We have a nice ACC Coastal Division matchup on Saturday afternoon between the Miami Hurricanes and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Will the Georgia Tech group run wild on its own turf and cover the spread? Read on to find out who we are backing with our college football picks.
As the college football odds makers
roll up their sleeves to start trying to balance the action for yet another week of college football, we are
getting more and more of an idea about the lay of the land. Teams are showing
us what they are made of during the early going and we can bet with added
confidence as we have more information to draw from as bodies of work develop.
Miami Played to an Empty
Room
A lot of college football
teams like to schedule some patsies early in the season, and Miami was among
their ranks this year when they scheduled a home game against Bethune-Cookman. College football lines had the Hurricanes listed as 34.5 point favorites, and this gives
you an idea about the level of the mismatch as perceived by the experts.
Perhaps the Miami brain trust
has their reasons, but if you were following the sports news cycle on Saturday
you probably saw the incredibly tiny assemblage that showed up to watch this
game. You can say that the Miami student body, their alumni and people who live
in the area should be more supportive.
On the other hand, who wants
to part with a whole bunch of hard-earned money and pay inflated concession
prices to watch a completely meaningless game that is decided before it even
starts?
If a Game Was Played in
the Woods...
If a game was played in the
woods and nobody saw it, could there be a winner? This a zen koan that Phil
Jackson may want to contemplate, but in fact the Hurricanes did win the ballgame
by a score of 38-10. However, they failed to cover the 34.5 point spread which
means they actually lost as far as I'm concerned.
The takeaway that gets my
attention here is the fact that Bethune-Cookman gained 233 yards on the ground
against the Hurricanes in 53 carries for a 4.4 yards per carry average.
Apparently, even a supposedly outmanned squad like the Wildcats can run on the
Miami defense.
If Bethune-Cookman Can Run
on Miami...
...What will Georgia Tech be
able to do against them? The Yellow Jackets won a big conference came over
Virginia last week by a score of 56-20. When you look back at the line movements you see that Georgia Tech went off as a 10 point
favorite in this game with a total of 52 that the Yellow Jackets were able to
eclipse all by themselves.
In their win over the
Cavaliers Georgia Tech rushed for 461 yards on 50 tries. That averages out to a
rather eye-popping 9.6 yards per play, and there is nothing better than moving
the chains on the ground while the clock continues to run.
When you consider the fact
that the Wildcats of Bethune-Cookman were able to mount an effective running
game against the Hurricanes it would seem as though things might get ugly when
they bring that matador running defense into Atlanta on Saturday.
College Football Pick
At the time of this writing most sportsbooks are listing Georgia Tech as a 13.5 point favorite. I think that
a combination of factors point toward a Georgia Tech cover. From what I wrote
above you know that I think that Georgia Tech is going to be able to run on the weak Miami defense. This is true, but this is also a triple revenge game with Miami having
beaten the Yellow Jackets in each of their last three meetings.
And, it
must be a little bit disheartening on some level to find yourself playing
supposedly big-time college football in a virtually empty stadium as was the
case with the Hurricanes last week. That being said, I am adding the Georgia Tech Yellow
Jackets at -13.5 to my college football picks on Saturday.
Free College Football Pick: Yellow Jackets -13.5