SHSUHorn
Thief
NCAA 2008 18-4 +56.40
Starting things off with what I feel is the best play on the board. More to come tomorrow as I finish my write-ups.
FRIDAY
Kansas @ South Florida –4 (6 UNITS)
Kansas had the perfect season last year. They had a Big 12 schedule that didn’t have Texas, Texas Tech or OU, the #1 turnover margin in the country, the best defense in the Big 12, and an offense that could beat you on the ground or through the air.
With the new season come some pretty important losses to the team. They return 9 on defense but lose last year’s mastermind DC Bill Young to Miami.
Many forget that before last season KU had the worst pass defense in the country. While it looks good that the numbers improved in the Big 12 last season they didn’t have to face Bradford, Harrell, or Mccoy.
Looking at the schedule last season only Mizzu’s Chase Daniel posed a real threat to the pass defense. All Daniel did in the game was go 40-49 for 361 yards and 3 TDs with Kansas having its best player in the secondary Aqib Talib.
On offense Kansas struggled in the spring and it struggled last week in the first half vs La Tech. QB Todd Reesing is a stud and will be fine through the air despite losing his only +1000 yard WR Marcus Henry, and the schools career record holding TE Derrick Fine to the NFL draft.
The issue has been the ground attack this season and replacing +1000 yard rusher Brandon Mcanderson. Kansas has had 69 rushing attempts in its first two games vs La. Tech and FIU and only averaged 3.7 ypc.
Kansas has rotated 3 backs this season and going into this game are now hanging their hopes on Angus Quigley. Quigley who had 17 carries last year, has bounced in and out of Mangino’s doghouse, was given the shot last week at halftime after Sharp and Crawford couldn’t get it done.
I don’t expect USF to put up 500 yards through the air but it will move the ball against this defense with QB Matt Grothe.
While last weeks game went into OT vs UCF it was clear that USF dominated the game (504 yards to 206). UCF got two big fumbles and a KR for a TD and trailed 24-10 with less than 3 minutes to go before the improbable comeback. Try not to look too hard at the box score there.
This matchup is probably the next best game on the schedule after USC vs tOSU. It’s a nationally televised game so the homefield advantage will be huge for USF.
With Grothe and 10 starters returning on offense from a squad that avg 35 ppg last season, facing a Kansas team that hasn’t been tested in the secondary and still trying to find a running game…how do you not side with USF in front of its fired up crowd?
SMU +37 @ Texas Tech (3 UNITS)
Texas Tech may score 50 points here but SMU will be in the 20s or 30s under June Jones. Texas Tech’s defense gave up 24 to EWU and a ton of yards through the air, and gave up a ton of yards to Nevada’s offense but didn’t break holding them to 4 FGs.
Texas Tech has struggled for the second week in a row before pulling away late in the game. Harrell has looked off for the last two weeks. My Red Raider buddy told me he’s been staring down his receivers, over throwing the ball, and basically looks pretty damn bad right now.
With teams focusing on Crabtree, someone needs to step up now that Danny Amendola is on the Dallas Cowboys. The TT WRs dropped 6 footballs vs Nevada last week. I’m just not sold on what Tech has behind Crabtree at WR.
This is probably a game June Jones circled on his calendar. If SMU is going to get a jumpstart in recruiting in the state a good showing vs the second best team in the state will help.
I don’t expect this game to be close but almost giving up close to 40 points to an offensive coach that knows how to score in bunches has me jumping on SMU here. I see a 55-28 type game here.
Oregon –6.5 @ Purdue (4 UNITS)
Following Purdue and Joe Tiller you can always bank on one thing every year…Purdue will beat the teams its supposed to and lose to the teams they aren’t suppose to beat.
The Purdue offense will be fine despite a lot of nagging injuries along the o-line this offseason. The issue is the defense hasn’t been very good the past three seasons so Purdue may have to win a shootout here.
Not going to happen with an Oregon team whose offense looks fantastic after two games (100 points). Washington might not be as bad as Oregon made them look after their performance vs BYU and Oregon smoked them. They also smoked them with starting QB Justin Roper leaving the game with a concussion.
Yes it was Utah St. but having 400+ rushing yards for 7.7 ypc with your stud RB Jermiah Johnson going down on the first play is impressive. While it looked bad on the sidelines initial reports suggest Johnson just popped his shoulder out of joint, with trainers able to pop it back in shortly after the senior tailback left the field; Oregon's coaching staff nevertheless elected to keep Johnson on the sidelines as a precautionary measure. Johnson is expected to play.
Oregon covers this game in a shootout.
Air Force VS Houston –2 in Dallas (6 UNITS)
One of my favorite plays on the board. I like the coaching staff in place with former OU assistant Kevin Sumlin and his hire of brining in Dana Holgerson as the OC. Holgerson has been the TT OC the past three seasons, coached with Leach at Valdosta St. in 93, and played WR for Leach at Iowa Wesleyen.
Those strong ties will make you think you are watching Texas Tech play when the offense is on the field. The Cougs put up huge numbers on offense vs Okie St. and Case Keenum has been fantastic early on.
Not buying the hype on Air Force just yet because Wyoming fuckin sucks and I will never bet them again (they have accounted for two of my four losses this year). Houston will not be 2-13 on third down conversions like Wyoming.
Air Force lost to many veteran playmakers on offense and the defense lost three All-Conference performers. They’ve been running like crazy in its first two games but if it gets behind early against a fast strike offense it could spell trouble. Shea Smith hasn’t proven he can throw. They are going to have to eventually have some kind of passing attack in this game and I just don’t see them keeping up with the UH offense.
Ohio St. @ USC –9 (5 UNITS)
Before all you line Germans go crazy go get an account at bookmaker and get the same lines as the rest of us early birds at 5pm on Sundays (be happy I’m not posting my future play bet of USC –5.5). Back to my point…which is whether you have 9 or 10.5 its not going to matter cause USC is going to spank the Buckeyes.
USC gets a bye to prepare for a home game while tOSU battles for its life vs Ohio. Whether Beanie Wells plays or not he still won’t be 100% and he still has to run and get hit by that nasty defense.
Yes Virginia showed that they suck this past week but the execution you wanted to see out of Sanchez and the offense was there. As much as I can’t stand them USC looked incredible everywhere.
USC has loss 5 regular games in 5 years under Pete Carroll. Four of those five losses have been to teams that weren’t even ranked and double-digit underdogs. The loss to Oregon last year the Trojans had the backup QB in only making his third start (Sanchez).
In other words outside of the Texas game USC has shown up big in big games especially OOC games.
Arizona –10 @ New Mexico (5 UNITS)
Zona was suppose to always field a great defensive team with Stoops at the helm but the offense has been fantastic early on. Stoops brought in Sonny Dykes (another Leach disciple) to run a wide open spread offense. The team improved from 16ppg to 28ppg.
The team now returns 10 starters and while many expected Tuitama to put up huge numbers in the passing game its been the early rushing numbers by Nic Grisby that have raised eyebrows. If Zona can continue to have a strong running attack they will do some damage in PAC 10 play.
I watched majority of the Texas A&M @ New Mexico game on youtube.umm...I mean Versus Network where the feed looked like it was coming from Kazakastan. A&M was awful and lost its two best players on offense early in the game in QB McGee and RB Goodson and still won quite easily. New Mexico’s QB was one of the most inaccurate college QBs I’ve ever seen.
Maybe it was a bad day for the Lobos but I have no fuckin idea how they are going to stay within 10 points here based on what I saw.
North Texas @ LSU –42.5 (5 UNITS)
I don’t care if they play this game in Baton Rouge, Texas Stadium, American Airlines Arena, or Rangers Ballpark in Arlington…LSU is going to roll these guys. LSU had last week’s game cancelled and now that Hurricane Ike looks like its heading to South Texas they can concentrate on football.
UNT has gotten murdered by the big teams it’s faced under Dodge. They got killed by 69 from OU, by 59 from Arkansas, and by 41 from KSU this year. Giovanni Vizzi is the QB, not sure if he should be playing on the UNT soccer team with that name, but he sure looked like it vs KSU. He was dreadful
LSU 59-3.
Cal –13 @ Maryland (3 UNITS)
A game that has me scratching my head. Cal should be favored more so what gives? Will the cross-country flight and 9am Pacific Time get to the Bears?
Then I come to my senses and realize Maryland lost to Middle TN St., and if it was a fluke loss why did they shit the bed only beating Delaware 14-7 in week one?
The defense was carved up by the spread offense last week by not getting any pressure at all and missing tackles. Cal’s offense is going to put up huge numbers after beating WSU 66-3. Best has been great behind tremendous OL play and leading the way of a Bear offense that has had some already a couple of long explosive TD plays.
Maryland QB Turner was awful in place of the injured Stiffy and the Terps may go with Florida transfer Josh Portis. I don’t care what changes Freigden is thinking of doing from his Sunday press conference after his worst loss in school history…the bottom line is Maryland won’t score enough points on offense to make this game close.
Iowa St. +11.5 @ Iowa (3 UNITS)
Isn’t this game always close no matter who has the better team? This rivalry doesn’t seem big to the rest of the country but your talking about a state that has no other pro teams to root for. This is their big in-state game also in terms of recruiting even though both teams aren’t in the same conference.
Arkansas @ Texas –23.5 (2 UNITS)
Okay I say take the points in the rivalry game above but don’t here? I’ve been reading many Texas fans worried about this game saying the Piggies will be playing lights out cause of the rivalry and hatred they have for Texas.
To my generation this rivalry doesn’t exactly fire me up along the lines of OU and A&M. Sure I was pissed when Matt Jones ran all over Texas in 2003 but still this team doesn’t play each other every year or have recruiting wars over Texas kids like it did in the SWC days.
The people that will be the most fired up are the older generation that makes up most of the fans in the stands. The game is in Austin and the edge will go to Texas who’s new stadium renovations will show up when Arkansas has the ball. Some of the players on the field were one year old when Arkansas left the SWC.
This line is too low based on how shitty Arkansas has looked this year rivalry game or not. They have struggled mightily in both games. In the opener they were down to Western Illinois 24-14 in the 4th before the comeback. In the game vs UL Monroe they were down 24-6 in the second half.
My Longhorn buddies have scared me into making this a big play because they somehow think F. Jones and D. Mcfadden will suit up but the points don’t add up looking at the match-ups and the emotion is not going to push this to a close game. I’m probably going to kick myself that I didn’t put more on this game.
Rice @ Vanderbilt –7 (5 UNITS)
What is wrong with this line? Rice was down 35-20 with 6 minutes late before pulling the comeback over Memphis. Memphis did what it wanted on offense for most of the game and Vanderbilt will too.
Vanderbilt after so many close calls last year finally pulls off the big upset against a very stout SC defense. The defense has been terrific this year and while Rice will get some points it won’t be able to match up to a stronger, faster, better-coached SEC team.
TODD REESING UNDER 30.5 PASS COMPLETIONS (4 UNITS) (-135)
In all 13 games Reesing started last year he did not complete more then 30 passes in a game. Yes he's done it in both games this year but the key to Kansas in this game will be running the ball. I expect them to try and establish the run game vs USF because the OT's are both freshman and will be facing arguably the top DE in the country tonight.
**ADDING**
Three game of year lines for Week 4
Wake Forest +6.5 @ FSU (3 UNITS)
Florida @ Tennessee +9 (3 UNITS)
Notre Dame @ Michigan St. -6 (5 UNITS)
Starting things off with what I feel is the best play on the board. More to come tomorrow as I finish my write-ups.
FRIDAY
Kansas @ South Florida –4 (6 UNITS)
Kansas had the perfect season last year. They had a Big 12 schedule that didn’t have Texas, Texas Tech or OU, the #1 turnover margin in the country, the best defense in the Big 12, and an offense that could beat you on the ground or through the air.
With the new season come some pretty important losses to the team. They return 9 on defense but lose last year’s mastermind DC Bill Young to Miami.
Many forget that before last season KU had the worst pass defense in the country. While it looks good that the numbers improved in the Big 12 last season they didn’t have to face Bradford, Harrell, or Mccoy.
Looking at the schedule last season only Mizzu’s Chase Daniel posed a real threat to the pass defense. All Daniel did in the game was go 40-49 for 361 yards and 3 TDs with Kansas having its best player in the secondary Aqib Talib.
On offense Kansas struggled in the spring and it struggled last week in the first half vs La Tech. QB Todd Reesing is a stud and will be fine through the air despite losing his only +1000 yard WR Marcus Henry, and the schools career record holding TE Derrick Fine to the NFL draft.
The issue has been the ground attack this season and replacing +1000 yard rusher Brandon Mcanderson. Kansas has had 69 rushing attempts in its first two games vs La. Tech and FIU and only averaged 3.7 ypc.
Kansas has rotated 3 backs this season and going into this game are now hanging their hopes on Angus Quigley. Quigley who had 17 carries last year, has bounced in and out of Mangino’s doghouse, was given the shot last week at halftime after Sharp and Crawford couldn’t get it done.
I don’t expect USF to put up 500 yards through the air but it will move the ball against this defense with QB Matt Grothe.
While last weeks game went into OT vs UCF it was clear that USF dominated the game (504 yards to 206). UCF got two big fumbles and a KR for a TD and trailed 24-10 with less than 3 minutes to go before the improbable comeback. Try not to look too hard at the box score there.
This matchup is probably the next best game on the schedule after USC vs tOSU. It’s a nationally televised game so the homefield advantage will be huge for USF.
With Grothe and 10 starters returning on offense from a squad that avg 35 ppg last season, facing a Kansas team that hasn’t been tested in the secondary and still trying to find a running game…how do you not side with USF in front of its fired up crowd?
SMU +37 @ Texas Tech (3 UNITS)
Texas Tech may score 50 points here but SMU will be in the 20s or 30s under June Jones. Texas Tech’s defense gave up 24 to EWU and a ton of yards through the air, and gave up a ton of yards to Nevada’s offense but didn’t break holding them to 4 FGs.
Texas Tech has struggled for the second week in a row before pulling away late in the game. Harrell has looked off for the last two weeks. My Red Raider buddy told me he’s been staring down his receivers, over throwing the ball, and basically looks pretty damn bad right now.
With teams focusing on Crabtree, someone needs to step up now that Danny Amendola is on the Dallas Cowboys. The TT WRs dropped 6 footballs vs Nevada last week. I’m just not sold on what Tech has behind Crabtree at WR.
This is probably a game June Jones circled on his calendar. If SMU is going to get a jumpstart in recruiting in the state a good showing vs the second best team in the state will help.
I don’t expect this game to be close but almost giving up close to 40 points to an offensive coach that knows how to score in bunches has me jumping on SMU here. I see a 55-28 type game here.
Oregon –6.5 @ Purdue (4 UNITS)
Following Purdue and Joe Tiller you can always bank on one thing every year…Purdue will beat the teams its supposed to and lose to the teams they aren’t suppose to beat.
The Purdue offense will be fine despite a lot of nagging injuries along the o-line this offseason. The issue is the defense hasn’t been very good the past three seasons so Purdue may have to win a shootout here.
Not going to happen with an Oregon team whose offense looks fantastic after two games (100 points). Washington might not be as bad as Oregon made them look after their performance vs BYU and Oregon smoked them. They also smoked them with starting QB Justin Roper leaving the game with a concussion.
Yes it was Utah St. but having 400+ rushing yards for 7.7 ypc with your stud RB Jermiah Johnson going down on the first play is impressive. While it looked bad on the sidelines initial reports suggest Johnson just popped his shoulder out of joint, with trainers able to pop it back in shortly after the senior tailback left the field; Oregon's coaching staff nevertheless elected to keep Johnson on the sidelines as a precautionary measure. Johnson is expected to play.
Oregon covers this game in a shootout.
Air Force VS Houston –2 in Dallas (6 UNITS)
One of my favorite plays on the board. I like the coaching staff in place with former OU assistant Kevin Sumlin and his hire of brining in Dana Holgerson as the OC. Holgerson has been the TT OC the past three seasons, coached with Leach at Valdosta St. in 93, and played WR for Leach at Iowa Wesleyen.
Those strong ties will make you think you are watching Texas Tech play when the offense is on the field. The Cougs put up huge numbers on offense vs Okie St. and Case Keenum has been fantastic early on.
Not buying the hype on Air Force just yet because Wyoming fuckin sucks and I will never bet them again (they have accounted for two of my four losses this year). Houston will not be 2-13 on third down conversions like Wyoming.
Air Force lost to many veteran playmakers on offense and the defense lost three All-Conference performers. They’ve been running like crazy in its first two games but if it gets behind early against a fast strike offense it could spell trouble. Shea Smith hasn’t proven he can throw. They are going to have to eventually have some kind of passing attack in this game and I just don’t see them keeping up with the UH offense.
Ohio St. @ USC –9 (5 UNITS)
Before all you line Germans go crazy go get an account at bookmaker and get the same lines as the rest of us early birds at 5pm on Sundays (be happy I’m not posting my future play bet of USC –5.5). Back to my point…which is whether you have 9 or 10.5 its not going to matter cause USC is going to spank the Buckeyes.
USC gets a bye to prepare for a home game while tOSU battles for its life vs Ohio. Whether Beanie Wells plays or not he still won’t be 100% and he still has to run and get hit by that nasty defense.
Yes Virginia showed that they suck this past week but the execution you wanted to see out of Sanchez and the offense was there. As much as I can’t stand them USC looked incredible everywhere.
USC has loss 5 regular games in 5 years under Pete Carroll. Four of those five losses have been to teams that weren’t even ranked and double-digit underdogs. The loss to Oregon last year the Trojans had the backup QB in only making his third start (Sanchez).
In other words outside of the Texas game USC has shown up big in big games especially OOC games.
Arizona –10 @ New Mexico (5 UNITS)
Zona was suppose to always field a great defensive team with Stoops at the helm but the offense has been fantastic early on. Stoops brought in Sonny Dykes (another Leach disciple) to run a wide open spread offense. The team improved from 16ppg to 28ppg.
The team now returns 10 starters and while many expected Tuitama to put up huge numbers in the passing game its been the early rushing numbers by Nic Grisby that have raised eyebrows. If Zona can continue to have a strong running attack they will do some damage in PAC 10 play.
I watched majority of the Texas A&M @ New Mexico game on youtube.umm...I mean Versus Network where the feed looked like it was coming from Kazakastan. A&M was awful and lost its two best players on offense early in the game in QB McGee and RB Goodson and still won quite easily. New Mexico’s QB was one of the most inaccurate college QBs I’ve ever seen.
Maybe it was a bad day for the Lobos but I have no fuckin idea how they are going to stay within 10 points here based on what I saw.
North Texas @ LSU –42.5 (5 UNITS)
I don’t care if they play this game in Baton Rouge, Texas Stadium, American Airlines Arena, or Rangers Ballpark in Arlington…LSU is going to roll these guys. LSU had last week’s game cancelled and now that Hurricane Ike looks like its heading to South Texas they can concentrate on football.
UNT has gotten murdered by the big teams it’s faced under Dodge. They got killed by 69 from OU, by 59 from Arkansas, and by 41 from KSU this year. Giovanni Vizzi is the QB, not sure if he should be playing on the UNT soccer team with that name, but he sure looked like it vs KSU. He was dreadful
LSU 59-3.
Cal –13 @ Maryland (3 UNITS)
A game that has me scratching my head. Cal should be favored more so what gives? Will the cross-country flight and 9am Pacific Time get to the Bears?
Then I come to my senses and realize Maryland lost to Middle TN St., and if it was a fluke loss why did they shit the bed only beating Delaware 14-7 in week one?
The defense was carved up by the spread offense last week by not getting any pressure at all and missing tackles. Cal’s offense is going to put up huge numbers after beating WSU 66-3. Best has been great behind tremendous OL play and leading the way of a Bear offense that has had some already a couple of long explosive TD plays.
Maryland QB Turner was awful in place of the injured Stiffy and the Terps may go with Florida transfer Josh Portis. I don’t care what changes Freigden is thinking of doing from his Sunday press conference after his worst loss in school history…the bottom line is Maryland won’t score enough points on offense to make this game close.
Iowa St. +11.5 @ Iowa (3 UNITS)
Isn’t this game always close no matter who has the better team? This rivalry doesn’t seem big to the rest of the country but your talking about a state that has no other pro teams to root for. This is their big in-state game also in terms of recruiting even though both teams aren’t in the same conference.
Arkansas @ Texas –23.5 (2 UNITS)
Okay I say take the points in the rivalry game above but don’t here? I’ve been reading many Texas fans worried about this game saying the Piggies will be playing lights out cause of the rivalry and hatred they have for Texas.
To my generation this rivalry doesn’t exactly fire me up along the lines of OU and A&M. Sure I was pissed when Matt Jones ran all over Texas in 2003 but still this team doesn’t play each other every year or have recruiting wars over Texas kids like it did in the SWC days.
The people that will be the most fired up are the older generation that makes up most of the fans in the stands. The game is in Austin and the edge will go to Texas who’s new stadium renovations will show up when Arkansas has the ball. Some of the players on the field were one year old when Arkansas left the SWC.
This line is too low based on how shitty Arkansas has looked this year rivalry game or not. They have struggled mightily in both games. In the opener they were down to Western Illinois 24-14 in the 4th before the comeback. In the game vs UL Monroe they were down 24-6 in the second half.
My Longhorn buddies have scared me into making this a big play because they somehow think F. Jones and D. Mcfadden will suit up but the points don’t add up looking at the match-ups and the emotion is not going to push this to a close game. I’m probably going to kick myself that I didn’t put more on this game.
Rice @ Vanderbilt –7 (5 UNITS)
What is wrong with this line? Rice was down 35-20 with 6 minutes late before pulling the comeback over Memphis. Memphis did what it wanted on offense for most of the game and Vanderbilt will too.
Vanderbilt after so many close calls last year finally pulls off the big upset against a very stout SC defense. The defense has been terrific this year and while Rice will get some points it won’t be able to match up to a stronger, faster, better-coached SEC team.
TODD REESING UNDER 30.5 PASS COMPLETIONS (4 UNITS) (-135)
In all 13 games Reesing started last year he did not complete more then 30 passes in a game. Yes he's done it in both games this year but the key to Kansas in this game will be running the ball. I expect them to try and establish the run game vs USF because the OT's are both freshman and will be facing arguably the top DE in the country tonight.
**ADDING**
Three game of year lines for Week 4
Wake Forest +6.5 @ FSU (3 UNITS)
Florida @ Tennessee +9 (3 UNITS)
Notre Dame @ Michigan St. -6 (5 UNITS)
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