Florida State
vs.
Boston College
Pick – Analysis
9/28/13
For a Top 10 team, Florida State has an extremely easy first five Games of the season. They’ve completely demolished their first three opponents by a combined 131 points, covering in all of them. Now with Conference play getting fully underway, the Seminoles are huge -21.5 point road favorites on the road at Boston College, at GTBets. Will the Eagles be the first team to show resistance against FSU?
Florida State has won the past two meetings quite easily, 51-7 last season and 38-7 back in 2011. BC started off with a nice ACC win over Wake Forest a couple weeks ago, but they looked a bit helpless in a loss at USC. The only advantage the Eagles have going for them is that they are coming off a bye and have had plenty of time to prepare for this Game.
The betting trends at 5dimes.com show that a whopping 94% of the wagers taken by Wednesday have come in on the Seminoles.
Senior QB Chase Rettig will need to put in a better performance than against the Trojans, when he threw for only 83 yards and zero touchdowns. Rettig also has to do better than the 122 yards he threw for in last year’s matchup. Leading receiver Alex Amidon is going to get a ton of attention from the defense, which means someone else has to step up, possibly Bobby Wolford. OUtside of Amidon, no BC receiver has more than 88 yards. Andre Williams has been solid in the backfield with 356 yards and two touchdowns to his name, but you can’t beat FSU on running alone. Williams had success last year going for 104 yards, but that obviously didn’t matter.
Florida State’s defense does not look like it lost a step at all since last season. Sure, they haven’t played anyone with a great offense yet, but BC is far from having a great offense, which means we could see a very similar result. Considering the Eagles have yet to put up more than 24 points on the board, it’s a good bet they won’t in this Game.
The unfortunate thing for Boston College is that the Seminoles haven’t really taken a step back on offense, either. Freshman Jameis Winston has come in at QB and looked extremely poised. Once again, that may have something to do with the opponents, but it’s impressive nonetheless. Winston should fine plenty of time to get the ball to wide outs Kenny Shaw and Rashad Greene. Winston already has 718 passing yards and eight TDs in three Games of work. The Seminoles didn’t have to run it much in last year’s Game as E.J. Manuel tossed for 439 yards and Four touchdowns. Still, that doesn’t mean FSU can’t run with the likes of Devonta Freeman and a couple other RBs that have totaled 11 rushing TDs already this season.
The Seminoles have covered in Four straight Games, but are only 1-6 ATS in their last seven road Games. The Eagles are only 4-9 ATS in their last 13 Games overall, but a solid 4-1 ATS in their last five home Games. The underdog is 5-2 ATS in the last seven meetings between these teams, but the road team is 6-2 ATS in the last eight.
Can’t find much of an edge in this one. Florida State comes in with fantastic yards per point numbers on both sides of the ball, but with just 3 Games played and with Pitt being their toughest opponent, can’t really hang Our hat on those numbers or any other for that matter. Our Score Prediction model has Florida State on top by a score of 30-9, right on the number as far as the side goes, but suggesting that under the total of 52.5 may be worth a look. Just a lean here, UNDER 52.5