Disrespected Unbeatens
By Judd Hall
There are plenty of ways for a coach to motivate his players to win a college football game. He could play the “we’re better than them” card or even say that the boosters are about to get them all kick ass new cars. The most popular option for a head coach to use when getting his team hyped is talk about the lack of respect they’re getting from everyone not in their locker room.
Yeah, the Rodney Dangerfield angle is cliché, but there is no doubt that it works. We’ve already seen a couple spots were teams have received no respect. Last week there were winless teams favored over teams that broke into the win column and ranked teams were ‘dogs to unranked opponents.
There are some unbeaten squads that will no doubt feel a tad slighted this Saturday. That’s because they’re going into their contests listed as underdogs against teams with a blemish on their record.
Now we shouldn’t really be surprised by this at all. Some of the spots make perfect sense for a one-loss squad to be favored against an unbeaten program.
If you don’t buy into that, then let me ask you this: Do you really believe that the Rams are going to win outright as 15-point road underdogs at Brigham Young? I know that Colorado State has came up with wins against the Buffaloes and Wolf Pack, but those aren’t exactly quality wins. And despite getting their ass handed to them by Florida State, the Cougars have the talent and chip on their shoulder to be victorious in Provo. I’m sure their wives will love it.
Dennis Erickson and Arizona State are listed as a 12 ½-point road pup against the Bulldogs. There are a couple reasons that the Sun Devils aren’t getting respect for a trip to Athens. First, double-digit victories against Idaho State and Louisiana-Monroe are like winning a game of Perfection against a guy with no arms. And Georgia did win in Tempe last season…albeit with Matthew Stafford under center and Knowshon Moreno in the backfield. We could see a lot of scoring through the air as the Devs are averaging 214.0 passing yards per game and the ‘Dogs have given up 721 passing yards against South Carolina and Arkansas.
While those teams have a reason to be listed as underdogs, Texas Christian’s listing this Saturday comes off as strange. The Horned Frogs are listed as three-point road ‘dogs against Clemson this week. TCU was picked by your esteemed pundits here at VegasInsider.com to run away with the Mountain West Conference in 2009. Perhaps what happened to BYU last Saturday night is altering this line. Or maybe we’re reading too much into the line itself.
Bodog’s Richard Gardner offers his insight into this week’s number. “For the TCU game, we will be looking to use Clemson -3 (even) and TCU +3 (-120), but we do want to stay on three. When looking at this game and these two teams we expect a close game and gave Clemson the three points for home field advantage.”
When you look at both sides, the first thing you notice is that both TCU and Clemson have great defenses. The Horned Frogs are eighth in the nation in total defense (213.0 YPG) and the Tigers are 19th (257.0 YPG). Clemson is also coming off of a win against the Eagles that they allowed just 54 yards.
What this game will hinge on is how well C.J. Spiller is able to run on the Horned Frogs. Spiller has picked up 176 yards on the ground so far this season. Now he’s taking on a unit that is third in the country by giving up only 43.5 rushing YPG thus far. Something else to keep an eye on is Spiller’s injured foot. The recent reports are saying that he’s been limited in practice, but the injury isn’t considered serious.
Dave Wannstedt has slowly been building up his squad in Pittsburgh over the last five years. The Panthers are 3-0 for the first time under his guidance. However, they’re not getting respect at the betting shops at the moment as Pitt is a one-point road pup against the Wolfpack.
While that line is short, Gardner doesn’t see it going further than that. “For North Carolina State, we would not be surprised to see some movement on this line and could easily see some early money coming in on Pitt +1 where the game gets pushed to a pick by game time.”
The main focus on this game will be on how well NC State’s Russell Wilson plays against the big boys. Wilson racked up 573 yards and eight touchdowns in his last two games. Great numbers, but they came up against Gardner-Webb and Murray State – neither are ranked in the FCS Top 25. In his only start against an FBS, Wilson threw for 74 yards and was sacked six times.
Pittsburgh is allowing 292.3 total YPG on defense this season. However, the Panthers have been rabid on the pass rush in averaging at least five sacks per game in 2009. And Pitt is 14th in the nation with eight tackles for loss per tilt this year.
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