and 38-6 over Fresno St. How about the rest of the SEC? Loss at Auburn 3-7, Loss at Florida 10-23, Win at Tennessee by 4, Win at Alabama by 14, Win at Ole Miss by 3 in OT, Win at Arkansas by 5. Granted, their toughest games were on the road but you can see that they only beat one decent SEC team by 14 and the others were either losses or wins by 5 or under. Four of South Carolina's five losses were by 7 or under (all SEC games) and the other was by 18 (0-18 @ Georgia) a game they have got revenge for already this year. Bottom line is LSU is not as dominating against the better teams in the SEC and 17 pts is a ton of pts.
New Mexico St. +17 @ Auburn - As bad as Auburn has been this year, this is the kind of game they seem to cover. New Mexico St has a hell of a passing attack though as they have amassed almost 1200 yds passing so far this year in only 3 games and have averaged about 33 pts. Auburn on the other hand has already lost to S. Florida and Miss St. at home and had to score 14 pts in the final 2 mins to beat Kansas St. Plus, this is a sandwich game for Auburn coming off of that Miss St game last week and kicking off next week with 5 consecutive SEC matchups starting with a biggee at Florida.
Michigan St -12.5 @ Notre Dame - The Irish have been outscored 102-13 in their 3 games so far. They have only scored 6 pts on offense....in 3 games! Their total rushing yds in those 3 games....how about -14 yds. Yep, they're going backwards. They are averaging about 10 FD's per game. Mich St on the other hand has amassed 67 FD's in their 3 games and over 1300 yds of offense with close to 600 yds rushing. That's a pretty balanced attack. Notre Dame will be lucky to be competitve against Duke and Stanford this year, probably the only 2 games they'll have a chance in.
Comment