Week 10 in the FCS

carolinablue said:
I might bite on Harvard if it hits 8
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Hard Rock has 7.5 -110 so could mean FD moves there eventually or others open lower then current (9.5 at FD).

I was busy today and then felt like being lazy tonight. Will be hitting football work hard tomorrow, even though I already have 30 bets in, can always look for more.

Watched that DSU-NSU game tonight. Embarrassing that those two teams were representing FCS football on a national broadcast (ESPNU). Game was played very poorly and really ugly. DSU looked like shit, no offensive TD until the 2H, O didn't do anything until the 4Q. Teams missing xpts, both teams had punts blk'd, tons of penalties, just a bad game to have to sit through.
 
Already taken:

Brown
NAU ML
SFU and ML
NC A&T and Und
Princeton ML
GW-TTU Ov
Maine and Und
Colgate ML
Bryant
Samford
Mer-Fur Ov
Fordham
Southern
UNI
UTM ML
ASU ML
Dartmouth
YSU and Ov
ISU
UTC
ACU
LW ML
AP-SUU Ov
 
Not taking anything in New Haven - Sacred Heart. Hard Rock showing 13.5/47.5. Kind of funny, felt good in going against NH week 1 at Marist, but then I backed them twice in NEC play vs MH and LIU as I just couldn't see either of those teams being DD favs. Turns out their O is rather easy to shut down and the D still offers no resistance So now SHU DD fav and probably should trust them as they have been pretty damn solid all year, but laying DD with SHU just isn't something I like. Good dogs. Everyone has been good favs vs NH...welll except Albany that is. Suppose Over could be something as every Dl opponent NH has played has scored atleast 31 and the last month SHU is avg 30.8 ppg the last month. I just feel better skipping this game.
 
I had wanted to get CCSU on a low number, but when they opened at 10.5 I think it was, I should've taken LIU but didn't and now I'm in limbo on what to do. CCSU is somewhat of an iffy favorite. OT win vs Wagner as 10.5 favs. They did cover 10.5 at RM, but RM outgained them. CCSU won by 7 in OT vs SHU as 6 pt favs. They did beat SFU way back in week 3 as 9.5 favs, but that was a misleading game as CCSU had no O 1H (TD after muffed punt recovery) and then had all kind of short fields for the 2H scores that propelled them to a 31-7 win. I just feel that CCSU can not be trusted as a fav as they generally play in close games. Outside of the SFU game, the avg margin of victory by either team in CCSU games is 7 in their other 5 vs FCS. So close games are to be expected and this is why I regret not taking LIU when I could have. Now the line is 6.5. LIU does have a history of closing seasons strong as the last two years, in each season all 4 of their wins came in the final half of the schedule and they have played well the last 2 weeks after struggling in the middle of this season. The two recent wins are just vs RM and NH however. So I'm stuck now and will just have to wait and see if this line drops lower to intice me to take something on CCSU or if it goes back up I can make a run at LIU and expect a typical close game...LIU has won the last two years 24-21 and 24-23
 
I might've already talked about that game the other day.

I know I didn't have anything to say on the Columbia - Yale game. Just seems the line was about right given how these two have played the last couple weeks. Yale seems to have flipped a switch from a not-the-best early season start to where they are now having gained confidence vs SH and carried it over to a strong game vs Penn last week. Columbia is a mess, their offensive discovery from 2 weeks ago wasn't real and they failed to compete well at all with Dartmouth and they not competed well vs most teams this year. So I understand the 3 TD line for Yale, but wasn't interested either way. Came down to 20.5 now. Columbia is usually not good at all and I always feel the need to say when comparing their games last year that it was their first share of the Ivy title since 1966, so all their results were surprising last year. Like they beat Yale 13-10 as a 2pt home dog. Big swing on the line to now! Yale won a share of the Ivy in 2023 and that year they beat Columbia 35-7 as 9 pt favs. This year feels like it might be like that, but hard to want to lay this big of a number and Columbia inspires no confidence.
 
Lafayette off the bye week and Oregon State loss. Of note is how Lafayette played strong at the Beavs 1H 2 weeks ago. Beavs then blew their doors off in the 2H so think Oregon State probably could've done that 1H too if they were in the right state of mind to execute as such. But Lafayette is having a nice season. 62-24 vs a Rucker-less Bucknell was a bit of a shock in just how efficient that Lafayette O was vs a bad D like that. The week prior, only beat a pesky Fordham team 24-10 and failed to outgained them 402-405 (6.3-5.3). A game like that does show that Lafayette D can have some trust issues. Laf lost a 10.5 pt favs vs Princeton thanks largely to a -3 TO deficit which Tigers used to convert into 3 TDs two of which were on short fields (Laf had 396-328 5.9-4.4 yard edge in the 10pt loss). But they beat Columbia rather easily and generally looked good in wins vs Gtown and SH. So Lafayette is good, can run, can throw, the D....I don't always feel great about, but are in the Patriot League championship hunt for sure. Take away the Fordham game and Lafayette is outgaining every other FCS opponent this year 156ypg!

Holy Cross is just in a lost season and that does make them dangerous because you just never know when they are going to throw the kitchen sink at a game to salvage something positive out of it all. Colgate beat them last week and it was tough, HC led 28-10, but 'Gate came back to win 29-28 and outgained them 320-257. HC hadn't lost to Colgate since 2018. This HC O is awful. Avg only 277ypg vs FCS and they have been outgained vs everyone by 96ypg. As I said they remain dangerous, like two weeks ago they won at Richmond 28-22 as 5.5pt dogs, but did so on just 246 yards (3.9ypp). Richmond could not score TDs in the RZ and one turnover created a short field that HC got a 1 play TD on. And HC RZ D has been a bright spot, if we remember earlier in the year they were very tough to score on down there. But...Colgate didn't have that issue last week scoring TDs on 4 of their 6 trips. And neither did Harvard or Yale. Just the average type or worse Os, like Richmond or Fordham or New Hampshire and URI maybe surprisingly - but those are the teams that had a hard time scoring on HC. Harvard, Yale, Colgate and I think Lafayette is good enough to not have issues scoring. Lafayette's ypp ssn avg vs FCS is 7.4ypp and they did struggle to score in the RZ vs Fordham (1 TD 5 RZ trips) that has not been the case vs anyone else (18 TDs on 21 trips vs other 5 FCS opponents).
 
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Princeton I played last night when the line dipped to -2.5 and took the ML at -132. I think this is kind of like the Brown game when you might remember I said Brown is never favored vs Princeton and Brown is always a bad Ivy team, etc. Well, oddsmakers learned from that mistake dogging Princeton vs Brown, but this is still a pretty short favorite spot for them to be vs the other historically bad Ivy team, Cornell. The line has since bumped back up to 3.5. I respect most of these Ivy teams honestly and I will call Cornell 'tough'. They came back from a 11pt 4Q hole last week to take Brown to OT where Big Red won it in double OT. They beat a Rucker-less Bucknell fairly easily. Harvard was superior to them but it didn't show on the scoreboard and despite the 24 pt loss, Cornell was only down by 10 early 4Q. And Cornell really was tough against Yale as well with the 17 pt loss there also not as bad as it was as that was just a 3pt game 4Q. So Cornell can be a tough out, probably moreso than Brown was for Princeton.

Princeton is still not where they want to be, but they are definitely better than last year. Led Harvard 14-10 near end of 2Q and then Harvard scored a TD (with 2pt) and a FG in the final minutes before the half thanks to a late INT and Tigers had some empty drives SOD deep in Harvard territory. Lost by 21. Harvard beat them by 32 last year and outgained them by 269! This year Harvard only outgained Princeton by 154. Cornell beat Princeton last year as 3.5pt dogs, first time since 2017. I know I said it at one point earlier this year, but everyone likes Craig at Harvard and he is a good QB. But last year I think the best Ivy QB was Wang at Cornell and his Cornell team beat Princton 49-35! Well Wang is not there anymore and Cornell is avg 10 less ppg and a full yard per play less this year over last (ttl O down about 55ypg). 65% completions to 56% this year. Only 11 INTs in 10 games last year, they have 10 INTs in 6 games this year. It's just a much less threatening O out of them right now and I think that Princeton should be able to handle it. Could be a one score game because Cornell is 'tough' but I'm fine taking Princeton to win.
 
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Not sure Davidson-Morehead is for me. Assumption is Morehead is slightly better than the bottom Pioneer teams, but I actually do not know how much better...because they lost at Stetson! Had to hold on to beat Valpo last week by 4. Actually, MH has been outgained vs everyone! Valpo had a 339-331 yard edge, Marist 379-318, Stetson 335-282, Dayton 408-309, PC 445-277. It's ok to be outgained like that vs the top of the league, but how are they not better vs these other bad teams. I think I would look to take Davidson instead. Davidson played well vs San Diego last week. That game was tied often including 28-28 entering the 4Q where SD scored the final 12 pts. Dave is being outgained significantly -127 vs SD and -287 vs Drake, -177 vs St Thomas, -78 vs Stetson. This is the worst team that Davidson has played since losing at Stetson, are they still that bad or is last week evidence they are better? Morehead is never this big of a favorite and doesn't have good history as a favorite. 0-2 ATS this year, 1-0 2024 (beat Valpo 17-5 -1.5), 1-2 ATS 2023 (lost 2 straight up).
 
Took the opening number 20.5 on Bryant. I am assuming that Myer is still out for them. Bryant has been at times this year. Such as last week, lost by 21 vs URI, but failed to cover the spread because URI got 24y pick-six with 2min left in the game to cover. Yardage deficit was just 363-402 (big ypp deficit however 4.4-8.4). Not sure with a different QB how comparable the other games are, but Braynt lost by 2 to Towson as 8 pt home dogs and lost by 2 in OT at Campbell as small road fav. Two concerning games, the 20 pt loss at Maine in the first game without Myer and then a real good start home vs Brown, but faded in the 2H.

Last week showed some concern for Monmouth at Hampton. First start for the new QB and while Monmouth does possess a good RB that they can lean on, the O was surprisingly average vs a bad D in terms of pts scored - just 28 on a Hampton D that had been allowed 37.7 ppg vs FCS. And the O in terms of yardage has been trending downward. They average 576ypg in their first 5, but "just" 427 the last 3. But at the same time, the Monmouth D might be getting better after allowing 483ypg the first 5 to "just" 407 the last 3. A couple misleading finals among the last few games including the Towson and Stony Brook games were both of those were competitive into the 4Q one score games that Monmouth finished to win and cover both.

So that has me thinking the 20.5 on this game was too high. Maybe the O went conservative in the passing game with the new QB last week and might open it up for him in game 2? Last year was 55-10 Monmouth win, so there is that. I would love to take some Monmouth -13 with the Bryant +20.5, but not sure that opportunity arises.
 
They opened Colgate -6.5 and -230 and I choose the ML. It has since risen to 7.5/340. Colgate has been a good team this year considering where they were last year. New coach making a difference. That hasn't always equaled wins or covers for me, most disapointinly the Georgetown game! They are still learning how to win and finish games, last week was a big one to come from 18pts down and beat Holy Cross for the first time in years. Colgate has outgained their last 3 opponents by 63, 111 and 106 yards, but they only won one of those games despite the yardage edge. Prior to that, they showed ability to win by margin in beating Cornell by 20 and Fordham by 23. So I think this is a capable Colgate team. Merrimack not always an easy out, they reminded me of that vs Harvard. But they have lost by 7 to Maine and 25 to Stony Brook and Colgate would probably be a lower-mid CAA team right now and Merrimack would be a bottom CAA team I would imagine. So just taking a team that has impressed me most of this year with their improved play with the new coachin staff vs a tough out in Merrimack, but also one that is fairly limited. Using Robert Morris as an example, Merrimack did win 24-7, but that game was just 10-7 entering the 4Q. Merrimack avg just 302 ypg vs FCS and only 14 ppg. But Merrimack games can be close sometimes so I went with Colgate just to win.
 
Just seeing now the Drake - Butler line has gone from 7.5 to 5.5. That is not the move I was hoping for as I was interested in Butler + a little more. Greedy by me maybe. But maybe it goes lower and there is an opportunity on a cheap Drake price? Will have to see. New Drake coach has continued what they had rolling with the old coach. Good team in this league, do a lot of things well. Not awesome or anything, just good, solid and wins. Butler, I like their competitiveness as well and they have won a couple league games as dogs this year, at St Thomas and at Dayton and showed well in the last home gave vs PC. Just hard to take them now less than a TD, so will have to see where it goes to next.
 
PC is at -31.5 vs Valpo...I thought last night I saw 28.5 and thought "that's odd who bets Valpo". Whether that is what I saw or not, it's 31.5 now. Think we all know PC well enough by now. They had been a good bully...42-7 home vs Stetson as 32.5pt favs, 41-0 home vs Morehead as 20pt favs. If PC is going to only score about the same here, low 40s it gets tight because they shutout MH, but MH was SOD at the P01 and P23 and Stetson got 146y on them in garbage time. So if they aren't going to score more than low 40s covering 31.5 even vs Valpo could be dicey. They only scored 42 on Dll Erskine as well. Now they hit 76 on Bluefield, but I think they are NAIA maybe. Still Valpo is only scoring 10ppg vs Pioneer opponents while allowing Drake and Dayton both 41, but St Thomas hung 55 on them. Would want PC, but would also want a better number (St Thomas was -30.5, Drake was -24.5)
 
Maine is now favored -1.5 as Carolinablue wondered if wrong team was favored there. Maine is very hot, won 4 straight although the only good win was Elon - other wins vs NC A&T, Bryant and Merrimack. I think I already talked about this game, that feels familar saying that because it also feels familiar to say that Elon should not have lost that bad and I don't think Maine is actually that much better than Elon but mentally and from an enthusiasm standpoint, Elon is kind of out of it and Maine is full of it. So think that is what happened there. Stony Brook should be the better team. I was never comfortable when I took them when Zellous was QB and now they are going with a new young QB who followed head coach here from his previous school when they were both together at W Mich. He never played there and is former walk-on. So taking him in first road start vs a hot Maine, also not very comfortable. They do have Dempster and the run game should be ok for SB even vs Maine. Maine has avg over 400ypg and 30ppg in their 4 game win streak but looking at those Ds, I think they don't do that this week. Peevy has 5-1 TD-INT ratio on the win streak and Maine has run it well with a couple different RBs. I don't think there are many big plays in this one, I can see each team have long drives that don't always end in TDs. I took the hot Maine team at home vs SB and the new QB, but the game itself could go either way and it's not like I have a great feeling on it. I also took Under on the sentiment I just typed above. Maine is 4-2 to the Under this year vs FCS including 3 straight. SB is 3-2-1 to the Under with one of the Overs having just 16pts 1H but then 43pts 2H and the other Over hit by .5. This total has moved from 50.5 to 48.5
 
Stonehill is a team I would like to play, I just don't want to lay the 6.5 and I don't trust them enough to risk ML on them at the current price of 245. I had SH pegged to be improved this year and it took some time for that to show, which I think it has now. Yale and Duquesne games, for a team that is still below avg NEC, they can't matchup vs those kind of offenses and the SH O is still limited even vs lesser Ds. Just 22pts and 310 (5.5) on MH last week. 10pts and 234 (4.4) in the ultra low scoring LIU win. 21pts and 261 (4.4) vs Penn several weeks back...clearly this is not an O that is going to do much. And neither is RM O. This total is 40.5 for a reason! I just like that SH has competed vs some teams that were expected or are better than them, straight up dog wins vs MH, LIU and Maine and a close loss to Penn. Still, they've been outgained in every game this year to the tune of 111ypg, including 39.6ypg in their 3 wins. Robert Morris comes in with just one Dl win on the year and it was last week at Saint Francis. RM only led 17-14 and SFU O in terms of total yards and rush yards and ypp and 3rd down conversions had one of their best games on the year...still pretty low numbers, but these are bad NEC Os we are talking about so it's a low bar to say "one of their best". RM O has scored 14pts or less in 4 of their last 5 games. RM O is avg just 292ypg vs NEC + Dayton and Merrimack. There is this 431y they gained on CCSU which is odd and it certainly helps the average. Their D is only giving up 323 vs those teams. I don't know here really, these are two pretty bad teams to try and pick a winner in. And Stonehill as a favorite? Pretty much never. 0-2 last two years ATS and SU in that role (Wagner both games). Last year RM was -14 and won 31-13. RM clearly not that good right now. The more I think about this game the more it is just a pass
 
Gardner Webb is a tough team to get a handle on. The good and primary QB Hampton is hurt, so they have started Pennington the last 2 weeks. He was awful vs UT Martin and the O couldn't run and they lost bad. Then last week, vs a weaker D at Lindenwood, Pennington was pretty solid, but they ran the ball well, 48att-245 with two 100y RBs. But it isn't quite as easy to say "if they run the ball they do well" because they ran well on EIU (251 7.2) but only scored 21 (1 TD on 3 RZ trips). At CSU they had a nicely balanced game and scored 30. So I don't know who is QB vs Tennessee Tech and I don't know how their O is going to produce vs TTU. The D has not been good in some games, like UT Martin or CSU. The D not being good is just what TTU wants to hear after a rough offensive game vs SEMO - ssn low 4.9ypp when they were averaging 7.45 in their other 6 FCS games. Struggled to run the ball and they had their worst passing % game of the year (55%). I would think given the kind of numbers they have put up this year in yards and effieciency and points they can bounce back from an off game. Still scored 42pts on SEMO but that was thanks to a fum ret TD (which they score on D and ST with some regularity) and they used some short field scores. TTU has gone Over all but 2 games this year (5-2) and the one game we commonly attribute to weather (CSU), but then in their next weather game, TTU went off for 52pts. The other game was vs the offensively challenged TSU and TTU uncharacteristicly called off the O in the 2H to keep them at just 35pts. Don't know what we will get with GW team. They should be able to score some 14-24? And the only thing that had kept TTU O from scoring either either themselves or the rain in Charleston. GW just 3-3 vs FCS on totals, but feels like it should set up for an Over as most TTU games do.
 
Took Samford +14.5 at open just because...Wofford as a 2TD favorite? But I'd like to find a way out of it now and have something on Wofford. Don't like laying 10.5 really, but will keep options open. Maybe even if the game is available live I will definitely be looking. Samford has played some decent 1Hs this year. Lost by 36 to UTC last week, but only trailed by 7 at HT. Lost by 15 to WCU several weeks back, but only trailed by 1 at HT. Citadel beat tehm by 27, but only trailed by 4 at HT. Lost by 31 to WGU all the way back in the opener, but 'only' trailed by 10 at HT. The real worry is for a team that has been bad all year, with a coach that is assumed going to be fired, what is the level of commitment? Two weeks ago, they did beat VMI, but probably should not have with the VMI missed 32y FG at the very end. Samford was outgained by 124y vs VMI! 522-398! That is sinking in and I want out of my Samford bet even more now! Wofford rarely shows any offense, but did put up 435y and 31 pts on Norfolk a few weeks back and Samford D will be the worst Wofford has played since then or perhaps all year. Take away that 435y and it leaves the Wofford O avg just 244 ypg vs FCS this year! Wow. Avg 316 ypg the last 2 weeks, so better. And actually, I question if ETSU is kind of giving up on their season also, Wofford could've won that game. Fumbled at the ET 10 mid 4Q. Wofford has shown the ability to craft a good defensive gameplan and play well enough on that side of the ball to win, sure Dickens completed his first 46 passes, but he did so most of time while Wofford was leading the actual game as they kept the WCU O in front of them, tackled well and made the occasional negative play to get them off the field. If anyone watched that WCU game, Wofford was very close to winning. So that is two near misses vs some pretty good SoCon rosters. And then their D did excellent again a 2 weeks ago vs Furman and did win that one by 18 (pick-six boosted the margin). And then just last week, Wofford D held ETSU to their lowest scoring output on the year, 14, and their second fewest yards vs FCS in 323 (4.9). Samford was starting to circle the drain last year and Wofford won 17-13 at 8.5pt road dogs. Terriers were 0-2 ATS as favs last year, lost one straight up, but are 1-0 ATS as favs this year (Norfolk). Somehow someway I will try to get on Wofford to more than offset the Samford bet. With any luck I can middle, but definitely have buyers remorse on Samford. Fortunately the line went with me and I can find a way out.
 
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