8-30-14

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Totals 4 You NCAA Selections for Early Saturday, August 30th

2014 College Football Saturday Kickoff Total of the Year!!!!!
UCLA/Virginia over 54 1/2

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Early NCAA Best Bets
Ohio State/Navy over 53 1/2
Appalachian State/Michigan under 54 1/2
Troy/UAB under 64 1/2
Western Michigan/Purdue over 52 1/2

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Totals 4 You NCAA Service Selections for Mid Saturday, August 30thAugust's College Football on ABC Super Total of the Month!!!!!
Alabama/West Virginia under 55 1/2

Mid-Day NCAA Best Bets
California/Northwestern under 62 1/2
Rice/Notre Dame under 51
Arkansas/Auburn over 57 1/2
Clemson/Georgia over 54 1/2

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Dave Essler

3* Georgia Southern

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Fezzik

UCF pk

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PHILLYGODFATHER

EARLY COLLEGE RELEASE

(184) OHIO/Kent State UNDER 49.5

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Northcoast

Early Bird play

Ohio St -13.5

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NorthCoast

Comp line Button # 3 Underdog of the week Wisconsin + 5

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Sheep

1000* Ohio St -15

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Steve Fezzik

Clemson/GA under 57.5. Triple Dime

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Dave Cokin

183 Ohio +3
187 Western Michigan +11

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Phil Steele Inside the Pressbox

BEST BET: OHIO ST 40 NAVY 20
BEST BET: GEORGIA 37 CLEMSON 24

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EZWINNERS

Virginia Cavaliers +21

Virginia enters this game on a nine game losing streak, but I like them to keep this game within the big three touchdown number. The Cavs return seventeen starters from last years team and they have a pretty solid recruiting class of young talent. UCLA should contend for a national championship with seventeen returning starters themselves including their quarterback Brett Hundley, but this is a ton of points to be laying on the road in the first game of the season on the opposite coast. This is the largest road favorite role for the Bruins in sixteen years. This is also the first time that UCLA has played in the eastern time zone since 2009 and its a noon eastern kickoff time which is 9am local time in Los Angeles. We see west coast NFL teams struggle in this spot all the time and I expect the same for the Bruins against a Virginia team that has talent on its roster. Take the points.


Arkansas Razorbacks +20.5

Auburn is coming off of an incredible season last year that saw them make a run all the way to the BCS Championship game and the Tigers come into this game having covered the spread in eleven straight games. I expect them to be over priced especially early in the season and I will gladly take the points with Arkansas in this game. The Hogs showed improvement at the end of last season and I think they can have success moving the football in this game. Auburn did have some issues stopping the run last season as they gave up over 160 yards per game on the ground at over 4.5 yards per carry and Arkansas will put that defense to the test in this game. The Razorbacks have two solid running backs in Jonathan Williams and Alex Collins who should be able to keep the chains and the clock moving. Take the points.


Florida State Seminoles -17.5

It might look very tempting to take the generous amount of points with an Oklahoma State team that has had a very high scoring offense in recent history, but I believe that FSU will win big in this game. The Cowboys are one of the least experienced teams in college football heading into this season as they have just eight returning starters. OSU has lost a ton of productive players from last years team including every one of their All Big XII Conference players. The Noles are the most talented team in the nation and should use this national telecast to remind everyone that they are the team to beat. FSU was 11-2-1 against the spread last year, so I do expect Vegas to start inflating their numbers, but this is a bad spot for an inexperienced Cowboys to kick of their season. Defending nation champions the last fifteen years have one their opening game by an average of 31 points per game. Lay the points.

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Nite Owl Sports

Penn State vs. Central Florida
Play: Central Florida Pk

The college FB season is still two weeks away, but as long as lines are posted on the week one games, which they now are at most books, there is no reason to hold off on getting down at a good early line on any game(s) that we have isolated for picks and possible big picks. And this game is clearly one of them, where George O’Leary takes his UCF Golden Knights to his beloved Ireland to face off in Dublin against a Penn State team that UCF used LY as a “spring board” to their “break-out” season, culminating in a (not so) shocking 10 point “upset” of heavily favored (by 17 points) Baylor in the Fiesta Bowl. As you may recall, UCF got their first “signature win” of the season by “upsetting” Penn State 34-31 in (not so) “Happy Valley” as 4 point dogs, then followed that up a few weeks later with a much bigger road upset win, beating L Ville and Heisman candidate Teddy Bridgewater in a nationally televised 38-35 comeback thriller at “the John” (Papa John’s Stadium in L Ville, Ky). UCF went on to win the newly formed American Conference to qualify for an automatic BCS Bowl bid, and with their huge upset bowl win over befuddled Baylor, shut up the detractors of that conference, many of who claimed it was just a slightly modified version of the “Big Least” Conference (which in actuality it was), which had sent some pretty crappy teams to BCS bowls as automatic qualifiers in recent years. And in that Fiesta Bowl, UCF QB Blake Bortles and his mates proved that they not only deserved their BCS Bowl spot, but were clearly one of the better BCS bowl teams. Those 3 upset wins LY made O’Leary’s UCF 3-2 SU and 5-0 ATS L2Y against legitimate BCS “power teams” (although counting LY’s Penn State team as a member of that elite group is admittedly stretching it a bit). Of course, Bortles is gone, having moved on to an even bigger challenge in the NFL, that of resurrecting the moribund Jacksonville Jags. But the cupboard is hardly bare for coach O’Leary, whose Irish eyes were likely still “smiling” when he saw his list of 39 returning lettermen, which includes 15 starters (8 of them on defense) from LY’s record-setting team, whose only loss (certainly nothing to be ashamed of) was a 4 point nail biter to Steve Spurrier’s South Carolina Fighting (Game) Cocks and his All American “beast” Jadevon Clowney, aka “the Clown.” Also notable is the fact that O’Leary is not only 10-1 ATS L7 years in his first two lined games of the season, but also 5-1 SU and 6-0 ATS L3Y in those first two lined games. We have not yet said a thing about UCF’s opponent in this game, Penn State, and we’ll start by giving “kudos” to their AD for getting “up off the mat” admirably (by scoring a quick hire of the very successful and well regarded Vandy coach James Franklin, a native Pennsylvanian) after getting “blind-sided” by the sudden departure last December of (now former) Penn State head coach, “Bullshit Bill” O’Brien, who lunged at the first NFL head coaching position (Houston) that was offered to him after just two seasons in Happy Valley, after having sworn to Penn State officials that he was “in it for the long haul” when he took the job at State College after the Jerry Sandusky scandal imploded and resulted in the abrupt dismissal of long-time college FB coaching icon Joe Paterno. However, that is the limit of our kudos for Penn State, whose wimpy administration and Board of Trustees allowed the NCAA to have its way with them, including assessing $60 million in fines, disqualifying Penn State from bowls for a few years, and drastically cutting their allotment of football scholarships, all for stuff (the fall-out from the Sandusky scandal) that was admittedly awful, but which was clearly outside the NCAA’s jurisdiction for assessing those harsh sanctions (and I say that not just as a casual observer giving an “off the cuff’ opinion on the subject, but as an experienced, retired attorney giving an informed but informal legal opinion). In any event, while Penn State managed to “survive” the aftermath of “Sandusky-gate” with two surprisingly respectable seasons L2Y (going 8-4 in 2012 and 7-5 LY), due to a number of the previously Paterno-recruited “blue chip” players having bought into “Bullshit Bill’s” promises about staying there long term, we believe this could very well be the year that the “chickens come home to roost” in Happy Valley, in terms of Penn State’s lack of quality depth starting to take its toll, with the NCAA scholarship limitations and other sanctions now having been in effect for two years. In fact, looking at Penn State’s upcoming schedule TY, coupled with the fact that “transitional seasons” (like what this one is for new Penn State HC Franklin) usually do not go well, with even some of the best coaches having had rough first years taking over a different team and program, and installing their new “systems” while having to get familiar with a bunch of “new faces,” and vice-versa, we would be very surprised if the “Nitts” end up with a winning record TY, and not shocked if they win five games or less. A final reason why we like UFC here is that UCF coach George O’Leary has been “lobbying” for years for the chance to take his UCF Golden Knights to his beloved Ireland to face off in Dublin against a high profile but beatable team like Penn State. And when this match-up was finalized, and contracts were signed committing both schools to play this game, UCF had gotten itself “on the map” in college FB with a 12-4 season in 2012, culminating with a minor bowl win, and this looked like a good, interesting match-up in Ireland, between two high profile Irish head FB coaches who were long-time friends, O’Leary and his then coaching counterpart at Penn State, “Bullshit Bill” O’Brien. As we all know, O’Brien is no longer part of the picture for this game (except for the emotional scars that his abrupt and dishonest departure may have left on his former team members), but that in no way reduces how badly O’Leary wants his team to not only win this game but make a good showing doing it. So based on all of the above support, and getting an early ”UCF-friendly” line of “pick” here, we are all over this one. And while we are unable to assign units to our picks on this site (with each pick counted by the site’s record keeping “system” as a 100 unit play), we typically rate our picks from 2-5 units, and would rate this one a very strong 4 or 5 units at this early line. And we strongly recommend playing UCF NOW (rather than later) at this good price, which we doubt will still be around by the week before the game. Sure, we realize that similar to bowl games, these “out of country games’ involve travel, hotels, lots of ‘free time” and thus plenty of distractions for these young men, which can result in suspensions if they don’t handle those distractions well- but that applies equally to both teams, and so we’ll play UCF now at this good price and take our chances with any game week suspensions or discipline.

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Esquire Picks

Georgia -7.5 ($2,000) TOP NCAAF PICK OF THE WEEK

Wisconsin +5 ($500) MEDIUM NCAAF PICK OF THE WEEK

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From THE PLATINUM SHEET

PENN STATE (155) AT UCF (156)
Latest Line: UCF -1

As 4 1/2-point road underdogs, UCF beat Penn State 34-31 last September. Knights QB Pete DiNovo has huge shoes to fill under center, though he has plenty of WR talent at his disposal and UCF's reliable defense returns eight starters. Nittany Lions RB Zach Zwinak tallied 147 total yards and three TD in last year's meeting. PSU QB Christian Hackenberg is going to be special, but enters his sophomore year with a weak O-line and a lack of experienced WRs. Note the 8:30 a.m. Eastern start time in Ireland.

STATFOX FORECASTER: UCF 32, Penn State 25