9/2 College Football

9/2 College Football 133/134 South Carolina/Southern Miss OV 45 All the money going to the Under. South Carolina has opened the season the last 3 of 4 seasons on the ESPN Thursday night game and all of them have easily gone under. 8/31/06: at Miss State Won 15-0; Under the total of 40.5 8/28/08: vs NC State Won 34-0; Under the total of 43.5 9/3/09: at NC State Won 7-3; Under the total of 48 Spurrier is playing some games with the media regarding QB Garcia. Even without suspended TE Weslye Saunders (32/353/3 LY), Gamecocks have ton of weapons back. Carolina's defense is good and So Miss has 1 OL starters returning. All signs point to the under, yet I go the other way. Why would the total open 49 when both teams return a lot of defensive starters (USM - 9; So Car - 7)? USM returns both QB's (Davis and Young) and their top WR and future high NFL draft choice (DeAndre Brown). I think you will see some defensive scores in this one and some short fields. 135/136 Marshall/Ohio State OV 24 1st Half Buckeyes are going to throw the ball a lot more than usual this year. This whole thing about the offenses not wanting to show their hand before a big game on deck is bollocks (love that word). If anything, the defenses are the ones that don't show their hands and play more vanilla at times in these situations. 136 Ohio State (-28) (-115) Ohio State was sleeping last year in the home opener vs. Navy and almost lost the game. They will be more focused here. Marshall has a new HC and new HC's on the road in Game 1 are almost automatic go-againsts. 137/138 No Illinois/Iowa State UN 51' Going against the big move (RAS) here. NIU is a running team and ISU may run more here against NIU's undersized DL. 141/142 USC/Hawaii UN 54' USC even with only 5 def starters back is still loaded with talent on that side. Hawaii has huge injury problems on the OL. Hawaii has allowed 60+ in each of L3 mtgs vs. the Men of Troy. Won't happen here. Will put up a couple Saturday plays later.

Thanks for the picks Shooter. Good to see you posting college plays.

Good luck Shooter and as always thanks.

9/4: 198 Clemson (-24) The Tigers buried a better Sun Belt team (Middle Tenn) in the season opener LY with a then true frosh (Kyle Parker) starting at QB. Clemson only has Presbyterian on deck so they will go all out here. Coach's son Dodge is not the starting QB anymore. New QB making first road start in Death Valley. More to add and may post a separate thread later for Saturday's card.

Mon 9/6: 207/208 Maryland/Navy OV 48' Both teams are mediocre on defense. Maryland was dead last in scoring defense in the ACC. Navy only allowed 19 ppg LY, but that was against a REALLY soft schedule. and I know that Maryland will try a lot of new wrinkles on offense with this likely being Friedgen's last hurrah. James Franklin, the Terps OC, is likely to be the next head coach. He will want to put his stamp on the team by being more influential offensively. I suspect we will see a lot of tricks from the Terps on offense.

209/210 Boise State/Virginia Tech UN 50' Boise hasn't played a defense like VT's even with only 4 returning starters back. Bud Foster will put something together to slow down the Boise offense. Boise also returns 10 starters on a defense that really took a big leap last year. Boise is not just a national title contender b/c of their trickeration offense. LY, Bama and VT was a stone under until things went nutso in the fourth quarter.

194 Georgia (-28) UGA has a bunch of negative trends as big favs (2-7 L9 as DD HF and 1-9 L10 as HF) and nobody is talking about them. UGA has two big suspensions on offense for the game with Louisiana-Lafayette (Starting RB Washaun Ealey and SE Tavarres King). Backups Caleb King and Marlon Brown were both to 10 national recruits. Georgia gets as good of a recruiting class as anyone pretty much year in year out and are always in the top 10-12 nationally, sometimes top 5. UGA is going to a 3-4 on defense and had their worst defense LY. I think they look to get after it on defense and will run the ball up and down the field here with their RS Fr QB stating his first game. The new QB Aaron Murray is an upgrade over Joe Cox.

167/168 Kentucky/Louisville UN 49' Charlie Strong (the Florida DC L7Y) comes to Louisville and will improve the Cards' defense. Louisville also brings in Mike Sanford (former UNLV HC) as the OC and I think they will slowly implement the spread that was run at Utah when Sanford was the OC. However, I expect Louisville to run the ball a lot more. Kentucky finally promotes HCIW (Head Coach in Waiting) Joker Phillips. Kentucky plays 2 QB's in Morgan Newton and Mike Hartline. They will run a similar offense, but coaches like to make their own changes to put their stamps on it. I expect these two teams to struggle early on offense in this one. Also leaning with 152 Miami OH (+37), but thinking it may go higher tomorrow.

303 Florida A & M (+41) The U makes a trip to Buckeye country next week. I don't see Randy Shannon wanting to do too much running up the score against HBCU school Florida A & M. 152 Miami OH (+37) Florida could name the score here, but there is always a chance for sloppiness in the first game. Miami has 19 starters back and actually weren't too awful when Zac Dysert took over the starting QB job in the 4th game of the year. If there's ever a school that Urban may not want to run the score up against, it's a MAC school considering he coached in the MAC. That being said, Gators could easily win by 50, but I don't see it here. 201 Arkansas State (+31) All 5 returning starters back for the Red Wolves on the OL. They will throw the ball more this year. Total already moved too high for me to take. Auburn has a less mobile QB (Cameron Newton), but better passer. Think that Auburn has had to make at least some changes to the Malzahn offense and may have some sloppiness in Game 1.

155 Colorado (-11) CU lost outright at home as a DD fav and the underdog has covered 10 of L13 in the series and yet CU is laying DD on a neutral site (Invesco Field-Denver)? Colorado improved when Tyler Hansen took the starting job at QB. I think the team morale drastically improved when Hawkins benched his kid. Hansen took over the job at Texas and they covered. They also beat Kansas and Texas A & M and also covered at Oklahoma St and vs Nebraska. Fairchild now has his handpicked QB for his offense at CSU in talented true frosh Pete Thomas. However, CSU is banged up on defense. Both starting DE's are out. Their top RB Leonard Mason is also likely out here. 8 of 9 starters on the CU OL and DL respectively are back. I think Hansen has a big game here.