College Football Kickoff

My impulse is always to play about 20 games the first Saturday of the season, but I can usually calm myself down enough to keep it to a more reasonable number. Playing four in the afternoon, lines from Matchbook:

East Carolina +9 -109, 1.09 units to win 1 unit

After giving the Hokies fits in Blacksburg last year, ECU gets this year's game in front of a lot of home fans in Charlotte, NC. Virginia Tech is not nearly as strong a team as last season, returning only 4 starters on defense and facing some big question marks at running back and receiver on offense.

Utah +3 +101, 1 unit to win 1.01 units

Utah looks pretty good this year, getting back a lot skill players on offense that were lost early last season to injury. For Michigan, you take a mediocre team from last year, strip away all the playmakers on offense (Henne, Hart, Manningham, etc.), and you're left with this year's team. Defense could be solid, but who's going to score?

Bowling Green +13 +103, 1 unit to win 1.03 units

A solid MAC team travels to face a Big East team that is getting way too much hype in my opinion. Mark May has been pimping his alma mater on ESPN lately, and 73% of the wagerline folks are following along. McCoy is great at running back, but there's not much else to get excited about, and his production could be affected by a new offensive line with injury concerns. Bowling Green's offense returns a lot of talent, and this one should be pretty close.

Akron +27 -107, 1.07 units to win 1 unit

I debated with myself a lot about wheter to play this one, but then my sickness took over and here it is. Obviously, Wisconsin is getting a huge amount of public action, and Akron is not expected to be very good. With 71% of wagerline on the Badgers, and the line retreating from -28 to -26 or 26.5 at most places, this game showed up on my radar pretty early. Badgers have questions at QB and receiver, but have a great running back and tight end. Hopefully, this leads to a slow-moving ball-control offense and not a lot of scoring. P. J. Hill is likely to carry the ball over 200 times today. Akron won't score much either, but their defense is decent for MAC school and held mighty Ohio State to only 20 points just last season.

Good luck everybody. Back later with tonight's games, baseball, and maybe even tennis. Damn, I should have gotten up earlier.