Iowa State (+3 ½) vs. Kansas State: The Cyclones and Wildcats play an early game Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, MO. The Wildcats are getting over 85% of public action, but the opening line of K-State by 5 ½ points has dropped to 3 ½ at most sites with a couple checking in at 4 points.
The Cyclones are coming off a butt-whooping by the Iowa Hawkeys, but there’s no shame in that. Iowa looks to have a tremendous team this year. The week before ISU beat a decent Northern Illinois team at home. Between Austen Arnaud and Alexander Robinson, the ‘Clones are offensively capable. On defense, the entire unit needs to take better angles and actually tackle. As a Cyclone fan, it’s been tough to watch their defense the past two weeks.
The Wildcats are coming off an unimpressive 48-24 victory over Missouri State of the FCS. The week before KSU beat UCLA at home 31-22. But anyone who watched UCLA embarrass themselves at home against Stanford (the wiseguys, perhaps) had to re-evaluate the Wildcats’ success in week 1. K-State won last year’s match-up by a point on a blocked PAT with 32 seconds left in the game. The two teams appeared to be very evenly matched.
Minnesota (+11) vs. USC: The Golden Gophers welcome Lane Kiffin’s Trojans to Minneapolis in one of several Big 10-Pac 10 match-ups. The line opened with the visiting Trojans as 13 point favorites, but now most books are posting the game at 11 points. The public is decidedly in favor of the Trojans at over 90%.
Minnesota is coming off a humiliating 41-38 home loss to FCS school, South Dakota. This is obviously having a big affect on the collective public consciousness. Minnesota needs a better defensive effort against the Trojans; there’s no way the Gophers put up 41 points against USC. There’s a strong probability that the Gophers were looking past USD to this week’s game. The last team that did that was the Kansas Jayhawks, and they took down the Ramblin’ Wreck of Georgia Tech after losing at home to North Dakota State. The week before the Gophers snuck out a road win over Middle Tennessee State, 24-17.
USC has been disappointing so far. They managed to hold on against Virginia at home, 17-14. The week before the Trojans had to travel to Hawaii and got all they wanted in that game, too. But USC clearly has the talent of a top-25 team. As far as the spread is concerned, two factors may come into play. First, USC has committed 24 penalties for 240 yards, more than any other team in the country. Second, the weather calls for a high of 59 degrees with a 30% chance of rain. That will be a big change from either sunny southern California or Hawaii, while the Gophers will feel right at home.
Wake Forest (+17) at Stanford: The Demon Deacons travel across the country to battle the Cardinal in one of the highest IQ games of the year. Stanford opened as 18 ½ point favorites, but despite the public playing the Cardinal at over 70 %, the line has dropped to 17 points.
Wake won a shootout over Duke last week, so the Deacons have proven able to beat a smart team. The week before they handled Presbyterian, 53-13. Riley Skinner is gone and Wake is far removed from the stingy defense of 3 years ago. But they still have enough offensive weapons to cover a large point spread.
Stanford dominated UCLA in a laugher last week, 35-0. Sacramento State was their first victim, 52-17. The defense looked underrated against the Bruins, but the Bruins’ offense looked so pathetic it was hard to get a good read on Stanford. Andrew Luck has been nearly as good as advertised. Unbeknownst to me, Luck has some pretty good wheels. The sophomore qb had to smile at the way Duke put up points on Wake. The college handicapping has been spectatular on our part to start the season. Currently on a 14-3 college football run, I wouldn’t want to miss any of the Saturday college football picks we have on tap for week 3 NCAA action.
