Duke
vs.
Georgia Tech
College Football
Pick – Analysis
10/11/14
Undefeated Georgia Tech will host the 4-1 Duke Blue Devils on Saturday in an intriguing ACC matchup. At ne point this week Georgia Tech was a -6 point favorite at sportsbook.ag and betonline but the Game has since been bet down to -3. (some -3.5’s on board) The current total is 58.
The Game is interesting on many levels. For one, there are lots of cupcakes on the Schedules of both of these teams to date. Elon, Troy, Kansas and Tulane for Duke and Wofford and Tulane for Tech. In fact Dukes only real test came against Miami in a Game they lost 22-10 while Tech beat the Hurricanes 28-17.
The line move certainly makes sense here. While Duke’s Schedule strength can be questioned, they have done to the weak Schedule, what a good team should do. As a matter of fact, Duke is ranked #2 in the nation defensively when using yards per point numbers as a ranking. While you absolutely have to take into account how those numbers were achieved, what you’ll generally find is that when a team ranks highly with these numbers, those numbers generally hold up for the entire year. In other words, it’s not the result of a weak Schedule but rather, the team is more times than not, a pretty good football team.
What ultimately keeps us on the sidelines in this Game, aside from already losing 3 points of line value, is the history between these two. It’s not as if Duke has been knocking on the door with close Games against Tech and has shown us they are ready to break the door down. They have lost 10 in a row in this series and the closest margin was a TD back in 2011. Last year, Dukes best team in many years, lost to Tech by a score of 38-14 and that Game was at home. So it’s safe to say the Blue Devils simply haven’t figured out how to stop the Tech Option.
Still, we think this could be the closest Game between these two in years. This is a different Duke team than the one that lost the majority of the last 10 in this series. They have had a week off to prepare for this option offense and the numbers we like to use suggest Duke is the right side here. At +6 or better,, where this line started initially, we’d consider a small play on Duke. At the current line, it’s an opinion only and ultimately it’s the series history that keeps us on the sidelines here. Opinion – Duke +3.5