Who to bet on Week # 2 – Sides & Totals to consider
Below are some of the games that we are considering betting on this week and a few reasons why we like a particular side or total. Please feel free to join in the discussion and offer your feedback, we would definitely like to hear about how you are viewing a particular side or total.
SabertStxVii
Wow what an ugly week. Here are some of my early thoughts.
Ohio State -27
Why I like them? They get a bunch of players back this week and they are going against a team that isn’t as good on offense as Buffalo in my opinion. Buffalo scored on a pick 6 from a DE. I think OSU will cut down on the mistakes, tackle better, and be in better shape (they were winded). They now have to cover a smaller # at home vs a SDSU team that lost to Eastern Illinois and has their best LB and RB banged up. Why I don’t like them: Cal the next week, so may keep playbook closed up and keep players healthy.
ASU -35
Sun Devils should score near the 60s and there’s no way that CS is scoring many points.
N’Western -12
I kinda like them here. I don’t think Syracuse is that good and I think that N’Western is solid. First game at home, they should win this one.
Oregon -21
They could smoke UVA. I think they could score in 40’s or 50’s and UVA may be low.
Minnesota -16.5
NM St is BAD. I know Minny isn’t regarded as that good, but only giving 16.5 to a really bad team doesn’t seem like that much.
JMU +3
A good D1AA program vs a crap MAC school. They should win it I think.
UT-Chattanooga -10
FADE GEORGIA ST!
And I just realized I like alllllll favorites right now. Not good.
Pezgordo
USF +23.5
I would look for a much better performance from USF this week. Plus as we saw last week, Michigan State’s terrible offense is not built to cover these large spreads.
Cincinnati -7.5 & OVER 54
Illinois is terrible on defense. The Bearcats should score 40+ and Sheelhaase is an experienced QB who should be able to guide the Illini offense to 20+ points.
West Virginia +21
That’s a lot of points to be getting in a conference opener, especially against a pedestrian offense like OU seems to have.
Toledo – Missouri U 66.5
Mizzou D isn’t Florida good, but still see Toledo struggling to put up more than 20 points. Is Missouri going to score 50ish? Doubt it.
SJSU +26.5
Stanford has only covered this number in 1 of the last 4 meetings. SJSU has the QB advantage with Fales, but it’ll be hard to match last year’s solid defense with only 5 starters returning. Still Stanford is like Michigan State, they have a great D, but their pedestrian offense is not built to cover these large spreads.
4 thoughts on “Who to bet on Week # 2 – Sides & Totals to consider”
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Hey Pez, I really liked San Jose State +24.5, bet 2 units on it, and the line shot up to +26.5. I am not really understanding this line movement as Fales is a pretty solid qb. I know that Stanford eked out a win last year and they won’t take this team lightly, but you are right in saying that their offense isn’t designed to blow out teams. It worries me though that the line is moving up even though the early public money seems to be coming in on SJSU. Public dog + line moving up = bad combination. What am I missing here?
This is not meant to sway anybody off of on any of these games, so don’t take this the wrong way. It’s just a trend. I’ve been following ATS trends for years, and I’ve found that the great majority of non-bcs conference teams who have one of those “special” ATS seasons, almost always have a pretty big fall the next year.
By special I mean very special like a non-bcs team getting to double digit wins ATS. The 4 non-bcs teams who were able to do this last season were Kent State (10 wins), Fresno State (11 wins) Utah State (10 wins) and San Jose State (10 wins). I can only think of one or two times in the last 7 years that I’ve been keeping these records where these teams have managed to make it over .500 ATS the next season after a DD ATS season.
I know I kind of liked Fresno last week against Rutgers. But two things swayed me off that game. A non-bcs team giving DD to a bcs team, and Fresno coming off a DD ATS wins season. Utah State also lost ATS in their first game. I’m not sure what Kent and SJST did since they played a couple FCS teams. I’m just saying I myself tread lightly with these teams knowing that their is probably around a 80% chance they won’t make it over 5 or 6 ATS wins this season.
BCS conference teams tend to do a little better percentage-wise after one of those special seasons, probably because they are deeper teams who can afford to lose one or two key players and still come back as strong. But even with these teams I’ve only seen 9 wins or more ATS duplicated two years in a row only a couple times that I know of, and one of them was Kansas State in 2011-12. About 75% of the time a team who won 8 games or more ATS the year before can’t repeat it the next year. On average we get between 20-25 teams win 8 or more games ATS every season, and only about 3-5 of those teams will be able to repeat 8 wins. I think the team most likely to repeat a good ATS season is Northwestern. A team who brings the great majority of their team back plus is still flying under the radar. Kind of like KSU was last season.But everything still has to go right for them. They sustained a few injuries the other night against Cal. They can’t afford too many more to pile up on them.
I prefer the Ohio State side as a first half play. I thought it was telling that Urban Meyer went for two on the first two touchdowns versus Buffalo. He’ll press every advantage early, and could give away a cover game-managing late.
I agree. The way that game started out, I thought my bet was doomed. Meyer hit Buffalo with everything and took advantage of them before they got settled in. I think it is likely he will take a similar approach to SDSU as he did with Buffalo. First half bet might be the better bet here. I think he’d like to get the game safe in hand then kind of cruise through the second half without showing a lot.