I was away today, but was checking Bet Rivers because the last two game days they had posted FCS lines first. I was crossed! Bet Rivers didn't put up their number until just now I see. About an hour ago best I got was Howard +24.5 and +1400 at DK. BOL and BM don't even post FCS MLs, pussies. Atleast Bovada will do live and halves, but they don't have anything out yet. So just Howard tonight I expect.
I am still going through the Saturday games. Here are some thoughts I have and targets in the earlier part of the day.
Lehigh at home vs Villanova with the expectation that 'Nova will be a low teen DD road favorite. I'm under the impression that Villanova is kind of sliding a bit. They needed TWO blk'd punts in the final 6 minutes and a 4th down TD with 1min left to beat Delaware in the finale last year to get to a 6-5 record and they were really awful ATS as a favorite, just 1-6 or 2-5 depending on the spreads, and they lost twice as a favorite to Monmouth and to Towson. Their D was really bad last year, they return a lot off that D to their back 7, but the DL is fairly inexperienced (only return 20% of DL production). They are playing Lehigh and Lehigh is a team they routinely roll - like 'Nova has won 10 straight, Lehigh's last win was 2006 31-28! A couple games occasionally are close, like in 2016 and 2017. So I'm not really into Villanova as a road fav, and this would seem to typically be a bad matchup for Lehigh. Lehigh does have a new coaching staff that Phil Steele seems to think very highly of (HC former Yale OC, OC former Colgate HC was 3x Patriot COY, DC was a Dlll HC, but also the DC at ODU for 6 years). Their offense has been getting better (avg 6 pts and 90y per game better last year than 2021), their QB enters his 3rd year starting and the O overall brings back 9 starters and seems to be like they should improve yet again this year. The D needs improvement and opposite of Villanova, Lehigh's DL is in good shape (and not that bad) while the secondary and pass D is a concern. This same QB and Villanova O went deep on them a lot last year in the 45-17 win. Strange in that game that Villanova only outgained them 451-408. Lehigh had just 2 TDs on 5 RZ trips and was just 2-of-5 on 4th down. Seems like this maybe could be a fun game. Line could open as high as 17? We'll see.
Georgetown pretty much loses everything on offense, a good 2 year QB, an AA WR (who knew, an All American WR at Georgetown!), bunch of OL - and they still were held 21 or below in 5 games vs the likes of Lehigh, Monmouth, Columbia, Bucknell and of course Holy Cross I can understand. The Hoya D is all there though. Not like Marist scores many pts, they were also held below 20 pts last year to similar teams (including Georgetown last year). Marist returns some D. This would have to be an Under look. Last year combined for 55, DNP 2021 or 2020, then 46, 53 going back to 2018. So will see what number they come up with. Marist returns a little bit of O, if this line were to be high enough, maybe Marist as a road dog upset with the assumption that the Georgetown O is really going to be rough.
For some reason I think I already talked about New Hampshire and Stonehill somewhere? I like New Hampshire, but their D worries me and this is a big moment for Stonehill. Not sure what they can do with it though. I would want to lay it with UNH assuming the line was below 20, but it probably won't be.
I thought I would be liking Illinois State vs Dayton. I can't believe that Illinois State has averaged under 20 ppg the last 4 seasons! I guess that is what you get when Brock Spack is your HC (Joe Tiller's DC for years at Purdue). I was kind of thinking they'd be decent on O this year. Dayton has new coaching staff, Safety coach from UNH is their DC and UNH D has not been good. Illinois State does better scoring out of conference vs teams their own size or lesser. Dayton would appear lesser. A little cautious because you would expect Spack to have very good defenses here, and he does - always very solid. This year though, they only return 44% of their tackles and just 26% to the DL - lost their DL coach, all DL starters and the MVFC D POY from the LB unit. Does it matter vs Dayton? Will have to see where they line and total it.
Still in the Pioneer League, Davidson runs the option and they have led the FCS in rushing 3 of the last 4 years (were #2 the other year) and they made the playoff in 2021 and 2022. What do I know, last year's QB was a WR after they benched one of the guys who is in the mix for the job this year - do they have a guy to run the style they want to run? Maybe a new guy. The only reason I was thinking about this game is Phil Steele is just gushing about the new coaching staff at VMI. Danny Rocco - he's only had two losing seasons in 17 years of head coaching with stops at Delaware, Richmond and Liberty. New DC is Delaware LB last 3 and they retained QB and WR coach to be the OC. If the staff is as good as it sounds, home opener before back-to-back road games seems pretty important out the gate. Getting back to that Delaware LB coach, the Blue Hens knocked off Navy week 1 last year. All summer to prepare to stop an option attack with a DC who knows how to do it? Sounds good.
We have talked about Northern Iowa and Iowa State in one of the other preseason FCS threads. A lot of people are very high on Northern Iowa this year. Everyone loves Theo Day and what he has become in 3 years there. Concerns being they lose a lot off their OL, however they returned their good OL coach who had a lot of success here. They also lose a lot at LB, but should be good everywhere else - and again, they brought back their DC who was on staff in a variety of assistant roles including former DC when they were better. Those are things I like and I like the history of UNI vs the instate schools and I don't really like what ISU has going on - I wish really that the gambling stuff never happened because I would not be fearful of a full strength ISU team in this game. But the situation is all different and the line and ML odds are going to suck assuming they line it given the circumstances. It seems easy to pick against ISU which I don't like. But I do like the UNI team.
I don't think they put out a low line for Jacksonville State vs ETSU. ETSU is rough. They return just 9% of their OL and 40% of tackles on D. I might try to catch Jax State at open.
I've heard this name Grant O'Neil from Long Island at DE, NEC Rookie of Year as a rFr. Kind of want to see him play. Ohio will be big favorites, which hasn't always been their thing (see some discussion in ML dog thread).
I've heard the natives are starting to get restless with Bobby Hauck at Montana. They don't like thinking maybe State is passing them by. Hauck might want to put up a comfy win to get things started out right assuming they can do that. Could be a time to play Butler later, but hard to think this is the spot to do it. If they make the line high enough maybe - like 40+? Last year after beating two Dll teams to open for their new head coach they got blasted by South Dakota St yet hung in the generous 53 pt line (lost 17-45). Anything closer to 28 and would probably have to play the Griz. They return the QB who got beat out by the guy who isn't there this year, probably a big rushing total game out of them.
That covers the earliest games I felt like talking about
Will work through the other games
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