College Betting Notes and Quotes
By Teddy Covers
Crouching Tigers
Missouri was expected to take a big step back this year after winning 22 games the last two seasons. The Tigers lost seven All-Big 12 defenders to graduation as well as their gamebreaker Jeremy Maclin and their star quarterback Chase Daniel. But Gary Pinkel’s squad has shown no sign of regression, heading into the Big 12 portion of its schedule with a perfect 4-0 mark.
The Tigers have been impressive on both sides of the football. Sophomore QB Blaine Gabbert has been phenomenal thusfar, completing 66 percent of his passes for 1161 yards, with an 11-0 touchdown-to-interception ratio.
Pinkel on his kid QB: “You look at him sometimes and say, 'How does he do it?’ He finds people downfield….. That's our team. The young guys have learned a lot from the guys ahead of them.”
Meanwhile, the Tigers rebuilt defense has held all four opponents under 400 yards, each foe scoring 21 points or less.
Missouri gets a bye this week, in preparation for their national TV Thursday Night showdown at home against revenge-minded Nebraska next week.
The Tigers have blown out the Cornhuskers by final scores of 41-6 and 52-17 in the last two meetings.
Hopping Frogs
Mountain West heavyweights Utah and BYU went down to defeat at the hands of Oregon and Florida State two weeks ago, leaving TCU as the lone remaining unbeaten team in the conference.
The Horned Frogs did not disappoint last weekend, notching an impressive 14-10 outright upset at Clemson, two weeks after blowing out Virginia in Charlottesville.
TCU head coach Gary Patterson doesn’t want any distraction talking about TCU’s potential to finish the season unbeaten and play in a BCS Bowl game.
Patterson: “I'm not drinking that Kool-Aid.”
The Horned Frogs graduated seven defensive starters, including a trio of linebackers that were selected in the NFL draft. Despite the losses, TCU’s defense has been a difference maker through the first month of the season. They held Clemson to 117 yards in the second half and stopped the Tigers twice on fourth quarter drives inside the TCU 20.
Quarterback Andy Dalton: “Our defense has played great. It's nice to have them on our team. On offense, you don't want to have games 14-10. But it's nice to come out with wins like that.”
TCU is a 28-point favorite at home against SMU this Saturday night, with the total set at 48.5.
Quacking Ducks
Oregon looked terrible in the first two games of the Chip Kelly era. Over the last two weeks, however, the Ducks have been dynamite. They ended the nation’s longest winning streak with a win and cover against Utah, then blasted California 42-3 as 6-point underdogs last Saturday.
Quarterback Jeremiah Masoli was roundly criticized following a series of poor showings to open the season, but Masoli was fantastic against Cal, completing 21 of his 25 pass attempts for 253 yards and three touchdowns.
Masoli: “On offense the sky's the limit for us. We're the only ones who can hurt us. These last couple of weeks we've been in a funk, but today we moved past that…. There's always critics, and it always falls on the quarterback. You try not to think about it, because nobody on the outside really has anything to do with it.”
All of a sudden, the Ducks have some swagger back on the defensive side of the ball as well, after they completely shut down Jahvid Best and the Cal offense.
Defensive tackle Brandon Bair: “Everybody kept asking, 'What are you going to do about Best?' If he can't get past the line of scrimmage, we have nothing to worry about. That was our mentality. We were going to come in here and hit him with all we've got. We know we have the talent, the speed, the ability to stop anybody.”
Oregon gets a bit of a breather this week after four straight intense games to open the season. The Ducks are 31.5-point home favorites against Washington State with the total set at 54.5.
Barking Bulldogs
Fresno State heads into October on a three-game losing streak thanks to a brutal early schedule. Pat Hill’s Bulldogs lost in overtime at Wisconsin, then got beat up by Boise before hanging tough at Cincinnati this past Saturday. Fresno outgained Cinci 443-357 and covered the +17 spread with relative ease.
The Bulldogs' strategy was to keep Cinci’s potent offense off the field by playing ball control football with their running game. Running back Ryan Matthews carried a career-high 38 times for 145 yards, topping the 100-yard mark for the fourth straight game, finding holes galore behind 270 pound fullback Reynard Camp.
“Thirty-eight carries is a lot. The coaches told me to expect the ball every play. It's part of being a running back.”
Bearcats head coach Brian Kelly was impressed: “They conducted the game exactly the way they needed to. I'm glad they're not in the Big East, let me tell you that.”
Fresno held the ball for more than 43 minutes, but their defense couldn’t get the key stops get them the upset, much like the Boise State game.
Regal Eagles
College football’s second longest winning streak ended without much fanfare this past Saturday. Southern Miss travelled to Kansas and came up short 35-28, but still covering the pointspread in defeat. Even in a losing effort, the Golden Eagles had nothing to be ashamed of, taking a Top 20 team to the wire on the road.
Southern Miss head coach Larry Fedora: “There wasn't a time where I didn't think we couldn't win the game. When the defense got the ball back for us with two minutes left with no timeouts, I thought we'd march right down the field and score. I felt confident that way.”
Southern Miss knocked off one BCS school two weeks ago, rallying from behind to beat Virginia, but the injury to leading rusher Damion Fletcher (only 10 carries for 27 yards) left the Eagles offense out of balance.
Even in defeat, quarterback Austin Davis was pleased: “We came here and wanted to earn respect because we didn't feel like we were getting a whole lot. We're obviously not happy about the loss, but we feel like we got a little respect today.”
Southern Miss travels to UAB on a short week, facing the Blazers on Thursday night. They’ll likely be without both Fletcher (groin) and their big play wide receiver DeAndre Brown (shoulder). There is no line out for this game just yet. The sportsbooks want to be sure of Fletcher and Brown’s status before they hang a number.