well, we all managed to survive last week’s heat burn that caused a game against the minutemen. however, some of our wallets weren’t feeling so lucky. mine in particular was hurting a lot as i got too carried away last weekend with the excitement of the nfl coming back and made some dumb bets that i now regret when this beautiful monday morning came around. Fortunately, one of the things I have to give myself credit for was fading the umass game at the last second. As tempting as dessert was, there was something in my gut telling me to stay away from the table on this one. If only I followed this advice for the rest of my parlays on Saturday and Sunday…
Anyway, enough wallowing. Truth is, if jurkovec hadn’t gone down so early in the game, I can’t imagine a scenario where bc couldn’t have covered the spread. However, things happen all the time in sports and with Jurkovec getting injured so soon, you could almost kiss your BC -37.5 goodbye. Either way, I have to support Denis Grosel, who was firing flat out and ready for the opportunity to step in to fill the QB void. what worried me most was the performance of the defense. with all the penalties and number of points they gave to a umass offense (which only put up 7 points against pitt and wasn’t starting as a freshman at qb in that game), i can’t help but analyze these opening lines a bit more scrupulously.
Fast forward to this coming Saturday, bc remains the favorite against the temple owls by a -16 margin. Temple is 1-1 so far to start the season with them getting absolutely thrashed by Rutgers in their season opener 61-14, but then they follow up with an expected win against Akron. this week’s issue with gambling is that a lot of it depends on variables that we don’t have a lot of information about regarding the bc lineup. Coach Hafley should find out about Jurkovec’s status on Tuesday, but things are looking bleak for Jurkovec based on his recent Instagram post showing him wearing a wrist brace. Also, we can’t rule out the fact that Zay Flowers looked pretty beat up despite returning later in the match against umass. plus, defensively, this team is showing more and more that it has some wrinkles to iron out.
Given these variables, I would lean towards taking the +16 temple points. i still hope bc wins the contest and also vegas with -800 odds for the money line. As for the o/u, it is currently set to 60 and I have no intention of messing with it. no idea what to expect from bc’s mettle offense and defensive performance last week scares me not to go this betting route. if you want to play with fire, go with the bass.
final prediction: 28 BC – temple 17 | temple +16 | under 60
bonus round: here are some other opening lines in week 3, I like how it looks out of the gate:
- virginia tech vs, west virginia (-3) – peter’s choice: vt +3
- Carolina coast (-11) vs. buffalo – peter’s choice: cc -11
- alabama (-14.5) vs. florida – peter’s pick: ‘bama -14.5
- fsu vs wake forest (-6.5) – peter’s choice: wake -6.5
- auburnvs. penn state (-6.5) – peter’s choice: psu -6.5
- whatever team colorado state and addazio face (this week toledo), bet on them. this method has not let me down yet!