Last week I described a contest whose game flow might lend itself to buying a good middle, but there are other ways to skin the in-game cat. This week I’m going to turn my attention to four what-if scenarios.

As I parse these things, what-if scenarios come in two flavors. One can be called a “I-don’t really-expect-this-to-happen-but-if-it-does” what-if scenario. The other is the “I-actually-kind-of-think-the-team-that’s-gonna-win-won’t-score-first.” Here are a couple of each.

Florida Atlantic at East Carolina (Thursday, Fox Sports One)

As I write I don’t know the status of the suspended FAU players, but I honestly don’t know enough about who they are and what difference they’ll make for me to evaluate the pointspread impact. One of the nice things about in-game wagering, though, is that the market will digest that information and reflect it in the opening line. That makes it so I don’t have to make a guess I know myself to be not well informed enough to make very well.

Of course I love East Carolina as FAU has no QB experience and they’re coming off getting beat up with no time to put themselves back together. East Carolina’s secondary is suspect, but FAU won’t be able to test it.

But the linemaker did a good job of making this line 20. The back door is just too wide open for me to bring myself to lay that big of a number. FAU will keep trying stuff, and East Carolina isn’t the most focussed crew in the FBS.

So I’ll hope that FAU pulls something out of their butts and East Carolina makes a mistake or two so that FAU gets up two scores early or a full touchdown late and I can get a -14 in the first half.

Wake Forest at Boston College (Friday, ESPN2)

If there was a who-will-score first prop I’d take Wake Forest. They have been a road disaster the past couple of years, and the senior leaders put a lot of emphasis on breaking through on the road this year. I don’t think making road improvement a focus point is likely to do much over the long, long haul of a college football game, but I think it can juice you for your early series.

BC allowed Villanova to score on drives of over seventy yards on their first two possession, and then they settled in. This was a tendency they showed last year too. Now whether this pattern is signal or noise is, I believe, beyond the ken of statistical analysis. My theory is that the BC coach is a teacher-type and seems to have a staff that makes good adjustments so I’ll tentatively hold the tendency as a pattern and recognize it. But, if Wake Forest wasn’t Wake Forest, then BC’s slow-start tendencies wouldn’t count for me as meaningful evidence.

If I can get BC +3 at any point in the 1H I’ll take it.

BC QB Chase Rettig (Bob DeChiara-USA TODAY Sports)

Notre Dame at Michigan

Michigan is much deeper, and though it is young depth, I think that at home it will prevail. I also think that Notre Dame will throw the first punch, even the first two because Michigan can be jittery. Notre Dame’s QB play versus Temple must have been quite encouraging to Brian Kelly, and I think he’ll trust it to throw the book at Michigan early as he’ll know that’s his best chance to score. If I can get Michigan +4 in the first quarter, or +3 in the second, I’m on it.

ODU at Maryland (Second Half Play)

I doubt this game will be available for in-game wagering, so I’ll keep my eye on it for a 2H play. Maryland looks like they might get elite quarterbacking this year, as well as have a potentially dominant defense. I expect a lot of folks to be getting on the Maryland train in the next few weeks. ODU, though, also has elite quarterbacking so I can’t lay the big number against a composed offense like ODU’s. If it so happens that ODU plays above themselves or Maryland has a couple of turnovers and I can get the Terps laying an effective -10.5, I’m there.