College Football week 6 Thur and Fri

College football week 6.  Last week was a tough week.  Started out strong on Friday with Temple just over powering Charlotte in the rain.  Then in the games that kicked off at 4 p.m. EST or earlier went 3-1 for a 4-1 overall with 4 games pending.  I was feeling pretty good about the day.  The way it was going no way can the late games go 0-4.  What’s that?  They did, well fuck me sideways.  Notre Dame could’ve went either way from a win if you got them at +3, push at +2 or a loss at +1.5, which is what I had them at.  Thought they would win.  So while your record might vary, I went 4-5 on the week giving me a season total of 24-23-3.  Not great.

Looking back at the past few weeks results I’ve noticed that it’s gone loss, win, loss, win, loss.  That seems like a pattern, at least I hope.  I’ve also noticed that I seem to be stuck on 4 wins each week, except week 2 which had 8.  I only had 7 games in week 4 so that was a winning week with 4 wins.  So 4 seems to be the moving average, and an area of resistance that I need to breakthrough.  I’ve done a nice once through and have 5 games that I’m digging on right now.  Perhaps that means that I will go 4-1 on those games.  That’d be nice.  The problem is that I have a 7 other games I flagged for further inspection that could turn into plays.  What to do what to do. 

One of those five games I like is a Thursday night game, so without further ado, let’s get to the weekday games. 

SMU at Houston (-25.5):

Wow that’s a lot of points for a conference game of in state budding rival game.  Houston has been playing with it’s pants on fire on offense this year, absolutely moving the ball at will on it’s opponents.  They have the mastermind behind Ohio States potent offense last year running the show as the head coach.  SMU comes in on the opposite end of the spectrum at 1-4 and 425 yards of offense.  While that is a lot for an NFL team, it’s not competitive in the high flying college games.  Houston has over 600 yards of offense on average.  That’s an offense.  SMU defense is allowing 594 yards per game, so Houston should be able to pad some stats in this game.  Houston does struggle stopping the pass, and that is SMU’s strong point.  While I don’t think SMU can score enough points to keep up with Houston in this one, I’m not sure if they can keep it under 4 td difference.  Pass on this one.

Washington at USC (16.5):

I was a backer of USC a couple weeks back against Stanford and they laid an egg.  They bounced back in their next game blowing out Arizona State.  I’m going to side with them in this one against Washington off the bye at home.  Washington hasn’t really been tested this year.  They opened in Boise State and kept that close, but that probably had more to do with Peterson’s familiarity with coaching there than anything else.  They then played FCS Sacramento State, Utah State and California at home.  They won the first 2 but lost the last.  Cal was probably biggest test 2 weeks ago and they were outgained by 222 yards and gave up 3 more turnovers.  Washington is -3 in Turnovers on the year while USC is +6.  USC can move the ball averaging over 525 yards a game, while only surrendering 400 on defense.  Kessler has been lights out throwing the ball for the Trojans with 15 td’s and 1 int.  My ratings system says USC should be closer to -24, so lots of value on USC here.  I’m taking USC and laying the points in this one. 

Friday Night:

Southern Miss at Marshall (-5):

The last couple of years if you could get Marshall laying under a touchdown at home it was like printing money.  This year though, the offense doesn’t have that same pants on fire play to it.  While they have been able to run the ball successfully, they have struggled passing it.  Fortunately for them Southern Miss is allowing over 200 yards rushing per game.  The ratings system has these teams ranked pretty similar, so depending on how favorable you are with home field, this line is about right.  Not much value and 2 teams that are playing unpredictable football is not a recipe for success.  Pass on this game.

NC State at Virginia Tech (-1.5):

This game is very questionable for a few different reasons.  First VT has lost last 2 games, and that is weird to say.  NC State was putting up big numbers before shitting the bed last week against Louisville.  I have no idea what happened in that game other than the fact that it was a snooze fest.  NC State and Louisville combined for a total of 534 yards, TOTAL!.  That’s less than Houston averages by itself.  Who knows what you’re going to get with NC State.  VT is no prize either.  I’m not asking either of these 2 teams to dance, pass.

Pick of the week:

Yep this is new.  Will it work, it should.  The percentages are very very favorable.  Syracuse +2.5 at USF is my pick of the week.  No way Syracuse should be an underdog in this game.  They are fully healthy this week.  USF has just been bad this year.  They returned home last week with a winnable game against Memphis and blew it, losing by a td.  I’ll get into more details later with my weekend picks, but I’m BIG on Syracuse.  Be safe and buy the half point because I’ve seen accidents happen before.