The Sports Cruncher's Regular Season Wins Recommendations

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Chomping at the bits
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Hi all, went 15-3 on my rsw plays last year, would never expect that kind of win rate again, lol. I think the lines are a bit tighter this year, but I'm still going to get some action down. I don't like to tie up too much money, but when it's fun and profitable hard to say no.

1 Unit: USC Over 9.5 wins (-160 5Dimes)


By the end of last season, USC was playing as well as almost anyone in all of college football. In week #10 they beat eventual playoff team, Washington, 26-13. Their season got off to a very rocky start, suffering a massive blowout at Alabama in week #1, a 27-10 loss at Stanford in week #3, and a 31-27 at Utah in week #4.


That Utah game is actually where USC started to turn it around, with the full time insertion of Sam Darnold into the starting QB role. They were unlucky to lose that game at Utah, but they didn't lose another game the rest of the season, with only one game being even close, the week #6 21-17 win vs. Colorado.


At seasons' end, I ranked USC's defense 13th best, and their offense 12th best. The Trojans are a very balanced squad, they have no weaknesses. Even Alabama and Clemson had a unit that didn't finish in my top 20 rankings, unlike USC (Alabama's 33rd rated pass offense and Clemson's 36th rated rush offense).


USC's only real losses entering this year are a couple of their top wide receivers. With Darnold having a full off-season to prepare as the starter the USC passing game shouldn't suffer any drop off. And you may have seen that Darnold is the #1 candidate for the Heisman Trophy in the preseason?


USC gets top running back Ronald Jones II back, and have a pretty veteran offensive line composed of 2 Seniors and 3 Juniors.


Defensively USC returns a healthy portion of their players on the defensive line, at linebacker, and in the secondary.


As far as I'm concerned, 9.5 is a fair number for how many games I think USC will win by double digits. USC will play a lot of good teams this year, but no great teams -- I think they'll be disappointed with anything less than a perfect record heading into the college football playoff.

½ Unit: Auburn Over 8.5 Wins (+115 5D)

With Baylor transfer Jarrett Stidham at QB Auburn’s offense looks ready to be a top 10 unit this season. The running game has been there, I had them ranked 10[SUP]th[/SUP] last year. Sean White was a pretty good QB last year, mind you, and Auburn’s pass offense was still ranked 29[SUP]th[/SUP], but given the powerful running game that defenses had to try and stop any decent QB should have been able to put up decent numbers. With Seniors at the tackles and center positions, as well as having all of their running backs returning, Auburn’s running game can be even better this year, with Stidham’s arm also preventing defenses from cheating too much against the run.

Auburn does lose Carl Lawson and Montravius Adams from their defensive line, but they return the majority of their linebackers and secondary. Auburn’s defense ranked 9[SUP]th[/SUP] best for me last year, 4[SUP]th[/SUP] against the run and 20[SUP]th[/SUP] against the pass. As such, their run defense stands to slip a little while their pass offense could improve by a small amount.

If Auburn’s offense does indeed improve a little bit while their defense stays about the same overall, Auburn really only has three potential losses on their schedule -- @ Clemson, @ LSU and vs. Alabama. If they don’t choke again vs Texas A&M and take care of Georgia at home they should breeze through the rest of their games. I like their win floor at 9 games, making an Over 8.5 bet with + juice good value.

½ Unit: LSU Over 9 Wins (-130 5D)

Did I mention I like a lot of teams in the SEC this year? There’s just no argument that the SEC isn’t the most stacked conference by a mile right now.

If LSU can learn how to score from the one yard against the likes of Florida this season than I see them taking 3 losses at the absolute worst. Their offense will be set with a fairly experience O-line with Mr. Guice running behind it. QB Etling isn’t a world beater, but hopefully another year of experience improves his performance. I had LSU as the #3 running team and #35 passing team last year.

LSU’s main concern this year is having lost their top two tackling D-linemen, linebackers, and defensive backs. They haven’t been completely wiped out at any of those positions, but they’ve certainly lost a lot more returning tackles than most teams. But it’s LSU, and a lot of players with experience are returning, and their excellent recruiting numbers help them reload every year anyway. Still, I gave them deductions to their pass and defense projections, so my projections are ready for the defense to come down a little bit this year.

Penn State Over 9.5 wins (-110 5D)

PSU came on strong in the latter 2/3 of the season last year, and they return a lot of players, so optimism is high for the first time in quite some time in Happy Valley.

If PSU’s offensive line play can continue to improve the Nittany Lions can easily have the best offense in the Big 10 this year. I have no problem projecting them to have a better offense than Ohio State right now. PSU finished ahead of OSU last year as it is, ranking 11[SUP]th[/SUP] and 19[SUP]th[/SUP], respectively. PSU’s success in the run game correlated highly with the strength of their opponent’s run defense, but it looks like their schedule of run defenses faced this year should be easier.

PSU didn’t face many good offenses last year, but their defense played pretty well. Michigan and Minnesota did gouge them for a lot of running yards in weeks #4 and #5, but the PSU run defense then played really well until the conference championship game against Wisconsin, which they won anyway. Their pass defense was pretty consistent all year long, holding teams to less than their usual yards per pass average in 10 of 13 games.

Assuming the game at Ohio State is a loss (I give PSU a 20% chance to win), there just aren’t many dangerous games on the schedule for PSU this year. I don’t think PITT will slip quite as much as people anticipate with their player losses this year, but PSU should definitely not lose that game, as well as the games against Akron, Georgia State, Rutgers and Nebraska. At Iowa should be a win, but it could only be by single digits. The game against Michigan for me is a near coin flip. Michigan State ain’t great so PSU should win even on the road there. Outside of that, I don’t think they’ll be in any real danger vs Indiana, at Northwestern or at Maryland. A 10-2 record at worst seems more than likely, barring bad injury luck.

Arkansas Under 7 Wins (-130 5D)

I’m banking on Arkansas losing their games Alabama, Auburn, LSU, and more than likely at Ole Miss’ and Texas A&M. Even if they manage to win 1 of those 2 tough road games, it will only take one more loss against TCU, @ South Carolina, vs Mississippi State and vs Missouri for the Under to be free-rolling. Seems more than likely, right? Mississippi’s backsliding could be potentially huge this year, though, it should be noted.

Arkansas’ defensive line is going to be really young this year, and their run defense was pretty bad last year as it was, ranking 91[SUP]st[/SUP]. Their pass defense was a little better at 71[SUP]st[/SUP]. Those kind of defensive numbers are not going to get it done in the SEC, not by a long shot.

QB Austin Allen and the passing game are an excellent unit, ranking 9[SUP]th[/SUP] last year. Their running game was decent, at 59[SUP]th[/SUP]. Arkansas is only returning 34% of their receptions this year – losing that kind of chemistry has been statistically detrimental to a teams’ passing numbers on average.

With Arkansas’s recruiting numbers only significantly ranking higher than Vanderbilt, Missouri in the SEC the past couple of years, I don’t see how reloading improves them versus the field this year. Kentucky has almost matched them the past couple of years, even. Mississippi plummeted to Arkansas’ level this past season, but were well ahead of them the year before.

The defensive mess at Arkansas is too great to clean up in one year, the passing game will be hard-pressed to improve upon last year’s numbers, and the recruiting just isn’t there to take a significant step forward this year. I like my projection of a 5-7 finish for Arkansas this year, 6-6 at best.

Nebraska Under 7 Wins (+110 5D)

This is a rebuilding year for Nebraska, especially on offense, where the loss of QB Armstrong is going to hurt both their passing and running game.

Nebraska shouldn’t be blown out in many games (just against OSU and PSU), which means their win ceiling is relatively high. I project them to lose 3 out of the 4 “less than a score decision” games, so this one is really just about the overall percentages, helped with getting +juice on the play.

California Berkeley Under 3.5 Wins (-110 5D)

It’s the rookie season for new HC Justin Wilcox, and he inherits a team at the bottom of the PAC 12. On offense Cal loses its’ top QB, RB and WR. To be fair, QB Webb didn’t put up great numbers last year, by my ratings, so I expect only a minimal drop off in passing projections for Cal this year. The running game should drop off just a little bit more.

Defensively I had Cal with the second worst defense in the conference last year, trailing only Oregon. On the plus side, the return a higher than average number of players this season on defensive. They actually weren’t terrible against the pass, so I’m leaving their pass defense projection as is, and I expect them to improve a decent amount against the run, which still does leave them with a well below average run defense.

Cal should get a win against their D1-AA opponent, but that really might be it. The good news for Cal is that they get their most winnable conference games at home, against Oregon State and Arizona. Still, I project them to lose both of those games by around 7 points because both of those teams match up well against Cal’s poor run defense. Other than that they have a home game against Mississippi, which I also think they’ll lose, as Mississippi’s sinking SEC ship should still be afloat enough to get the win here. Week #1 Cal is at North Carolina, a team who lost a ton of offensive production, but should still beat Cal by double digits. As you can see, Cal has a pretty tough schedule. They’re going to have to improve a lot more than a first year coached team usually does (and they usually go backwards a bit) to find 4+ wins this year.
 

Chomping at the bits
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Best Bets for Regular Season Wins in the G5 Conferences

1 Unit: Boise State Over 8 (-125 5D, and I think the juice may have gone up from -110 or -115 as I was writing this)

I think Boise suffers from boredom a little bit later in their seasons. With the new playoff system they know they are more than likely not to be invited even with a perfect record. Sure, their win/loss record affects which Bowl they’ll be invited to, but, I kind of get the feeling that is just doesn’t matter that much to them, lol.

Last year Boise had a 10-2 regular season record, and I think the O/U line on their season wins was somewhere up around 10 or 10.5, if I’m not mistaken. This year it’s at 8? Why so much lower?

I think the Mountain West Conference was a little bit under-rated last year. SDSU was an easy Over season wins play, CSU improved a lot as the season wore on (before laying a defensive potato in the Bowl game against Idaho), and Wyoming ended up being much more dangerous than I think anyone would have envisioned (as evidenced by their upset of Boise in Laramie). So maybe the number is 8 because the oddsmakers think that the rest of the conference is finally catching up to Boise a little bit? I will agree with that, to some degree.

Is Boise backsliding as a program, or are they experiencing more turnover than usual this year? CSU has caught up to them in recruiting over the last couple of years, but they’re still a bit ahead of SDSU and everyone else is a good dip below that.

Offensively, the line will be a little bit weaker, they lose top WR Sperbeck and top RB McNichols. I’m counting on QB Rypien, returning for his second full season as a starter, to be the glue that holds this offense together. When you’re returning a QB who averaged Over 9 yards per pass I don’t know that you can consider it a rebuilding year offensively, even when you lose some of your top skill players.

Defensively, they are losing a higher than average number of players, being hit especially hard at the linebacker position, losing their clear top three tacklers. Their top DL has graduated, as well as their top DB. As such, I’m factoring in a 5% penalty to their pass defense projections, and a 7% penalty to their run defense projections. Their pass defense projects to be the stronger of the two units again this year. That makes their road games against SDSU and CSU, who are both excellent running teams, very tough games this year – pretty much coinflips where I favor Boise by the slimmest margins.

But let’s say worst case scenario Boise loses at SDSU and CSU, as well as the week #2 game at Washington State, and the week 6 game at BYU. They have literally their four toughest games on the road this year. That’s already four losses which is a push at worst with an Over 8 bet, lol. I just really can’t see them losing any other games on their schedule, and they will more than likely be double digit favorites in the 8 remaining games. Those games are vs. Troy, vs, New Mexico, vs. Virginia, vs. Wyoming, @ Utah State, vs Nevada, vs Air Force, and @ Fresno.
All told, it looks like I’m not projecting BSU to drop off as precipitously this season as the oddsmaking world at large. Even if the truth is somewhere in the middle, it’s going to upsets on a pretty big line as well as losing every closely projected game this season for the Over 8 to lose, in my opinion.

1 Unit: Middle Tennessee over 7 wins (-115 5D)

Here’s another team I like because my win floor for them is equal to the betting number. Here are the 7 games I project MTU to win by at least double digits: vs BGSU, vs FIU, @ UAB, vs Marshall, vs UTEP, @ Charlotte, and vs Old Dominion. The two weakest teams of that bunch are their only two road games – advantage MTU. After that I think MTU will be a live dog vs. Vanderbilt, a near coin flip @ Syracuse, a probable loss at Minnesota, should win at FAU but won’t be easy, and a probable loss at Western Kentucky.

MTU’s running game was really under-rated last year, and they do lose RB Mathers who averaged a whopping 6 .7 ypc on a massive 232 attempts. I’ve hit MTU with a 15% deduction to their run projections.

MTU’s passing game should be even better than last year, though, unless the running game fails to provide the balance necessary to keep opposing defenses honest. The Stockstill to James connection is one of the best in football, they hooked up for a very high 105 completions at 15.5 yards per catch. They also get solid possession receiver Ty Lee back. RB Mathers was a good outlet for passes, so hopefully they guys getting the bulk of the carries this year can fill that role as well.

MTU is okay defending the pass but they are going to be vulnerable against the run this year. They weren’t very good at stopping it last year, and they lost a lot of players from their defensive line. This won’t hurt them as badly in the games where MTU should be a comfortable favorite, but it will make their close games that much harder to win.

As long as the win floor holds, I think MTU picks up at least one and possibly two more wins with their schedule. Barring an injury to QB Stockstill, I think it’s a free roll on the Over 7.

½ Unit: Eastern Carolina Under 3.5 Wins (-125 5D)

It’s going to be very tough sledding for HC Montgomery in this, his second campaign. I think they’ll improve enough to pick up one win this year, but that still only puts them at 3.

I’m quite comfortable with the win ceiling of 4 games I’ve set for them, with losses @ WVU, vs VT, vs USF, vs TEM, @ UCF, vs BYU, @ HOU and vs MEM. The game vs Temple is certainly the most winnable of the bunch, and it’s also a bit tricky to gauge how far Temple will drop this year losing their coach and QB.

Even ECU’s D1-AA game in week #1 is no gimmie with visiting James Madison. But giving them that win, I project just two more wins for the year @ Conn and vs Tulane. Assuming ECU goes 3 for 3 on those winnable games than it all rides on the week #12 game at home vs Cincinnati, which I project as a close loss.

½ Unit: Fresno State Under 4 Wins (-120 5D)

Fresno Under last year ended up being a pretty easy bet, as they finished with a lone win against Sacramento State. And now you’re telling me they’re going to have to improve to 5 wins under a new head coach for this play to lose?

For starters, Fresno is losing their two best defenders, DB Stratton Brown and LB Camilli. There is not usually as big of a gap between tackles made by the #1 and #2 guys for each unit as we see with these guys. Brown had 115 tackles, the next closest DB 59. Camilli had 108 tackles, the next closest LB also had 59. On top of that, Fresno also lost 2 of their top DBs behind Brown. At least their DL remains mostly intact, as does their decent depth at linebacker. As such, I figure Fresno’s run defense out to stay about the same, but their pass defense should slip a little, and they could finish up worse than their 93[SUP]rd[/SUP] ranked defense of last year.

On offense Fresno returns most of their “skill” players, but those quotations are well earned as I ranked their offense dead last in 2016. That took some “skill” to beat out the likes of Texas State and Charlotte for that award, lol.

½ Unit: Houston Over 8 Wins (-115)

I think the move from HC Herman to Applewhite and QB Ward Jr. to Kyle Allen won’t be as big of a drop off for the Cougars as some would expect. Houston’s running game was terrible and can only get better, while the passing game was okay, but should stay near the same with Allen. They also get top WR Bonner back, who had almost 100 catches last year.

Here’s something I wrote about the AAC last week, which I’ll just post here, as it talks a lot about Houston:

There are three teams with a legitimate chance to win the AAC West, in my opinion, Houston, Memphis and Navy. At the end of last season (pre Bowl Games) I had all three of these teams clustered very tight in the rankings with Navy at 23[SUP]rd[/SUP], Memphis at 26[SUP]th[/SUP], and Houston at 27[SUP]th[/SUP].

Let’s look at the schedule and who it favors in the key AAC West games this year. Navy gets both Houston and Memphis on the road this year, which is a really bad draw for them. As for Houston, they also get Memphis at home, so all the schedule advantages in the head to head match ups of the top Western teams go to Houston.

Unfortunately for the Cougars, that script is pretty much flipped when looking at the schedule versus the AAC Eastern teams. Houston has USF on the road (a probable loss, though I rate it to be very close) and Temple on the road (a close projected win for Houston).

Memphis avoids USF this year but does face UCF early in the year on the road. They also avoid Temple, so Memphis has a healthy scheduling advantage on AAC East teams played compared to Houston.

Navy also avoids USF, but plays Temple on the road and UCF at home.

As a whole, that tightens up any scheduling advantages quite a bit -- it will probably come down to the head to head matchups in the West, which favors Houston just for having home field advantage, especially against Memphis, as I rate those teams really closely entering this year, with Navy slipping some.

Let’s get Navy out of the way. Their defense should be about the same this year, but they didn’t win games with their defense last year (77[SUP]th[/SUP] ranked). It was their #4 ranked offense that was mowing over everyone in site until injuries eventually forced them to 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] string QB Abey. Abey is a pretty good runner, but his passing was well behind Worth. I’m not sure how much better he’ll be this year, but even still, Navy lost a lot of wide receivers and running backs. It just looks like a bit of an offensive rebuild for Navy this year. It doesn’t pay to underestimate Navy, but unlike this year, I won’t be making a regular season wins Over play on them.

Western Kentucky was one of my top Bowl plays last year in their game against Memphis. Fortunately that game played out as predicted, exposing Memphis’ somewhat below average run offense and defense, two things that WKU excelled at last year. I think Memphis will shore up their run defense a little bit this year, but their good pass defense (23rd best) will probably get a bit softer as they’re returning only 40% of the tackles made by their secondary last year.

That’s the not so good news for Memphis – the defense. The really good news for the Tigers is their offense, which returns almost everybody. A couple of months ago when looking at projected starting lineups, Memphis had a pretty inexperienced group listed for their offensive line. Most teams acquire/slot in more experienced players as we get closer to the actual season, and after just checking Memphis’ offensive line projection is now much more experienced. So, instead of projecting a possible small drop off in the passing game because of a new offensive line, I’m projecting no drop off in the passing game and a small improvement in the running game. This ended up pulling them up to be almost dead even with Houston overall. I only project Houston to win that home game against the Tigers by only 2.7 points now.

Houston’s short-lived Tom Herman era is over, with Major Applewhite taking over as the new HC. Houston’s effort at times last year seemed to mirror that of their HC – with one foot out the door. Their Bowl game was even worse than Memphis’, as they came in as the favorite and got straight up smoked. Greg Ward Jr. was throwing picks left and right while their anemic running game had almost no blood in it all, averaging 0.6 yards per carry. Houston had wins against Oklahoma and Louisville last year…as well as losses to Navy, SMU and Memphis. Those wins were home games, the losses all road games. Huge if it plays out that was again this year.

The one thing that didn’t suck for Houston in the Bowl Game was the biggest strength of the team – their run defense. They didn’t shut down SDSU’s running game, but they held a really good running team to 3 yards and change per carry. As bad as Houston’s run offense was, their run defense was even better, only once allowing a team to exceed their usual yards per carry average. Houston returns a lot of that defense, too. They only had one defender leave early for the draft, DB Howard Wilson, who joined fellow DB Brandon Wilson and LB/DE Tyus Bowser as Houston defenders drafted. As such, I think Houston’s pass defense will be about the same (still pretty good), while their rush defense is bound to regress some, even with the players returning. That still projects out as a really, really good run defense, though.

I think the transition to HC Applewhite will be pretty smooth, but I do make small deductions to teams for head coaches in their first season, so that’s factored into the projections.

QB Greg Ward Jr. is gone, and Texas A&M transfer Kyle Allen takes over. That’s a good pick up for Houston. Greg Ward Jr. wasn’t the greatest passer, but man was he hard to lay hands on. Running or buying time to set up open passes was what made the Houston offense go, when it did go. As mentioned, their running game, in part due to some injuries, was horrible. With the new HC and QB I’m still giving a Houston a small deduction in the passing projections, and I’m leaving their running projections as is. They should run the ball better, but subtracting Greg Ward Jr.s carries from the mix brings that average back down to where it was last year, potentially. Houston’s offense has room for improvement, so there could be some hidden upside there. On the flip side, Houston’s run defense also has plenty of room for even more regression than projected.

Overall, I think the most reliable unit for either Houston or Memphis will be Memphis’ offense. Big advantage to Memphis on offense, as Houston was a little below average overall last year, ranking just 73[SUP]rd[/SUP] for me, to 40[SUP]th[/SUP] for Memphis. Memphis should finish higher this year. Houston? Hard to say. Houston had such a huge advantage on defense last year that even if they regress some they should still be far ahead of Memphis’ squad.

With South Florida also having a new HC and losing their star running back they rate to come back to the field somewhat. They should still win the East, but I project either Houston or Memphis to play them pretty evenly. As such, taking both Houston and Memphis at +550 to win the conference has to be plus money. As long as Navy doesn’t rise up and surprise the West, you should be sitting on a pretty good hedging opportunity for the conference championship game.

½ Unit: Rice Under 3.5 (+100 5D)

Rice was another supremely easy Under season wins play last year, though they did start to play better in their final 3 games, where they did manage to grab a couple of conference wins and then cover against Stanford.

I expect the Owls passing game to continue to improve, and their pass defense was so horrific last year (I ranked them dead last) that regression to the mean means that they’ll probably be a little bit better this year. I mean, their 128[SUP]th[/SUP] ranked pass defense actually had good games when they faced the 128[SUP]th[/SUP] and 127[SUP]th[/SUP] ranked pass offenses of Charlotte and UTEP when they won those two games, lol.

But then again, Rice’s run defense was a bottom 25 unit as well, their recruiting numbers are poor…this program certainly seemed to peak 5 or so years ago, if memory serves.

Rice doesn’t have a D1-AA game on their schedule this year, so that means they’re going to have to win at home versus North Texas (a team slowly on the rise), at UTEP (not impossible, but I don’t think they will), at home versus Army (possible but doubtful), at home versus FIU (possible but doubtful), at UAB (coin flip?) and at Southern Miss (possible but doubtful) for the Under to lose. Well, win 4 of those 6 games, anyway. Games vs Stanford, @ Houston, @ Pitt, @ UT-San Antonio, versus Louisiana Tech and @ Old Dominion I’m chalking up as losses right now.

This isn’t nearly as good of a bet as it was last year, but considering that Rice might go winless this year it doesn’t seem to bad.

½ Unit: Kansas Under 3 Wins (+100 5D)

It seems fitting that I forgot about Kansas until going over my figures for the G5 schools today, lol. Sorry, Jayhawks!

Kansas was surprisingly decent defending the pass last year, but not they lose the bulk of that secondary. They also lose the only running back that put up a decent ypc average, Ke’aun Kinner. I project Kansas’ passing game to improve a little, but that’s hard to tell. Peyton Bender, the transfer from Washington State, didn’t put up good numbers in his limited experience, and from what I remember he looked like a deer in the headlights at times.

Kansas should win their week one D1-AA game, and are a toss up in week #2 against CMU, though I suspect they’ll be favored. Let’s give them those 2 wins. Can they get a third? In Week #3 they play at Ohio. Ohio should still be pretty decent this year, at least by MAC standards. Ohio beat Kansas by 17 at Kansas last year, so I’m still like Ohio to get it down again this year, this time at home. After that the only real winnable game for Kansas is at home in Week #6 against Texas Tech. Other than that, they should be brutalized by their Big 12 competition. Iowa State has been improving and Kansas has to play them on the road this year. Baylor has been plummeting, but not to Kansas’ depths just yet.

With one guaranteed win, and needing 3 more for this play to lose with only 3 winnable games on their schedule, I like my chances here. Even if Kansas is sitting on 2 wins after week #2 I’m not sweating the Under 3 until they possibly win again in week 3, lol.

1 Unit: Appalachian State Over 9 Wins (-140)

The Mountaineers return enough players to with the Sun Belt again. It’s a little bit of a rebuild on the offensive line, so I’ve given them a 7% deduction to their projections, just in case it has an effect. I’ve given some deductions to the defense as well, even though they’re returning a healthy numbers of players, also just to be on the safe side an account for some regression. I gave a small bump to the passing game, thinking that QB Taylor Lamb’s chemistry should be pretty good in this, his Senior season, with most of his receivers returning.

App State has been so consistent over the last couple of seasons, it’s hard to see them dropping off much this year. I think they’ll lose at Georgia, win a close won at Wake, and after that if I had to pick a loss I’d pick at Idaho. But I’m not picking that for a loss. I’m picking App State to win every conference game by at least double digits, as they get a couple of their potentially tougher games at home late in the season, and they don’t even play the one team in the conference right now with a legit chance at beating them, Troy. So even if App State opens with a loss at Georgia and then at Wake Forest in week #4, I can handle living on the razor’s edge of losing this play for the final 8 games of their season.
 

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New guys....Cruncher is pretty strait up.

2016: 72.2 SU and 53.6 ATS
2015: 74.1 SU and 54.2 ATS

I doubted this guy a few years ago and I was WRONG!

Might want to follow for solid information and maybe make some money.
 

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1 Unit: Western Kentucky Over 9.5 wins (EV 5D)

Not sure how this one slipped through the cracks for me -- must be by dint of being one of the last teams alphabetically on the list of all teams, lol. That and hurrying to get out the door for a 5 day 4th of July trip.


The Cons: Head Coach Brohm is now at Purdue. Lead RB Wales is gone, as well as some of their best offensive linemen. Most of their offensive catches are gone, too. Their clear #1 LB and DB are gone.


The Pros: QB White is back. A couple of injured RBs are set to return, offsetting the loss of Wales. There is still a decent amount of defensive personnel returning.


I've factored in 14% deductions to the offensive passing and rushing projections, a 12% deduction to the rush defense, and 4% to the pass defense.



Even still, I have WKU favored in every game this season, with the closest games being a 7 point victory at Illinois, a 2 point victor at Vanderbilt and an 11 point victory versus Middle Tennessee. With a 10 point margin being my floor/ceiling cutoff, my win floor for WKU is 10 games. With a D1-AA game, an out of conference game versus Ball State, and then a run through most of the worst C-USA teams, I have 7 games where I project WKU to win by 20+ points.


Should I really hit WKU with even steeper projection deductions? They seem like plenty to me, right now, until the new coaching staff at least proves they're not capable of pushing the pieces around the board to at least close to the level of Brohm and coaches last year.


With the number at 9.5, it obviously takes 3+ losses for the bet to lose. Do you really think WKU will lose 50%+ of their games against Illinois, Louisiana Tech, Old Dominion, Vanderbilt and Middle Tennessee? There could be 3 losses in there, but I'll take my chances at even money that WKU doesn't slide as far as apparently many think they will this year.
 

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Some notes on the Nevada teams that I'll be going over with Dave Cokin and Scott Spreitzer on their radio show today: http://www.lvsportsnetwork.com/podcast/lv-sportsline/

UNLV & Nevada –

Let’s look at last year a little bit:

Fading the Nevada run defense last year was profitable most of the time. They ended up with my worst ranked rush defense and worst defense overall.

UNLV’s rush defense was not quite as bad, coming in at 113[SUP]th[/SUP]. UNLV was actually a “play on” team for me for a lot of last season, because of their surprisingly good run offense. They leaned on that running game as much as they could, only throwing 37% of the time, where the FBS average is 44%. Injuries to their quarterbacks means they have 3 guys with 88 or more attempts, and they were all fairly mediocre, considering that they only played 2 top 60 pass defenses all season.

And then, when these two teams met up in the season finale, UNLV’s injuries were just too much, and they got crushed. It had to have been one of the largest spread fails of the season.

Low recruiting scores means a lack of size and athleticism on defense. They are both bottom 25 recruiters this past season, and have been trending down. I project Nevada to have the 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] worst defense this year, UNLV the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] worst.

Teams that can’t recruit the best athletes frequently try offensive trickeration to compensate. It’s why Nevada invented the Pistol offense back in the day. It’s why all 3 of the armed forces teams run the option.

Those options don’t really exist on defense. The best that out-manned defenses can do frequently is to play extremely aggressive trying to get a stop or turnover while risking giving up big plays.

For some reason, Nevada played the opposite of that defensively, last year. Bill Connelly in his write up for Nevada this year pointed out how Nevada was one of the best teams at stopping 20+ yard passes, but couldn’t stop anything really that went for less yards than that. It doesn’t make sense to me to play defense like that. You have to send extra guys to the ball or QB and hope for some luck defending receivers one on one. That being said, I don’t know how much teams threw long against Nevada last year. It’s possible they just didn’t try it very often because they didn’t need to. I do know that teams only attempted passes on 31% of their plays against Nevada, which is well below average, and that Nevada gave up the 4[SUP]th[/SUP] lowest pass yards per game of all teams. But Nevada is a case in point of why you can’t judge the strength of a unit by total yards gained or allowed. Nevada was still a very bad pass defense, allowing teams to pass for almost 1.9 yards more per pass attempt than those teams usually gained.

So Nevada has hit the coaching reset button, which doesn’t seem unjustified when you finish with the worst defense of 128 teams.

HC Jay Norvell – OC Matt Mumme – DC Jeff Casteel

UNLV head coach Sanchez is sticking with original coordinators for now, but DC Kent Baer might be on the hot seat if they slide down to a bottom 10 defense this year. The reason I project UNLV with a bottom 5 defense this year is because they lost a ton of players from last year’s defense. They’re only returning 37% of their tackles, which is the 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] worst of all teams. They got hit especially hard at linebacker, losing their clear top 3 players. They also lost 3 of their top 4 tackling defensive backs. They do get their best defensive lineman back, Mike Hughes Jr., and that’s about the only positive for this team on a defensive rebuilding year.

So yeah, I like the “Over” on UNLV games for now.

For season wins, though, my numbers are pretty much right on the betting numbers, so I'm not going to be able to make money on a Nevada Under play for what might have been the 3rd straight year.
 

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Nice job crunch. Whats rsw mean? Over/under on totals. 15-3 gonna write these down. Yep I hate waiting until Dec. to cash them hopefully but $2 on each for fun and kicks.
 

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Nice job crunch. Whats rsw mean? Over/under on totals. 15-3 gonna write these down. Yep I hate waiting until Dec. to cash them hopefully but $2 on each for fun and kicks.

Hey, good to see you bud. RSW = Regular season wins, so yes. Yeah, not too much money on these, just a Christmas insurance policy of sorts, lol. And it gives you some fun sweats potentially late in the season.
 

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Some interesting line variance right now with Western Kentucky. Sportsbook has the over 9.5 at -200 (which is also what Westgate opened with last weekend), but the same line at 5D is -130.
 

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Some interesting line variance right now with Western Kentucky. Sportsbook has the over 9.5 at -200 (which is also what Westgate opened with last weekend), but the same line at 5D is -130.

And now -150 at 5D. Got in when the gettin' was good.
 

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Wow !!!!! They don't call you "the cruncher" for nothing; I've been following college football for more than 70 years and I've never seen games "diagnosed"
the way you sort out the X' & O's right on down to the speed that the water boy runs on and the field during the time-outs the way you do it.......Had you ever considered getting into medicine during your younger days....seriously.....Your writing skills are spot-on. Good luck this season.
 

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Wow !!!!! They don't call you "the cruncher" for nothing; I've been following college football for more than 70 years and I've never seen games "diagnosed"
the way you sort out the X' & O's right on down to the speed that the water boy runs on and the field during the time-outs the way you do it.......Had you ever considered getting into medicine during your younger days....seriously.....Your writing skills are spot-on. Good luck this season.

Crunch....coming from MR. Mack Donald, that's quite a compliment.
GL this season.......................CL
 

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I agree Mack. How young are you? Just wondering. One fella is 87 I know. I'm 51

83 years "young" (as long as they keep playing college football).. To me you are a young guy "sunshine" but I can tell you've been around the block more than a few times in the sports world; I read most of your posts and comments here in the Rx forum, all of which renders keen insight.........Good luck during the fast approaching college football season.
 

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Thanks, everyone. One thing I like to look at is, the "Join Date" here at the rx. In those years I'm one of the oldest ones here, lol. Was on the actual theprescription site for several years before that, too.

But Mack -- that's an inspiration to us all staying active with college football at 83 years young!

Cheers.
 

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Thanks, everyone. One thing I like to look at is, the "Join Date" here at the rx. In those years I'm one of the oldest ones here, lol. Was on the actual theprescription site for several years before that, too.

But Mack -- that's an inspiration to us all staying active with college football at 83 years young!

Cheers.

+1 Crunch.......Mac has been one of our gang's favorite for years. CLASS ACT always............!!!
 

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