College Football Week 0/1 | Odds, Analysis and Predictions on All Game

Gary Segars:

College football show for BetUS TV. I am your host, Gary Segars. Of course, you can follow me on Twitter at Gary WCE. Along with that, I have our experts here and it is the early week zero and week one college football guide. We’ve got a lot to talk about. Let me go ahead and introduce the experts. Of course, on the left side of your screen, we have Parker Fleming. You can find him on Twitter @statsowar. Parker, I know you’re excited, right?

Parker Fleming:

Well, a day closer every day for a while now. So pretty excited, man, and getting into some of these games. I’m ready for the fall, man.

Gary Segars:

Oh, most certainly. On the right side of your screen as well. We have our sports NCAA betting lines expert, Kyle Hunter @KyleHunterPicks. Kyle, how are you doing my friend?

Kyle Hunter:

I’m doing great guys. The off season, it seems like it takes a while for college football to get back around. I know we have a couple months still, but I’m excited to do this here today. And I think all of us share this that I don’t really consider this a job as much as we really enjoy this. This is fun for all of us. I was kind of amped up the last half hour before this guys.

Gary Segars:

Oh, most certainly. I don’t think it’s ever too early to start discussing college football. Obviously we all love it. We have all talked about it all summer, really. I mean, we have our own little group chat where we’re talking about things that are going on in this sport. And now we finally get to talk about some games. Of course, we will be rehashing these after fall camp and whatnot because there is a lot that will happen between now and the end of August. But we do want to go ahead and start off with things. Let me go ahead and remind everybody, like the video, make sure that you are subscribed to the channel because we got a lot of content coming for you this fall. We are going to start things off middle of August roundabout, but we will be doing shows on Tuesdays and Wednesdays at 1:00 PM Eastern time, every single Tuesday and Wednesday. So make sure that you are here, that you jump into the chat, that we’ve got all kinds of things going.

Gary Segars:

So first things first, let’s go ahead and dive into the first game, week zero. We’ve got a big one. It’s a conference game in the big 10. We’ve got Nebraska going up against Northwestern. The line currently sits at Nebraska favored by 12 and a half. The total is 50 and a half. This one opened at 10 and a half and has jumped up. And of course the line or the total is still the same here. Kyle, I want to start off with you. It’s a 12:30 PM Eastern time game on Fox and it’s in Dublin Ireland. Now everybody knows, a reasonable sports man would know that Scott Frost is a little bit on the hot seat here at Nebraska. They went three and nine last year, but they wildly underachieved compared to what their post game win expectancy was, et cetera. Their post game win expectancy said they should have been closer to eight wins as opposed to three, they lost eight one score games. Kyle, give me your thoughts here initially on Nebraska heading into this season.

Kyle Hunter:

Nebraska’s a tough one because certainly the best three and nine team ever, but you don’t really want to be the best three and nine team ever. Casey Thompson transfers in, a quarterback. I do think that’s probably an upgrade. I mean, Martinez was so up and down. We’ll talk about Martinez plenty of times throughout the course of the season I’m sure, but Whipple, the new OC here, I think is a good hire as well. Not great skilled position talent for Nebraska around them. I think Cam Taylor-Britt at cornerback is a big loss certainly. This run defense, I think will be a bit weaker. In general, Nebraska. I mean, how can you not think they’re going to improve, but the market knows that, the odds makers know that. So it’s a little bit tough because I’m not saying anything earth shattering to say, Nebraska’s going to be better than they were last year.

Kyle Hunter:

They’re going to be better than three and nine. So I don’t know that it’s really a bylaw spot. And then this line got up to 13 and then it’s dipped back a little bit to 12 and a half. This one being played in Dublin, Ireland. Gary, I don’t know. I mean, this is one where Nebraska Northwestern last year, I unfortunately watched a decent amount of that game. And Northwestern just was terrible. 427 rushing yards allowed, 8.9 yards per play for Nebraska. I think we know more about Nebraska though, than we do about Northwestern. I mean, it was Northwestern just down for one season and they’ll bounce back. They have been the up and down team that they’ll lose, come back the next year and be good. I don’t know. I think Nebraska is clearly better than they were last year.

Kyle Hunter:

And Frost is, I mean, his seat as hot as you get, Northwestern, their defense was so weak last season. I don’t know if Northwestern’s defense was worse because Jim O’Neil was just doing a bad job as the defensive coordinator, if it was more about the talent that they had or lack of talent on defense. So Nebraska is certainly a better team. How much better? I guess we’ll see.

Gary Segars:

I’d say you did bring up the yards per play in this game last year, by the way, Nebraska won at 56 to seven and it was not even a game after the first quarter. It was just a ridiculous matchup. Nebraska averaged 8.1 yards per rush. And they ran the ball 53 times. They realized early that Northwestern could not stop him. And they just continued to run over and over and over again. Parker, let’s jump over to you. Northwestern does get back Cam Porter this year. He was injured in fall camp last year. And he was a big part of their offense in 2020, why they were able to go to the big 10 championship game. But after that, I mean, you’ve got him to pair with Hull, I don’t know what the rest of the offense looks like. And I don’t know that their defensive line has, or even their front seven has improved enough to be able to deal with Nebraska’s offensive line. Give me your thoughts on this one.

Parker Fleming:

Yeah. This is not one of those years where we’re going to say, wow, Pat Fitzgerald is a great developmental coach and Northwestern is at the top of the cycle and they’ve really hit on a lot of these guys that are all experienced and developed at the same time. Kyle mentioned last year being a dip for Northwestern, but I might even suggest maybe 2020 was a dip in the positive direction and a fluke that way. Northwestern last year. I mean, wasn’t super competitive in games, was generally pretty feckless once they got into scoring opportunities. I know there’s a couple of games where for instance, my numbers looking backwards, had them competitive, but they just underperformed so much in the red zone and in scoring opportunities that they were really under the ground.

Parker Fleming:

You couple that with their rated 69th in returning production, that’s not a formula for a Pat Fitzgerald winning team there and their quarterback situation doesn’t really inspire confidence. So you can look at all these units and say on paper. I don’t really know what I’m supposed to be excited about with Northwestern here. I mean, their run defense is a little bit better than their past defense last year, but they’re losing so much. I really don’t know how big of a step forward you can say that they’re going to take. On the flip side of that. You look at Nebraska, they were a really good team, but they’re a 104th in returning production, including bringing in a transfer. Casey Thompson, who started at Texas last year for a lot of the season.

Parker Fleming:

I really think that Nebraska’s time to strike last year was, or excuse me, last year, Nebraska, it was the time for them to strike and they really underperformed. Again, this matchup is going to be a lot of volatility on Nebraska’s side and a lot of lower ceiling, but more consistent Northwestern team here. Then you throw in, “Hey, we’re going to Dublin, we’re playing with jet lag. We’ve got time and everything.” I think that a mistake prone game is definitely what we’re looking at here. And that makes me favor the more consistent Pat Fitzgerald team than it does necessarily the more volatile, maybe more desperate in Nebraska team.

Gary Segars:

No, that certainly makes sense. I will tell you that I am very curious what this team looks like without Aidan Hutchinson and without Casey Thompson, as you brought up the Texas quarterback coming in, he looks great. It was Aidan Hutchinson, just one of those guys that cannot get it done in crunch time when he needs to, and maybe Casey can come in and fix some of that. That’s what I’ll be interested in seeing. My initial lean was Nebraska. As of right now, I’m staying away from this one because I want to see the fact that it’s in Dublin, the fact that whenever Northwestern has a down year, they typically bounce back and we’ve seen this from Nebraska until Scott Frost proves to me that he can win tight ball games. I’m a little curious about this. So that one, of course on Saturday, August the 27th. Let’s go ahead and move into the week one games.

Gary Segars:

And we’ll start with Thursday night. Let’s talk about West Virginia and Pitt. Now, this one is 7:00 PM Eastern time on ESPN. This is a very interesting matchup with a ton of storylines. Of course, the backyard brawl, we all know about the rivalry between Pitt and West Virginia. But on top of that, the quarterbacks are the story here. JT Daniels transfers from Georgia to West Virginia to join up with Graham Herald, a new offensive coordinator there, along with Neil Brown, the head coach, and you’ve got Kedon Slovis, who was at USC, who was the one that took JT Daniels’ job from him when JT Daniels was first injured out at Troy along. I mean, these two matchups, these two teams are going to be so interesting this year, just based on new faces. I am really curious what each of them looks like. Pitt returns a lot more of their production from last year than West Virginia does, but West Virginia did bring in a ton of transfers. Parker, let’s start off with you. Tell me what you know about the Mountaineers and the Panthers here.

Parker Fleming:

This one is one great for college football of that. These two teams are playing again, and that it’s going to be a marque matchup early in the season, props to both these teams for scheduling this. This is an interesting litmus test of what you think Pitt was last year. So Pitt was a very high volume passing offense. They had a Biletnikoff receiver in Jordan Addison. They had Kenny Pickett who was a fifth year senior, super experience, who really hadn’t shown a lot of promise, but was consistent enough to run this offense. They are losing so much overall and replacing it with, I think more question mark. So you lose Addison, you lose Brennan Marion, who is coordinator of the pass game. He’s a Texas. Now you lose Whipple, the offensive coordinator to Nebraska. And you replaced them with, I’m not sure at wide receiver and Kedon Slovis and Frank Cignetti, a guy who hasn’t been in college football since what, 2018. That is worrisome to me.

Parker Fleming:

The real kicker there for me though, is that while Pitt’s pass offense was high volume and good last year, their defense really helped them win games. Their offense, in terms of average efficiency struggled. I think that Pitt, their defensive quality will be similar to what it was last year, looking at what they lose and what they return. But if you look at the net loss and gain, I think Pitt is really destined to take a step back. They had a really easy schedule last year, a down year in the ACC, and they lose all those offensive weapons and identity that made them who they were. On the flip side, West Virginia, working the transfer portal, goes and gets JT Daniels. Last year, their offensive line got better. Their wide receiver course stopped dropping so many passes.

Parker Fleming:

They just were at times limited by not being able to figure out what to do with Jarret Doege at quarterback. So I think that West Virginia is taking a clear step forward from the team they were last year. I think Pitt is taking a clear step back. My role numbers would have this within a touchdown, but I really think that in favor of Pitt, excuse me. But I really think that West Virginia is going to be trending up and Pitt is going to be regressing a little bit, which is a nice spot for a mismatched line, especially early in the season with not as much in season data.

Gary Segars:

Totally makes sense. Kyle, my favorite matchup of this entire thing will be Graham Harold, going up against Pat Narduzzi’s defense to see what that West Virginia offense is going to look like. I’m curious, what are your thoughts on this?

Kyle Hunter:

Well, I think a lot like Parker has on this one, in fact there’s going to be some of the games that I don’t have a very strong opinion on, but I do like West Virginia in this game. I think West Virginia, I think Neil Brown’s probably underrated as a coach. Graham Harrell, a really good offensive coordinator hire. And if you look at Pitt, I think Pitt’s secondary is only okay. They’re really helped by the pass rush being so good. I think on the Pitt side, Slovis, I mean, he was tremendous there a couple years ago at USC. He hasn’t been as good since. I think Slovis is a good quarterback, but they bring in a new offensive coordinator in Cignetti who really wants to run the football consistently. So is that going to be a great fit for Kevan Slovis or not?

Kyle Hunter:

I’m not sure. I think the offense is down quite a bit. The other thing about West Virginia is Jasir Cox, the transfer from North Dakota state, I think could be pretty good on defense. The defense underachieved in my opinion last year did West Virginia. I think west Virginia’s undervalued. If you look at their field position last year, just horrible. I mean, they’ve got to do better field position. I don’t think they could be that bad again. I mean, maybe they could. And then you got JT Daniels. We assume he’ll be the starter. I know they were saying Daniels green, “Goose” Crowder. I had to say “Goose” Crowder at least once. So all the offensive line back. Good run blocking. I think that the wide receivers are pretty good. They lacked depth. Leddie Brown’s gone. I think you could argue though, the talent in the backfield overall is better this year at West Virginia than it was last year. To me, stock arrow pointing up on West Virginia and pointing down on Pittsburgh. So I would want to take West Virginia in this one.

Gary Segars:

Totally.

Parker Fleming:

One thing I wanted to ask Kyle about this, because Kyle you’re the totals master man. Anytime anyone asks me a question about totals. I’m like, just go talk to Kyle. But I’m looking at my rush rate above expected. Pitt’s defense last year, 5.7% less, that teams rushed against them. So their high volume passing offense induced teams actually to pass more and keep up. And then on offense, Pitt was passing 9.1% more than the average team. West Virginia’s defense though, teams were rushing a 0.001% more against West Virginia than average. People were actually rushing exactly what you would expect against West Virginia. In terms of totals, I think that there’s a really interesting question here about who dictates the pace of play. And a lot of that is hard with a new offensive coordinator, a new quarterback, but I think that a pace of play here is going to be potentially a really interesting play for a total just because there is a lot of uncertainty in how teams are approaching both of these teams last season and all of the turnover this year.

Kyle Hunter:

Yeah. There’s probably too much uncertainty for me about this total, to be honest. I mean, Harold is a big upgrade at offensive coordinator. I assume West Virginia will be much better on offense at the same time. I see Cignetti trying to slow the game down and run the football a lot more than Pitt did last year. So if we had two teams that were wanting to play faster or two teams that were wanting to run more than I’d be looking to either and over and under, but I feel like we might be working different ways here to where it just puts me back to neutral. I don’t know what to do with the total on this one. These are two teams that after we see the first week or two, I’d like to try to start circling for totals because I think we could see some changes from both Pitt and West Virginia this year.

Gary Segars:

Cignetti, by the way. It certainly makes sense as an offensive coordinator hire for Pat Narduzzi. I don’t know how much sense Mark Whipple made, but it ended up working. So that worked out. The line on this, by the way, Pitt is favored by seven, currently with a total of 54, it opened at Pitt minus six and a half with a total of 55 and a half. So it has come down that total by about a point and a half. I’m curious to see what the action will be going forward. Let me go ahead and remind everybody, jump into the chat. We’ll try and answer some questions at the end of the show. And if you have not already, make sure that you are subscribed to the podcast. It is the BetUS Football Podcast. You can get both the NFL show and the college football show in your feed right there.

Gary Segars:

So make sure that you are subscribed. Leave a nice five star review. That would certainly help us out for sure. Gentlemen, we’ve got a big one on Saturday afternoon. This one is at 3:30 PM Eastern time on ABC, Oregon against Georgia and Georgia is a 17 and a half point favorite total of 51. This one is a “neutral” site game in Atlanta. And of course the storyline here, Oregon loses Mario Cristobal to Miami and they go and hire Georgia’s defensive coordinator from the number one defense in the country last year, Dan Lanning. And he comes in and he immediately gets Bo Nix, the quarterback at Auburn to transfer over to Oregon. So that is another storyline in this one. The former Auburn quarterback is now the starting quarterback at Oregon. He gets to face off against the bulldogs again.

Gary Segars:

I know we’re all excited about it. This one opened at Georgia minus 16 and it’s risen a point and a half there. And the total has remained at 51 the whole time. Kyle, I want to start off with you. I don’t think roster wise that these two teams are as far apart as people really believe that they are. Give me your thoughts on this one.

Kyle Hunter:

Well, I mean, I feel for Dan Lanning, right? I mean, he gets this job and he has to go against his previous team immediately. It’s harsh. Bo Nix, I think Bo Nix is probably better than Anthony Brown. I don’t think Brown was really that good. I mean, Oregon didn’t win because of Anthony Brown last season. So this is a good offensive line. I think Oregon’s offensive line will be strong again. Really good tight ends. Very good tight ends. Big drop off at running back for Oregon compared to last year with [Fordel] and Dye both gone. I think the defense is still going to be very good. Obviously they lost a lot from last year. The secondary is probably the weakness for Oregon. The front seven will be pretty good. If you look at it from the other side though, Bennett, I mean, we could get in a pretty long discussion.

Kyle Hunter:

So I’ll try to not take too much of your guys’ time, but Bennett is still a pretty good game manager. I mean, I like him. He’s a good leader. We’ve talked about this several times, but I don’t think that just because Georgia won the title and he had a couple good quarters that all at once Stetson Bennett, this superstar quarterback. I actually root for Stetson Bennett. He’s really, really nice acting kid, a lot of fun, but inexperienced scale position talent around him. I think they’re good, certainly, maybe similar offensive numbers to last year, something like that. On the defense, they were all time defense last year. They can’t be that good. Right? I mean, I don’t know that we’ll see another defense that good for quite a while as far as Georgia’s defense last year, the defensive line is their biggest drop off.

Kyle Hunter:

Ringo’s really good in the secondary, very good talent. We know they have five stars all over the place, but they can’t be quite as good as last year. I’m really having a hard time with this one. And in my notes, I put in all caps, no lean on this game. I don’t know what to think. This is just a game that I don’t want to lay this many points with Georgia. I think this is an awful lot of points for a total of 51. Having said that, I’m not really excited to take Oregon here, because I feel like there’s too many question marks about them.

Gary Segars:

I tend to feel the exact same way. Georgia only returning 44% of their defensive numbers back. I’m curious what these two teams are going to look like. The 17 and a half just seemed like a ton of points. My lean would certainly be on Oregon, but at the same time I did this with Miami against Alabama last year. Alabama did not have a ton of returning production and yet they came out and looked like gangbusters in that first game. So it is what it is. Parker, let me get your thoughts here. The Oregon offensive line against the Georgia defensive line, I think could be a fun match up just to see with some of these inexperienced players. I don’t expect a lot of points here. What say you?

Parker Fleming:

No, this is going to be shockingly very like old school football. I mean, we might see more 13 personnel from both teams than we see in another game that’s not played outside of the Mac all season. There are just a lot of dudes that want to line up. Obviously with Lanning, he’s going to favor that kind of slower, more conservative offense a little bit like what Georgia is saying, “Hey, we’ll pound it. We’ll take shots when we get you catching sneaking up.” But they’re going to want to play with tight ends a lot. I think that’s a decent recipe for the Pac-12, but I don’t know if that’s a decent recipe for facing Georgia on week one. One thing to say about Georgia’s defensive line, they’re inexperienced, but they’re all blue chips. They’re all four and five star athletes.

Parker Fleming:

Georgia’s talent level is increasingly getting larger over the rest of the nation. Oregon last year, when they were able to run the ball against Ohio state, for instance, they were able to dominate and play that control game. I wonder if they’ll let it fly a little bit more on offense this year, but I don’t know that they’ll be able to run over Georgia’s defense, even if they have some of these beefier offensive linemen, they have a step back at running back there. The last thing that I’m really thinking about here is Oregon couldn’t really stop the run. We saw Utah just do whatever they wanted against Oregon’s defense, especially in the run game. Kirby Smart has not shown that kind of Nick Saban desire to just drop 70 on someone to shut up a narrative.

Parker Fleming:

This would be a time for Kirby smart to do that. I still don’t know if they’ll do that. I think they’ll get Kendall Milton a lot of touches at running back, bringing him into that leading role. And then of course, between Bowers and Gilbert and Darnell Washington, they’re going to want to get those tight ends involved. I think Georgia will get ahead early and then sit on a lead still trying to play that dominant physical ball and really test that defense and work those tight ends and running back in. So I’m expecting low scoring here. And so I’m reluctant to lean, but I think that Georgia’s stylistically is going to be a little bit more favorable than Oregon here.

Gary Segars:

I know. That certainly, certainly makes sense. I am curious of your thoughts on that offense. Does it feel like with the tight ends in the running backs and all that, and they do have play makers elsewhere with Stewart and whatnot or Smith, I’ve got the names wrong. Either way, does it feel like they built this offense for Stetson Bennett? I mean, it feels like that mid-range game is what they’re going for here.

Parker Fleming:

It could very much be the case that Todd Monken designs a better offense for Georgia this fall. And they are worse in an efficiency sense than last year because it requires Stetson Bennett to make decisions, get balls over the middle of the field consistently and maybe throw to tight ends in more contested catch situations. Again, you watched last year, Todd Monken did a great job of knowing that they had athletes and knowing how to get them open. And I mean, a lot of those balls that were deep, a lot of quarterbacks could have hit it and props to Stetson Bennett for hitting those in a general range. But it’s a lot different equation to chuck it up to a super athletic wide receiver who’s going to make a play and fit the ball into a tight window in a contested catch to a tight end.

Parker Fleming:

So that change, I think, could be a little rocky for Stetson Bennett. I’m certain that Monken is thinking of that, but that would be the one caveat is, maybe Georgia isn’t exactly as great outside, especially at wide receiver. Maybe they’ll rely on those big guys inside a little more. That might be a little bit tougher for Stetson Bennett because of those tighter windows.

Gary Segars:

Totally makes sense. Do want to go ahead and remind everybody jump into the chat. I’ve seen several people in here. Robert S jumped in, said the magnificent trio is back. Mark Holmes of course jumped in, has left quite a few comments, but he also earlier said, Parker looks like he’s ready to put on the pads and go hit somebody. And I will agree. I think we all are, honestly. But yes, jump into the chat. If you have any questions about games that we do not hit, we will try and hit those at the end of the show. Again, subscribe, like, share the show out, jump in the comments, et cetera. We’ll move on, Saturday, September the 3rd, 3:30 PM eastern time on ESPN, Cincinnati heads to Fayetteville, Arkansas to take on the fighting Sam Pittman here, Arkansas, a six and a half point favorite currently, total of 54 on this one.

Gary Segars:

And Parker, I’m going to start off with you on this one. The roster strength is heavily in favor of Arkansas, I believe. And returning production, Arkansas does lose quite a few, but they do bring back their quarterback. They do bring back a coordinator. Now, well, both coordinators and the head coach with Cincinnati. It’s a little bit of a different story here. This was the first appearance of Cincinnati coming off of a playoff birth, they lost nine players to the NFL draft, including all of their starting school players and a bunch of the defense. Parker, tell me what we should know about the Bearcats in the Razorbacks this year.

Parker Fleming:

This is a game I would’ve loved to see last year, because it does feel like that Cincinnati is in a very different place than Arkansas is right now. I actually ran my numbers on this just straight last year data. I would’ve had Arkansas 25, Cincinnati 23. Man, I would’ve loved to see that game. Cincinnati’s definitely building for the future. Luke Fickle, they’re on pace for a top 25, like an honest to God, top 25 recruiting class. They’re really building up. Their answer at quarterback this year might be Ben Bryant who is at Eastern Michigan or they might go with a younger, more inexperienced guy. I’m long on Cincinnati. I think that they’re building the right direction. They’re moving to the big 12. They will be a competitor. They’re obviously going to take a step back from last year.

Parker Fleming:

And it’s unfortunate here because Arkansas’s going to have the talent advantage overwhelmingly in the trenches. And Arkansas’s going to have these schematic advantage on offense versus defense, especially as Cincinnati’s replacing two great cornerbacks in Coby Bryant and Sauce Gardner. They’re losing their leading edge tacklers or linebacker. I mean, just every position, their dominant wide receiver in Alec Pierce. It’s hard to look at this and think that Arkansas won’t win. I know that Cincinnati is prepping for this. I know that they’ll be competitive just because they are always competitive in games. And Arkansas, I think, with Kendal Briles, they’re actually a little more conservative than you think. And I know that they want to protect KJ Jefferson, knowing that he’ll be taking a lot of rushing attempts.

Parker Fleming:

So it wouldn’t surprise me if Arkansas plays a little more, even keel, a little less volatile and erratic against Cincinnati that might keep this total a little bit or might keep this line a little bit closer. But I really do think that Arkansas is just overwhelmingly more talented and poised to be at the top of their development cycle. Whereas Cincinnati, obviously their successes last year, losing so much is going to have to start that cycle over again this year.

Gary Segars:

Well, I think we saw it in the bowl game or in the playoff game. I mean, Alabama was not able to run on anybody in the NCC and against Cincinnati. They handed it off, basically every play. They didn’t have to use Bryce Young against a Sauce Gardner or a Coby Bryant or whatever. I’m very curious. You said that they have a schematic advantage with Kendal Briles against that Cincinnati defense, but I’m curious to see what Luke Fickle decides to draw up here whenever his back is against the wall and he knows that he’s got the lesser team. He can bring out some interesting formation, some interesting things to tease up the offense a little bit and make the defense appear a little better. What I want to know, Kyle, let’s move over to you. How does KJ Jefferson look without Burks? He was the lynchpin of that offense last year. He was the deep play threat. I want to know what KJ Jefferson looks like when he has to go to other receivers. Give me your thoughts on these two teams.

Kyle Hunter:

I mean, I think KJ Jefferson’s going to be handing the ball off a lot this year. I’m not saying that they won’t throw, but I would imagine there’s going to be a lot of running. They have a good offensive line. Pittman’s obviously an offensive line guy. And honestly, Pittman and Fickle are both really good coaches. Two coaches that I like to root for. They do a great job, motivating their teams. I do agree with Parker. I would’ve rather seen this game last year than I would right now. If you look at Arkansas, Arkansas’s usually a bit weaker stopping the run. Their secondary is very good. Jalen Catalon, a really good safety. Can they stop Cincinnati from running the ball? I think both teams want to run the ball here. I would lean to the under if I had something in this game, not strong, but that would be my initial lean. Raider gone, probably Bryant at quarterback, which correct me if I’m wrong.

Kyle Hunter:

But I believe he was at Cincinnati a couple years ago and then went to Eastern Michigan and then came back, which is just odd. Running backs are a deep group. I think Cincinnati runs the ball a lot here too. So I think we see quite a bit of running, who can stop the run. I’ve seen some people saying Cincinnati’s secondary. I know they lost top players, but I mean, they recruit well and Fickle is a good defensive coach. They’re not going to be bad in the secondary, but you can’t lose guys like that not drop off quite a bit. That’s just too much talent. So I don’t know if we’ll see at this game as much, because I’m not sure Arkansas’s going to take a lot of deep shots or throw it around, but certainly their secondary’s going to be down. So I would imagine that there’ll be a lot of running the football and see who can stop the run in this game. So my lean here is the under.

Gary Segars:

I tend to go with you as well. I would lean Arkansas right now, especially since that line has dipped below seven. It opened at seven and a half. The total has stayed the same at 54. I tend to think that Arkansas has the decided advantage at roster strength. So my lean would certainly be on the Razorbacks at home because I think that place is going to be wild on Saturday. We will move on to another 3:30 PM Eastern time game on CBS Sports network. And this one may be the most exciting game of the entire opening weekend. And that would be Houston as a four and a half point favorite total of 59 and a half going to UT San Antonio, UTSA. This is a fun matchup. This opened at Houston minus six and a half. The total of 59. The total has gone up a half point, but the favorite is now two points less of a favorite.

Gary Segars:

The roster strength here is decidedly in favor of Houston. The returning production is in favor of UTSA. And while I’m sure that everybody wonders what the Road Runners are going to do. And Jeff Traylor going into a season after they went 12 and one before the bowl game. I want to know, Parker we’ll start off with you on this. I want to know about the G five darlings here, because both of these teams were really good, made it to their conference title games last year. I want to know your thoughts. I know that Clayton Tune is back for Houston, but I feel like Houston should be favored by a lot more here. And UTSA is right there and at home. We know that Alamodome can get crazy. Parker, tell me what you know.

Parker Fleming:

One, yeah, you got to respect the Alamodome, man. The crazy things happen there. It gets loud. It’s wild. I think that UTSA last year, you have to absolutely give props to Frank Harris. In 2020, and then coming into 2021, all the talk was about Sincere McCormick, who is a great college running back. But Frank Harris that quarterback really, really developed. He improved his completion percentage from 2020 to 2021 by about four percentage points while increasing his average step of target and his yards per attempt. Gary in 2020, Frank Harris, 10 to five touchdown interception ratio. 2021, it was 23 to five. Now that stat is only worth what it’s worth, but that’s a huge market improvement and outcomes for a quarterback who’s actually pretty good. That being said, I think the argument for returning production here is a good teaching opportunity because UTSA is super imbalanced.

Parker Fleming:

They’re 12th in returning offense. They basically only lose McCormick, but their 69th in returning defense for a lower G5 school. That makes me very, very nervous and kind of that split. So they’ll return their offense. But the question against Houston is, who’s stopping “Tank” Dell at wide receiver for UTSA? What athlete is going to be able to match up with him one on one? How is UTSA’s defense going to be able to arrange itself to not just get totally blown up by one of the nation’s most dynamic receivers. “Tank” Nathaniel Dell, almost a third of Houston’s receptions last year, 14.3 yards per reception on an average depth of target of about 12 yards. So, I mean, just absolute downfield threat. With Tune’s consistency, with Nathaniel Dell’s explosive ceiling, I really don’t know how UTSA is going to stop Houston scoring points.

Parker Fleming:

And then on flip side, Doug Belk’s done an amazing job with that Houston defense. They absolutely could have mailed it in last season after blowing a game they should have won to start against Texas Tech, but they locked it down. They gave everybody every ounce of competition that they could ever ask for. And just a really fierce unit that loses a little bit, but I think should be pretty substantial again this year. So really fun one to watch. Absolutely have to lean Houston. Love that we’re getting a couple points there. I just don’t think UTSA’s defense has anybody that can stop “Tank” Dell.

Gary Segars:

Now, you bring up the returning production on defense. I do want to remind everybody, UTSA’s defense is not the reason why they won games last year. I don’t necessarily know that they were awful, but maybe losing some of those guys was not necessarily bad, right? We’ll jump over to Kyle on this. Look, post game win expectancy, I love looking at this metric. Kyle, the post game win expectancy for a 12 and one UTSA was actually 9.18 and 3.82. So closer to a nine and four team, as opposed to a 12 and one team. I do think that there’s still a really good team and there is something about being at home here, but which way are you going on this one?

Kyle Hunter:

Well, I like the total the best here, as far as aside to start with. I think Tune’s underrated. I think all of us have probably underrated him, including me. He’s been really good in this system. It certainly helps to have Dell at wide receiver, but he’s a solid quarterback. Holgorsen’s offense, they have some really great wide receiver transfers coming in from the portal as well. I would think Houston is going to be really tough to stop for a lot of people this year. Houston’s defense. So I think they have an excellent pass rush. Good run D. I think in secondary is a bit of a question mark. So can UTSA move it in the air? I was going to say what Parker said as well. I mean, Sincere McCormick was supposed to be the best player by a mile and UTSA’s offense.

Kyle Hunter:

And Frank Harris was really their star last year on offense. McCormick is certainly very good, but Harris was tremendous. Their pass attack is very underrated. They have three really good wide receivers, a good offensive line. I think UTSA is going to score a decent amount of points in this game, too. It would surprise me if they don’t. They play quick enough that I think there’s going to be plenty of possessions in this game. If you look at this secondary for UTSA, very weak, a major problem. I don’t see how they’re going to stop Houston from scoring here. If I had to bet aside, I would bet Houston here, but I like the over better than I like aside here in this one. I think both teams score quite a bit, 59, gone up to 59 and a half. I think this is the right way for the total to move. And it wouldn’t surprise me if this is one of my plays. So I do like the over in this game, I think both offenses have an advantage.

Gary Segars:

And we did bring up Clayton Tune. Of course, if everybody wants to do little off season homework, then go and look at the last season for every quarterback that Dana Holgorsen has ever had. They are all the best numbers that they’ve had in their careers. Just go take a look at it at West Virginia and at Houston. So go check those out. We’ll move on. We’ve got another fantastic G5 matchup. And these are, of course my favorites, Army heading to Coastal Carolina. This is a 7:00 PM Eastern time game. And of course, it will be shown on ESPN plus, which you have to have a subscription aside from cable and whatnot. This, you can’t really look at roster strength when it comes to Army, but this is an awesome coaching matchup between Jamie Chadwell and Jeff Monken. I’m worried about Army’s offense without Christian Anderson.

Gary Segars:

We saw them multiple times without Anderson when he would go down with injuries, but now they don’t even have the backup quarterback. I believe Laws was the guy. This could be interesting because also when it comes to returning production, especially on offense, Coastal Carolina loses a lot. Parker, let me start off with you on this. Was the Coastal Carolina offense, just Jamey Chadwell finally getting everything implemented the way that he wanted once he took over the job, and it took a few years to get there, or was it bringing in Grayson McCall, or was it having all of that talent around him? That’s what I’m really curious about because a lot of that talent is now gone. Give me your thoughts on Army and the Chanticleers here.

Parker Fleming:

Yeah. I mean, Army last year had some just crazy games where they were just scoring points left and right, messing up totals. I think we were riding Army overs for a little bit there, just absolutely crazy. Christian Anderson and his dynamic rushing ability is definitely a part of that. Army didn’t really have that prototypical downfield threat that the service academies do like in raw passing numbers, they were always really high because it’s run, run, run, pass. Army never really developed that as much as historically some of those better triple and service academy teams have, but Christian Anderson very stable at quarterback, very versatile athlete. Again, talent and kind of returning production there really is hard because it is so much of a system and it’s, can the next guy grasp it? Of course, experience matters.

Parker Fleming:

But without Anderson, I do expect Army’s offense to have some growing pains. Coastal Carolina, I’m really interested in. I think they had done a really good job of offering early on some guys who might have gone to other schools, had they not gotten an early offer. And then two, for 2020 and 2021, honestly, their offense has been a lot of defenses just saying, wait, what the hell is this? And I think there’s diminishing returns to that. I don’t think that Army is the defense that’s going to kind of figure out the scheme, but I do think that there is this collective breath holding about, is Coastal Carolina’s offense real? Because Willy Korn hasn’t gotten a job. Jamey Chadwell hasn’t gotten a job, even though they’ve interviewed and talked. I think there’s some skepticism that this offense will project forward.

Parker Fleming:

I think there’s diminishing returns to weirdness on offense and whether they can do it again without somebody as precise as McCall is really important. But this is really fun too, two gimmicky offenses, two gimmicky schemes, talent advantages is of course, in Coastal Carolina’s favor. And with that experience, quarterback Grayson McCall, I think because it is so scheme dependent on offense there, they’ll be able to replace those weapons, like Isaiah Likely that they lost last year and still find guys to step up and catch those touchdowns that McCall is throwing.

Gary Segars:

Now, Kyle, let’s move over to you. These two teams, when I look at this total of 55, it felt initially like it was a lot of points. It’s two incredibly efficient offensive teams that were number 122 and number 128 in total plays per game. 122 was Coastal, Army number 128, of course. Coastal was number 84 in rushing PPA allowed. And they’ve got almost no experience coming back at linebacker. Should we expect for Army to put up a ton of points here? I mean, what do you think about the total? What do you think about this line?

Kyle Hunter:

Gary, this is a hard question on the total here. I mean, it’s only June. I can’t bet this total. Army, I like that in unders with them because their pace. I’m never going to be excited to bet overs with Army. Now, Army had some good overs last year because of their efficiency, but then when they go playing the triple option teams, obviously then they get really low scoring games. As far as Army, they lost a lot at linebackers. Smith and Carter are two really big losses. They had 27 and a half tackles for loss between the two of them. Christian Anderson, a big loss. Army’s offensive line is really not very good. They return a lot of other players, especially running backs, really good depth there, but I don’t know what to make of Army here. And then you flip over the other side, Coastal Carolina, just six returning starters, but fortunately for them, Grayson McCall was one of them.

Kyle Hunter:

They lost 161 receptions from last year. I do think Georgia state’s Pinckney will be a good pickup there at wide receiver for Coastal Carolina. The offense will be good. They’ll be down some from last year. And Coastal Carolina, I think Clark could be a decent run stopper for them. If I look at this total, I’m going, man, I don’t know what to do because this total, as far as tempo, you have to want to bet the under, as far as efficiency, you have to want to bet the over. That’s one that I have to pass on. This a game that I’m going to be taking notes and wanting to watch, but I don’t even have a lean here on the side. So this is one where I’m going to watch and try to learn about both teams.

Gary Segars:

Just a very interesting game. We will move into the P5 realm again. Let’s go ahead and move over to Gainesville, Florida, where you’re going to see Utah going up against the Florida Gators in Billy Napier’s debut, 7:00 PM Eastern time on ESPN on Saturday, September 3rd. This line opened with Florida as a one and a half point favorite. And it is now Utah as a two and a half point favorite. Total of 53 on this one. Guys, Kyle Whittingham’s Utes were awesome last year and they bring back a pretty good amount of returning production. The roster strength between these two teams looks fairly comparable. I think Florida has a bit of an edge there, but I want to know what a Florida team that has not quit looks like. I want to know what Billy Napier’s team looks like coming out of the gate with Anthony Richardson, et cetera. Kyle, we’ll start off with you here. Does Utah just pick up where they left off last year in the rose bowl or is maybe there’s something too going to Gainesville that could derail them a bit?

Kyle Hunter:

Well, I mean, Utah is a really well coached team. I think Witingham is still undervalued as compared to what he should be. If you look back to 2009 Witingham’s teams are 56% against the spread is betting them every single game. So you don’t want to bet against them unless you really think you have a good edge. Yeah. It’s also not a little bit unfair to Utah to just go back to the rose bowl and say, look, their secondary was torched. They had backups that had never played quarterback, cornerback, excuse me, against Ohio State’s wide receivers, which is really not fair. And really, I think their secondary will not be that bad as long as they don’t get banged up because they have some talent, they just had no depth. And that’s what we saw in the rose bowl. The defensive line’s going to be very good for Utah.

Kyle Hunter:

I think the defense is probably better than they were a year ago. Tafuna’s budding star for me, defensive line. I think he’ll be very good. Covey is a big loss on offense, but in general they do have five of their top six receivers back. I think this offense is very solid with Cam Rising. If you look at Florida, I love Napier as a coach as well. I think he’s tremendous, style’s more physical. He is a good planner. Everybody says he’s a leader. Richardson’s a dynamic player, but can he cut down on those big negative plays? They need to not get behind the sticks or turn it over so much. The defensive line has been the weakness of this defense for Florida for a good while. Can they be able to stop the run? The secondary, which was very good a few years ago, really wasn’t very good the last couple years either.

Kyle Hunter:

A really tough schedule for Florida this season. If you look at the schedule, it’s a tough ask for Napier to have a great season here right away. I would lean Utah in this game thinking there are too many unknowns about Florida. I think Utah has the same type of team that they’ve had the last couple seasons. And I like the consistency of the youths.

Gary Segars:

Parker, let’s dive over to you. Let’s talk about the Utes and the Gators. I want to know what Billy Napier is going to do. And I know what Kyle Wittingham is. We’ve seen the same thing from him over and over, but of course, once Cam Rising came in last year, it rejuvenated that offense. How big of a difference is it going to Gainesville as opposed to playing in a neutral site or even playing a game at home at Utah? Give me your thoughts here.

Parker Fleming:

I think that if I can be non-analytical for a second and non-numeric, if this game was in Utah or was at a neutral site, I would absolutely without a second thought take Utah. But I think that going to the swamp and the excitement in that program around Billy Napier, I think that there’ll be a really special environment. And you used the keyword there earlier, Gary, of course we’re not casting aspersions on college athletes, but clearly the Florida defense last year had other preoccupations on their mind and it wasn’t as motivated as they could have been. Utah was the best rushing team last year, whether your opponent adjusted or not in terms of EPA and they really didn’t rush that much more often than you would expect based on the situation. Quarterback Cam Rising really came on later.

Parker Fleming:

They obviously had some games they wish they could have had back early on, but really performed well, really showed their identity against Oregon, beating them twice. I think that was really, really indicative of what they can be. Gary, we talked about this last year early on with Emery Jones starting at Florida, that maybe the best quarterback on the roster wasn’t actually starting Anthony Richardson coming in and taking there. I’m excited to see what Billy Napier will do with him. Because if you look at, for instance, Levi Lewis, the Louisiana quarterback from 2020 to 2021, they really shortened his average depth of target. They really ran more play action and kind of said, “Okay, Levi, you’re consistent. We know what we want you to do. Let’s make you do that better.” And they really game plan for him well. And so I’m excited to see what they can do with that.

Parker Fleming:

Also, I believe Rob Dale is coming back. He was with the New York Giants for a little bit. Longtime run game coordinator, longtime offensive coordinator for Billy Napier, really sharp football guy who can really get those trenches on offense in line and figure out that run game. I think that also has a huge added benefit for the Florida defensive line. Dan Mullen, for all his talent and ability in the run game, runs a weird offense. It might be good for that defensive line who’s struggling to see, “Hey, here are the basics of a high quality run defense, and we’re going to learn how to defend that day in day out in practice as well.” I think that’s a rising tide lifts all boat situation for Sale there. So I expect this to be a physical game and I’m very excited for it.

Parker Fleming:

Giving a very slightly lean into Florida just because of that home field and that excitement, but it wouldn’t surprise me for Utah to come out and just really try and body Florida. That’s a bold strategy when you’re going against a deep SCC roster. Florida is I think seventh in team talent composite last year, Utah is 30th. So definitely another case of a Pac-12 SCC game where it’s going to feel a little bit more like 1992 than it is going to feel like 2022, just because there’s going to be a lot of running, there’s going to be a lot of bulk on the field, a lot of tight ends.

Gary Segars:

I love it. This is a fascinating matchup for sure. My lean right now would be to Florida. And I would like the under, but at the same time, I mean, you never know when those first matchups, those first games for a head coach like Billy Napier. We’ll move on. We’ve got another monster P5 matchup, of course, Notre Dame at Ohio State. This is the prime time game on ABC 7:30 PM Eastern time on that Saturday, September 3rd. Line opened up Ohio State as a 14 point favorite. They are out to a 14 and a half point favorite, and the total has sat at 58 here. This is a fun game. Marcus Freeman’s regular season debut. It comes against his Alma mater. I don’t think it necessarily matters how good Notre Dame’s defense is. Their offense is going to need to score points.

Gary Segars:

Parker, I’m going to go back to you to start off on this one. What does Ohio State’s defense look like under first year defensive coordinator, Jim Knowles here who came over from Oklahoma State? Can he get stuff implemented that quickly? And then on the flip side, can Notre Dame’s Tyler Buchner, and I would assume that that’s who’s going to be the starting quarterback, even though he missed the spring. Can he put up points against Ohio State? Because you’re going to need a lot of them to keep up with C. J. Stroud in that bunch. Parker, tell me what you think.

Parker Fleming:

Yeah. So Ohio State’s defense, basically two games they couldn’t stop the rush and that’s what really kept them out of the playoff was that Michigan game and that Oregon game, they really had trouble not with athletes. Obviously, they have talent, but with assignment a lot, which is just not what you want to see at a high level program. So they obviously made a change at defensive coordinator there. Jim Knowles comes in after creating just an absolute Swiss Army knife of havoc with that Oklahoma State defense. There were five guys at four different positions had more than 20 pressures. They were just absolute hell on opposing offenses. And it’s fascinating to see what he will be able to do with this talent. I do think there will be some mismatch. I expect their defense to take a step forward. I don’t expect them to get pushed around in any way, shape or form like they did against Oregon last year.

Parker Fleming:

And even that was a close game. They didn’t necessarily get pushed around, but they couldn’t stop the run there or in the Michigan game. If I look at Notre Dame and I look at their efficiency from last year in the run game, they were 49th, which is not what you wanted from Kyren Williams, senior season. They really struggled to get the game going and their run game improved over the course of the season, but still his usage and his totals were just not really out of the lab on my numbers. So don’t want to say anything about decimal points or anything. 14 and a half is, oh, that’s just a little much right now for me to put it. I feel like that’s just too much with the new defensive coordinator.

Parker Fleming:

And with Notre Dame “in their mind”, winning the breakup with Brian Kelly last year and having Marcus Freeman and some continuity on both sides of the ball there. That being said, I think Ohio State is obviously the more talented team. Two touchdowns is just right against that line of what I’d be comfortable betting here. If it moves down at all, I think I’ll absolutely go Ohio State.

Gary Segars:

I tend to agree. Kyle, let’s move over to you. I know you’re ready to talk about the Buckeyes here. This is an average offense in Notre Dame against what was an average defense. And of course, this is all based on 2021 stats, but average offense against Ohio State, average defense. And then you have an elite offense in Ohio State going up against an elite defense with Notre Dame. I’m curious your thoughts on the Buckeyes and the Irish.

Kyle Hunter:

Yeah, I mean, obviously I have a lot of thoughts about Buckeyes games, always. So Notre Dame, Al Golden, new defensive coordinator, I think that’ll be interesting to see how that goes. Hamilton left, but then now they have Joseph, Northwestern transfer. Their secondary is not very deep. If you look at their recruiting and the secondary, it’s really not been very good. It would surprise me if Ohio State can’t throw the ball a lot here. I think they will move the ball pretty easily through the air. The defensive line is a strength for Notre Dame, but Ohio State’s offensive line is good in pass blocking. I would think [inaudible] will have time to throw it around here and that could be really dangerous. Notre Dame on offense, their offensive lines, very good. I think Freeman’s a good coach. I think he’ll do well at Notre Dame, certainly.

Kyle Hunter:

Their quarterbacks are talented but inexperienced for Notre Dame. I mean, the massive question here is, what’s the deal with Ohio State’s defense? Jim Knowles. How quick can he turn it around? Because Ohio State’s defense, Gary, I think you might have been nice by saying they were average last year. They really were not very good on defense. Their offense was tremendous. Their defense was pretty bad. Their linebackers, the weakest unit, the secondary has some young talent. I think they’re certainly going to be better on defense and they’ll be much more aggressive. I’m sure Parker knows this very well. There’s been many coaching staff that have said things like Ohio State was way too vanilla on defense. We just saw what we knew, what they were doing every single time. That won’t be the case under Jim Knowles, but their talent still isn’t tremendous on defense compared to what they used to be defensively.

Kyle Hunter:

So I’m really curious to see what Ohio State does on defense. Definitely, my strongest lean in this game is the over. I think Ohio state will score points in this game. They will likely give up enough points as well. The question is, is Ohio State going to play really quickly the whole way? Are they going to keep throwing it around constantly? I would probably lean to Ohio State, but like Parker, for one, I hate laying 14 and a half. It feels like 14, it’s so much better. If this game was 13 and a half, I’d say I like Ohio State. 14, I would lean Ohio State. And 14 and a half, I guess I would take Ohio State if I had to take aside, but there are enough unknowns in this game that I hate to lay 14 and a half points. It’s quite a bit of points against a team that does have pretty good talent, but 58’s not that high of a total. I would certainly lean to the over here.

Gary Segars:

I believe that 14 actually caught us in week one last year, when we were betting on Ohio State. I took Ohio state. I believe that Kyle, maybe you took Minnesota at plus 14. I took Ohio State minus 14. It landed dead on 14.

Kyle Hunter:

It was Parker.

Gary Segars:

Well, was it Parker? There we go.

Parker Fleming:

You don’t have to say it like that, Kyle. It was a good bet at the time.

Gary Segars:

But yes, it absolutely beat us with the 14. If it had been 14 and a half, one of us would’ve won, one of us would’ve lost. Instead, we both push. It is what it is. Let’s start off, let’s let’s go to the Sunday game. All right. But we got two more. So everybody jump in on the chat and we’ll try and do a little bit of Q and A. Obviously not too much, because we are going long as we typically do because we love the sport, but we’ll move on. Sunday, September 4th, 7:30 PM. Eastern time on ABC, Florida State and LSU live from New Orleans. And that would be the Superdome. I believe LSU is a two and a half point favorite total of 51 and a half here. And the line opened with LSU as a three point favorite. It has gone down just a bit.

Gary Segars:

And if anybody can tell me what you know about either of these teams, I would love to know, because I don’t know how anybody could know anything. This is Brian Kelly’s debut, it’s in the Superdome and everybody knows how New Orleans loves their LSU Tigers, but it is a quote “neutral” site game. This feels like a make or break season for Mike Norvell in Tallahassee. He has upgraded the roster a bit, maybe not to the point where they have caught up with LSU, even with all of the transfers. I think LSU is still more talented than Florida State. Parker, Let’s start off here. 34 players gone for LSU, 28 in. That’s 15 recruits, 13 transfers in right now, even with all the changeover, et cetera. I still feel like LSU is the play in New Orleans. Give me your thoughts on the Tigers and the Saints.

Parker Fleming:

Yeah, I definitely understand what Mike Norvell is trying to do in… They got a really good edge from the FCS level coming in. They got a running back, they got Winston right from West Virginia as a really productive receiver and tried to fill in some of those holes. The issue is still Florida State is so deep in an offensive line hole in terms of recruiting and development. It takes time to get out of that hole. Will this be the year that some of those guys develop? I know they’re bringing in a couple three stars with experience, maybe can show up that offensive line, but man, Travis last year was running for his dang life most of the time and was making plays. I mean, extending and moving around, but they were so erratic that you see in their schedule they weren’t really out of any game.

Parker Fleming:

It maybe Wake Forest that was 35 to 14, but generally they played everyone really close the metrics. If you take out the special team’s nonsense, the fluke turnovers, if you just look at “normal” football, Florida State played a lot better than their record. They just had a lot of issues with sequencing and building. So I think they’re improving. I think they played better than the record last year. I still think that LSU’s defense is so vastly more talented than their offense, that especially early on in the season. I like Brian Kelly’s continuity. Of course, I don’t love Brian Kelly’s hire offensive coordinator, especially for the SCC, but I really think that if I have two teams who are going to have to gel to succeed this season, I’m going to lean the more talented team being better early on.

Parker Fleming:

Florida State last year took a Notre Dame team to the very brink, a very strong performance. And so you see there is some fight in this Florida State team. I think they’ll be markedly better than last year. I would lean LSU, but I think this is when you’re biting your nails. I do think it’ll be a close game.

Gary Segars:

Most certainly. Kyle, Brian Kelly, of course bringing over as Parker mentioned Mike Denbrock from Cincinnati. They’ve worked together in the past. It didn’t work out before, really. There’s a reason why Denbrock left and was over at Cincinnati. But this is the kind of spot where you would expect to see maybe a slow pace, et cetera, that total of 51 and a half looks enticing to the under to me. But I’m curious your thoughts just on the matchup overall.

Kyle Hunter:

Yeah. Guys, I’m going to call myself out on this one. About three, four weeks ago I was sitting there with my son who loves to look at college football stuff with me and here’s my eight year old asking me, what do you think the line is for each of these games? I’m just guessing off the cuff. This is the one I was the farthest off of any of them. I was a terrible guess. I guessed double digits for LSU. So not a great guess by me. I will say I was close on a lot of the others and he was all impressed until I got to this game. And he is like, “What are you doing, dad? You’re way off.” The fact that LSU has so much more talent than Florida State, to me, I’m surprised this line could be this low. I need to know a little bit more about these two teams. It is only June ane we fully transparent say that, I don’t know everything I need to know about these teams, so I’m going to look more closely at them.

Kyle Hunter:

I think LSU talent wise, their topnotch talent is just that much higher than Florida State. There’s no way I could take Florida State. It’s LSU or nothing. And while Jordan Travis has done well at Florida State, he was five and two in the games he started at Florida State last year and they have lots of good transfers at wide receiver, Pitman. They had way too many big negative plays last year. And I don’t know that they can ever cut down on that. If you’re playing second and 20 constantly, you’re going to have some real trouble, especially against a team like LSU. And I think that could happen in this game. I think Adam Fuller is doing a good job with the defense for Florida State. I think that there’s so many question marks for LSU at offense. I mean, who do we think is going to be the quarterback for LSU? I mean, do we think it’s going to be Jayden Daniels or Brennan? Do we have any real idea yet?

Gary Segars:

I’d go with Brennan from everything that I’ve heard from down there, but again, we haven’t even gotten to fall camp yet. I cannot believe that Jayden Daniels would transfer away from a place where he was the starting quarterback to go and be the backup elsewhere. I feel like somebody had to have told him, “Yeah, you’re kind of the leader in the clubhouse here.” Right? It just doesn’t make any logical sense to me that he would leave that position to go to LSU and then not be the starter. Right? But I mean, that might be crazy. I have seen crazy-

Parker Fleming:

There are normative questions about the level of post-season success that Arizona state would be allowed to have in the near future. So there are certainly off-field issues. Also, I think Jayden Daniels could be a great SCC wide receiver. I do not see Jayden Daniels type of quarterback being what Brian Kelly’s offense wants to be. And so that is very interesting to me. I think he’s a great athlete. I think he could find his way out of the field if he doesn’t win the job and they don’t run some kind of weird chaotic offense.

Gary Segars:

Yeah. Yeah. Kyle, let me… So you’re leaning the LSU or nothing, right?

Kyle Hunter:

I’m leaning LSU. For a second, I thought Parker was going to say, Jayden Daniels could be a great quarterback in the SCC. Then we would’ve probably had a disagreement.

Parker Fleming:

I have some takes, but I have a line Kyle.

Kyle Hunter:

Right, right. You got to stop somewhere. Right? So no, I would lean LSU here in this one. LSU secondary could be a bit of a problem. They’re really not very good at secondary, but is Florida State a team that’s really going to be able to take advantage of that? I wouldn’t think so. So I would lean LSU.

Gary Segars:

I tend to agree with you. I tend to agree. We’ve got one more that we’re going to hit. And then we’ll jump into a couple of Q and A. I do see one in here about Wyoming and Illinois, but let’s go on and finish this thing off with our Monday night Labor Day matchup, Monday, September 5th, it’s 8:00 PM on ESPN. That would be Clemson against Georgia Tech. And whew, let me tell you, the line is 19 right now in favor of Clemson, total of 50, it opened Clemson minus 22 and a total of 53 and a half. So the total has come down three and a half points. The line has come down three points, but I don’t know that it’s moving in the right direction. I think a lot of people were very quick to assume that Clemson’s offense was just going to be trash again this year.

Gary Segars:

So I believe that Steven Godfrey said it best when he was talking about Georgia Tech’s schedule, it looks like it was made by somebody that once Jeff Collins fired. This is a terrible opener for them. And the schedule does not really get easier at any point. Last year’s game was 14 to eight, but even that was a little bit tricky because Georgia Tech had to kick a field goal with just over a minute left. And then they had to force the safety with seven seconds left just to get it to a one score game from where it was 14 to three with just about a minute left. Clemson outscored Georgia Tech, 174 to 42, between 2018 and 2020. Last year, a bit of an anomaly.

Gary Segars:

I’ve got a lot of questions about Clemson. Kyle, we’ll start off with you on this. I want to know what DJ U looks like at quarterback and whether or not we see Cade Klubnik. And what does it Clemson look like with a new offensive coordinator and a new defensive coordinator? Kyle, I would love for you to answer either of those questions for me.

Kyle Hunter:

Well, can I start with the easier side here at Georgia Tech’s bet. I mean, what are they going to do here? I think it’s much easier to answer what Georgia Tech’s going to be than what Clemson’s going to be. Collins, how’s he going to make it out of this season? It’s hard to believe. You look at that schedule. I don’t see any way. I know Gibson came in a quarterback for Georgia Tech. I’m not convinced the guy who briefly looked good at Akron is a good fix. I mean, I don’t think this is actually really a good idea. And Sims has had way too many big mistakes. The offensive line is a major problem. Tech defensively probably improved a little bit in the secondary, but this is a really bad defense as well, very long season coming for Georgia Tech. I can’t say anything really good about them.

Kyle Hunter:

They haven’t recruited well either. So it’s not like they’re picking up these nice recruits, they’re going to step in. As far as Clemson, their defense is going to be excellent again. I think you could argue their defense will be just as good if not better than last year. I know they lost some key linebackers, but they have a tremendous defensive line. I think the best defensive line in the country. Fourth in defensive efficiency last year, I think they’ll probably be in the top five again and probably the top two or three. Great unit on defense. Now on offense, I mean, what’s DJ going to look like? Everybody assumed he was going to be very good last year and that wasn’t the case. To be fair, I think the wide receivers are not very good for Clemson and some of those guys were a little bit highly touted.

Kyle Hunter:

At this point, I don’t think they’re very good. And I don’t think they’ll be very good this year at wide receiver. Their offensive line struggles in pass blocking as well. So it’s not all on DJ or the quarterback. There are other problems around them. This a run based offense that I think will be a little bit better than last year, but I still don’t think it’s going to be a great offense by any means. And while they have some decent, talented running back, it’s not really game breakers or people that would change the game completely. So as far as what I would bet in this game, gosh, this one feels terrible to me. I would probably lay the points with Clemson if I had to, but I mean, you want to lay this many points with a team that you don’t think their offense is good. So probably lean under Clemson, if I had to bet it.

Gary Segars:

I tend to agree with you on that. Parker, let’s let’s talk about Georgia Tech really quick. This was somewhat, we talked about Jarret Doege last year being Schrodinger’s quarterback was this Schrodinger’s team last year, because you could never tell what they were going to be from week to week. You knew it was going to be volatile and they would come up with some crazy plays, crazy scores, et cetera, but you didn’t know exactly what you were going to get. I’m curious if we get that from them again this year, do they just throw anything against the wall and hope that it sticks? I’m really curious how you view this Georgia Tech team.

Parker Fleming:

Yeah. What are they doing with the quarterback room? I’m fascinated because they got Taison, the Clemson backup came in. They have Sims, they have Zach Gibson from Akron. They’re all very similar, like 6’3, 215, 220 kind of guys. I don’t know if they’re just like, look, man, it’s win six games or get fired for Collins down there. I think the transition away from the triple is really hard, but I mean, it’s been a while now and it doesn’t look like they really have anything that makes me think they’re going to be different this year. They lose Jahmyr Gibbs, a really good running back to Alabama. I mean, there’s just not a lot to get excited about here. I have them ranking 82nd in offensive efficiency and that’s weighed for run past splits.

Parker Fleming:

So really, against Clemson on week one is not a time you’re going to find yourself. That’s just not going to happen. The flip side of that is again, their defense is not very good and maybe Clemson’s passing offenses is lower or excuse me, is not as good as some of the other ones they’ll see. But again, the kicker for me for Clemson is, Will Shipley, right? Limited action early on, dealt with some injuries, came back a hundred yards and three of the last five games. They absolutely relied on him to beat Wake Forest and just a talented Russian game. He’s going to drive the offense. I think they’ll be a little bit smarter about what they ask DJ to do. If you watch that Georgia game last year, there’s a couple times where it’s like, man, CJ Stroud can make that throw and Clemson would’ve beaten Georgia by two touchdowns.

Parker Fleming:

And of course, Georgia’s defense is designed to make the quarterback uncomfortable and put him in tough spots, but DJ really missed some looks early on and that spiraled. The one thing that I will say that makes me a little bit worried about this total being so big. If you look at DJ’s passing attempts last year, pretty low overall, but especially down the stretch. First Pittsburgh, he had 32 versus Florida State 31, versus Louisville 31, Connecticut 57, and then Wake Forest 20, South Carolina 19, Iowa State he had 33. Generally, they gave him the opportunity to work things out against Yukon. They set this offense up to say, DJ, please, God, let’s figure out how we can get the ball down field. And they couldn’t do it and they kind of bailed.

Parker Fleming:

So are they going to do that? Maybe their running game’s going to be way more efficient. Are they going to throw the ball 60 times just trying to get DJ to start connecting with receivers, getting in rhythm against the team they know they can beat? That’s something they’ve done in the past. That would be my one consideration embedding Clemson here is their efficiency might not be as good because they might be trying to workshop some of this pass game to get it to click early on. So style wise, that’s the one thing that worries me here. Otherwise, I don’t have any qualms about betting Clemson.

Gary Segars:

I’m surprised that the line has dropped three points and I suppose it has to do with how bad the Clemson offense was last year. And the fact that this game was technically a six point margin at the end of last season. But I mean, if I had to lean a certain way right now, I would certainly take Clemson knowing that they’ve at least got another option at quarterback behind DJ. That’s the biggest thing. You’ve got another guy now. If it doesn’t work early on, you bring in somebody that maybe gives you a little bit of a spark. And now that there’s good competition at what I’m most concerned about is maybe that Clemson defense, which I do think is going to be really good, but without Brent Venables could be a little tricky, could be tricky.

Gary Segars:

We have Q and A. Let me go ahead and remind everybody, before we jump into some of these questions, subscribe to the channel for us, please, and make sure that you like this video, share it out with your friends, et cetera. We are going to be here every Tuesday and Wednesday at 1:00 PM Eastern time. So subscribe to the podcast, subscribe to the YouTube, et cetera, consume the product in all the different ways that you can. And of course, jump into the comments. Let’s see. We are going to start off with Mark Holmes. He said, who do you guys think? No. What do you guys think about USC this year? I would say, bet the overs. Kyle, let’s go with you. You got a quick thought on USC?

Kyle Hunter:

Yeah. I bet the overs and I think USC might be overrated by some people. I mean, you see some of these off season polls with USC. I think it was ESPN. USC was in the top five and one of theirs. I mean, I like Lincoln Riley as much as anybody else, as far as how good of a coach he is. But I think maybe we should probably slow down a little bit from that. I don’t know about betting USC on the side because I don’t think there’ll be a lot of value because people are so high on him, but totals. Yeah. I would lean to overs with USC as far as how far they can get this year. I’m going to leave that one to Parker.

Gary Segars:

Parker, are they unpredictable right now?

Parker Fleming:

No, not at all. I mean, I think there is there’s some clear issues that Lincoln Riley could fill and stylistically what USC was bad at Lincoln Riley is pretty good at, I think that they have a full off season to work. I also think that Lincoln Riley is embracing being a villain and will absolutely have a chip on his shoulder. And then there’ll be some issues there. Their defense, the talent might not be there along the offensive line, the talent is not there, but in the Pac-12 that’s okay. You can manage your way about that. The big deal for me, kind of watching film on Caleb Williams, who’s going to be their quarterback this year is just last year he felt like he had to make plays because he was in competition with Spencer Rattler.

Parker Fleming:

So the Baylor game particularly, there were five and 10 yard completions open and Caleb Williams was running around looking for that 20 yard completion. And that really hindered their offense. I think with an off season of film and work and maybe a little bit more reassurance that he’s the guy, Caleb Williams development should take that next step, be one of the better quarterbacks in the country. So you have a top five quarterback, you have power five talent and you have a really good offensive mind. I think that that’s a recipe for doing well. In a conference, that’s a little bit down top to bottom. The big deal for me is they do have to play at Utah. And I think if they had missed Utah in the regular season, maybe we could see them sneak in Pac-12 championship game.

Parker Fleming:

But I don’t know that they’ll… Or in terms of getting the playoff beating Utah twice I think is pretty rough there. And so I don’t know if they’ll be able to do that. They do get that Notre Dame game barrier at the end. So a really tough schedule going to at Arizona. I think they’ll be markedly better in quality. Like Kyle said, as for results for now, I really think they’ll score a lot. I think there’s some obvious teams that they will dominate. And I think when they win, they win big, but still working on how their talent, especially along the offensive line matches up to be a robust offense.

Gary Segars:

That’ll move us over to big trouble. Jack who asked for thoughts on Wyoming and Illinois. Illinois is favored by 10 in that week one game, a total of 46 here. And I don’t know that’s enough points. I understand that Illinois’s offense slows it down quite a bit. They play very, maybe efficient isn’t the right word. They are slow paced, but I don’t know how slow paced they will be this year because they bring in new offensive coordinator, Barry Lunney Jr. from UTSA and they’ve got a new quarterback. I believe Illinois’s rolling out Tommy DeVito, who was at Rutgers before and Wyoming loses everybody. I think they’re 122, 123 in returning production. I love Craig Bohl, but they lost a lot. And I think Illinois might be on a bit of an upswing here. Parker, give me your thoughts on Illinois on this one. I don’t know that Wyoming can go in there the same way that UTSA did last year.

Parker Fleming:

Yeah. Blind resume. I hate betting Bret Bielema to cover 10 points versus Craig Bohl. If I just had that information, that sickens me to my core. They lose Isaiah Nayer, their leading target. One of the most involved wide receivers last year. They lose Levi Williams who was ability to extend plays with his legs is just almost unparalleled in the Mountain West, some really key defensive pieces. It really just felt like, I mean, this year could have been very exciting for Wyoming if they could have kept the content, but the transfer portal just, they lost out there pretty substantially. And so I’m pretty down on them. I think that on defense, Illinois should be feisty this year. Again, Ryan Walter’s a great defensive coordinator building up that talent. And on offense, again, what Bret Bielema’s calling card is let’s play a low variance high floor offense.

Parker Fleming:

They’ve had some issues at quarterback and haven’t really been able to minimize those big plays. If Illinois gets in a situation like they did against in Nebraska last year, where they can stifle and frustrate an opposing offense that’s not that good, then they can make sure that they’re not just shooting themselves absolutely in the foot on offense. I think they can win a game pretty handily. And so given the talent disparity, given that I think their offense should be a little, that floor should be a little higher this year. I’m okay with the Illinois bet here again, as much as that sends my heart to bet it. I do think that I’m okay with the Illinois side on this one.

Gary Segars:

And of course, Kyle, give me your thoughts, Illinois. You agree with this?

Kyle Hunter:

Well, I echo Parker’s sentiments about if you just told me it’s Craig Bohl versus Bret Bielema and you’re laying 10 points with Bret Bielema. I immediately start feeling bad. This is not good. What am I doing? But if you look at the talent, I can’t take Wyoming in this game. Wyoming has all sorts of question marks and Ryan Walters did a good job with the Illinois defense. I mean, this defense is a lot better than people gave you credit for last year. I think I would lean Illinois in the under, in this game.

Gary Segars:

We’ll move on. From there we’ve got three more questions. Steven said, what are your thoughts on Western Kentucky this coming football season? I will tell you, losing Zach Kittley is a big blow along with all of the different talent that came with him, but the guy that’s going to be the new offensive coordinator, 26 year old, I believe it’s Ben Arbuckle. He was the offensive quality control coach and assistant quarterback coach there, but he wants to run the same thing that Kittley did, but he is only 26. And on top of that, Western Kentucky brings in Schrodinger’s quarterback, Jarret Doege as their starting quarterback this year, at least we assume he’ll be the starter. But on offense, I don’t know how they’re going to be able to replicate what they did last year.

Gary Segars:

And that defense took a huge step back last year and they don’t return a ton on the defense. So while I love Tyson Hilton, this could be a bit of a tricky season. I trust Hilton to be able to do some fun things. Tyson Summers, the former Georgia Southern coach is going to be the new DC there. This is a tricky team to figure out. Kyle, do you have any thoughts on the Hilltoppers?

Kyle Hunter:

I wouldn’t want to bet the Hilltoppers at the beginning of the season, there’s too many changes, too many negatives for me. I would rather fade them than bet on them. And it’s kind of a wait and see team as far as totals, because they’re not going to be able to score the points that he had last year. What are the odds makers going to put on their totals? I would tend to think that Western Kentucky would be a good team to bet against if anything here.

Gary Segars:

Parker, what about you? Any thoughts on Western Kentucky?

Parker Fleming:

Yeah, my initial thought would be, there’s probably some value in unders early on just because they will be over… The totals will be high early on. I can see a world where Jarret Doege in an offense that says, “Hey man, just throw the ball here. Just line up and throw the ball here. Don’t do much else.” could actually be pretty good. And again, at that lower G5 level, dude just slinging the ball is like an offensive advantage. So many teams don’t do that, but just that high volume aggressive passing, you can score a lot. So I think the offense will take a drop off, but it won’t bottom out. The question in terms of totals and sides is just, man, that defense it’s not great. And so how do they interact with one maybe less offensive efficiency, less of a cushion on offense?

Parker Fleming:

How does that defense getting tested a little bit more shore up? So I agree with Kyle, high uncertainty here and that’s one of those things where if you’re an informed, smart better, you can look at just because something happened last year, doesn’t mean it’s happening again this year, but also just because they lose some pieces doesn’t mean they’re going to bottom out. There’s a middle there, but definitely a wait and see team, especially I need some video of Jarret Doege throwing the ball in fall camp. I just need to see what’s going on there. So for sure, a wait and see team.

Gary Segars:

The first line for WKU, they are a 13 point favorite at Hawaii that lets you what Timmy Chang has to deal with for the warriors down there, but it is a total of 62. So there might be a little bit of value maybe going under on that one, but we’ll see. That could be two pretty bad football teams, but we’ll we’ll figure all that out. We got two more here. Robert S said, how do you all think my Auburn Tigers are going to do this season? I’m a fan of Bryan Harsin, but I think he’s starting the season on the hot seat. I think Bryan Harsin will be a great coach at Arizona State in the 2023 football season. I will tell you that. I do think Auburn’s going to be okay, but when your quarterback room is TJ Finley and Zach Calzada and they brought in somebody else, I believe that was a guy that actually was at Oregon, if I’m not mistaken.

Gary Segars:

Either way, I don’t like the quarterback room a lot. And in the SCC, there are some games that you can win by running the football with Tank Bigsby, right? But I don’t know that you can win as many as it will require for him to keep his job without a good quarterback room. Parker, let’s start off on you. Thoughts on Auburn.

Parker Fleming:

Here’s my favorite fun fact from 2021. Highest percentage of passes dropped among quarterbacks with at least 150 attempts and all of FBS, one Zack Calzada, two Bo Nicks, three Max Johnson. Very funny if we got an SCC west shuffle there and all three of those guys are just like, no one will catch their passes. I think losing Derek Mason is going to be a bigger hit on defense than they want to admit. And so I think that’s going to be an issue there as well. Of course, Bo Nicks is an athlete. He can make some plays. You look at that LSU game last year. I think there was that play where Bo Nicks went sideline to sideline three times and scored a touchdown. For all the strengths and consistent, Zach Calzada brings you extending plays and is not really what I see of him.

Parker Fleming:

So maybe that’s what they want. Maybe they want a more conservative, less volatile offense. But man, they really shot themselves in the foot last year, multiple times. And with that defensive regression, I just don’t know how well that’s going to play. Also, they want him gone. The environment is just not great there. And so that is something, especially in the SCC where drama is always at the forefront. I really think that’s going to cast a toll on them. Not to mention what they host Penn State in the non-con, pretty rough deal for them this fall. I don’t know that they’re going to be significantly different from last year.

Gary Segars:

And then they have to go to Athens and they have to go to Tuscaloosa to close out the season. Kyle, you got a thought on the Tigers.

Kyle Hunter:

Yeah. I mean, I’ve been running this query and looking at it while you guys were talking. Bryan Harsin in the second half, we talked about this at the end of last season. Bryan Harsin in the second half has been a major problem. You don’t want to bet on Auburn in the second half of these games, in fact 38 and 65 against the spread in the last 102 betting on Bryan Harsin’s team in the second half. And if you narrow this down a little bit to when they’re favored. So when the team is favored by four points or more in the game, 21 and 47 against the spread, this tells you that if Harsin’s team is generally in the lead in the second half, they’re very conservative. They have not done well.

Kyle Hunter:

We saw a couple of those games last year where Auburn had the big lead completely blew it. So that’s what I’m going to watch with Auburn this year is there’s some spots where I can fade them in the second half. I don’t think Auburn will be great this year. I don’t think they’re going to be a bad team, but I mean, obviously the SCC is really talented. So when you have a spot where it seems like everybody wants you gone, it’s hard to really be excited to bet on that team.

Gary Segars:

All right. We’ll move into the last question here. And James S asked, with all the transfers across the country, what is the most improved team in your opinion? And to me, it has to be USC. I don’t know that it’s necessarily close, but they were a dumpster fire last year, they went four and eight, and I would expect nothing less than an eight and four season out there for Lincoln Riley in the bunch because they just completely rehauled the roster. I mean, they bring in the Biletnikoff winner, they bring in the number one quarterback recruit. They’ve got talent all across the board, except for maybe on defense, but there are still so many Pac-12 teams that you should be able to just outscore that I think that USC would be my answer. Kyle, do you have a different answer than that one?

Kyle Hunter:

I mean, it’s hard to say somebody other than USC. The other team we talked about earlier, Nebraska could be an answer, certainly. I mean, especially if you go by their three and nine record, they have to be much better than that. I imagine some people would say, Texas. We can get into Texas more in depth in the future, but I mean, I think USC is probably the right choice. I was trying to think of some random way off the radar team, but I think probably USC is the easy choice here.

Gary Segars:

Parker, what about you?

Parker Fleming:

I actually think that obviously USC really raised their ceiling. They still have some glaring and balances, especially on the offensive line there. I think Ole Miss has a really strong argument here. They bring in Jaxson Dart, four star quarterback. They bring in Zach Evans, a five star recruit at running back. They bring in two tight ends in Michael Trigg and J.J. Pegues who could really contribute and give them a lot of options. And then on the defense they’re bringing in two new edge rushers inJared Ivey and Corey Coleman who both started for power five teams last year at safety, they’re bringing in Iowa State, Ish Young who’s a really talented guy and developed well as well as Tennison from Auburn. They’re really playing well to say, we know exactly what we lost. We know how to shore it up.

Parker Fleming:

And the sheer volume of this. I mean, they brought in what, 15 guys, and a lot of those are going to start, not to mention second guys like Ulysses Bentley, who was the top running back on a very good SMU offense last year. They’ve really taken advantage of the portal for their needs. So if you talk about total team improvement, yes, USC really raised their ceiling. Ole Miss in 10 years ago, this Ole Miss team in 2022 absolutely drops off the face of the planet with what they lost. And because of the transfer portal, they’re going to be very close to what they were last year. So I think that’s just a spectacular job and definitely a team that has a claim to improving their team most.

Gary Segars:

Yeah. I tend to agree with you. I think Ole Miss did a good job. The only reason I didn’t give them as one of the possible answers is as far as improvement goes, well, I mean, they won 10 games last year. So I guess it would depend on what the improvement would be from. They certainly improved the roster over what it would’ve been, but it’s tough to go more than 10 wins in the regular season for that Ole Miss program. But it’s going to be a lot of fun to see Lane Kiffin with all these brand new toys at the skill positions for sure. Gentlemen, I think that that is going to wrap it up.

Gary Segars:

We went about an hour and a half. Now, this is not going to be common. We’re going to try and keep these about an hour, but my God, we have enjoyed this so much. It’s nice to get back to doing it. Go ahead and follow all of us on Twitter. You can find it down in the show notes, make sure that you are subscribed to the channel and that you like this video and share it out with your friends and whatnot. Let everybody know that this is where you come to get your college football information. With that said, I believe it is time for us to head out. So of course, from now until August, I guess about a couple months, we will see you all again next time. Don’t forget to check out our sportsbook website.