My take:
Duke at Army
The ACC has gotten a great deal of bad publicity from the television talking heads based on an overall poor performance in the opening week. But while they mention that the teams were beaten by FCS competition they fail to mention just how good the FCS teams they played actually are. Duke lost last week to Richmond 24-16 but the Spiders are the defending FCS Champions. They have 22 upperclassmen starting including 15 red shirt seniors. This is a veteran squad that knows how to win. A loss to Richmond is nothing to be embarrassed about if you truly follow college football. While the Blue Devils came up short on the scoreboard they actually held a yards per play edge of 5.2-4.4. Special team problems were their downfall.
In addition unless you have read the local papers or listen to the coaching press conferences you wouldn't have known that Duke went through a terrible bout of the swine flu. Overall 30 players, mostly linemen missed critical practice time this preseason. So the team was well behind in their preparations. Not that it's been used as an excuse but it does help explain the poor showing. In fact, despite starting the season with a loss head coach David Cutcliffe reiterated his preseason statement that this team would win seven games this season. Duke has been a very good play on the road the past few years posting a 26-13 spread mark going back to 2002. The last two years they won at Vanderbilt and Northwestern and lost in overtime at Wake Forest and North Carolina. Duke is also very familiar with the offensive set of Army as they played both Navy and Georgia Tech last season.
Army opened up the Rich Ellerson era with a road win at Eastern Michigan 27-14, but the Eagles of EM also started the season with a new head man. Now Army returns home to West Point expected to win the game to get the cover. That may be easier said than done as it's a poor pointspread proposition to back a new coach in his home debut, just ask Ron English of Eastern Michigan. Army has dropped seven straight at home against BCS competition losing by an average margin of 23 points. They are being led by a true freshman in Trent Steelman who may not have the same success against a hungry Blue Devil squad as opposed to the brand new system he faced last week.
This game is a prime example of why bettors tend to overreact on what they see on opening week. If neither team would have played last week Duke would have been a solid favorite here. Now we get the hungry team off an embarrassing loss in the public's mind, in a win and cover situation.
PLAY DUKE
