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Boxing NCAA Football Week 1 Parlay Picks: A Pair of Picks for College Football Launch
The Minnesota Golden Gophers and Nebraska Cornhuskers will open Big Ten Play on Thursday night as Week 1 of the NCAA football campaign is officially upon us. The Gophers are listed as the home favourites, but that doesn’t seem to have any effect on our college football expert at all. Ej is always one to think underdog, and he expects a close affair between these Big Ten foes on Thursday night.
The UConn Huskies will open the 2023 NCAA Football campaign hosting the N.C State Wolfpack on Friday night, as both teams enter the season with new starting QBs. The transfer portal has brought in new faces to command each offense, and our resident college football expert Ej Garr is placing his best value bet at 1.90 odds for the Minnesota Golden Gophers vs Nebraska Cornhuskers game.
- UCONN Huskies vs N.C. State Wolfpack: Huskies Undervalued
- Minnesota Golden Gophers vs Nebraska Cornhuskers: Huskers With a New Outlook
NCAA Football Week 1 Parlay Odds: 3.61
UCONN Huskies vs N.C. State Wolfpack: HUSKIES HOPING EXPERIENCE MATTERS
The UConn Huskies are returning 17 starters from what amounted to be an overachieving 2022 season, and now Head Coach Jim Mora is hoping the foundation is built for success in 2023.
The Huskies were underdogs in all but two games last year, and with an extreme amount of injuries to key players early in the campaign, the team still landed in a bowl game in 2022. Coach Mora has 9 returning offensive players from last year, and in comes a 4-year starting QB from Maine.
Joe Fagnano has 25 starts and 5.655 passing yards accumulated at Maine, and now he has an offence around him that is ready to overachieve again in 2023. The Huskies’ offensive line returns 102 starts, and they will need that experience to guide a running game with many questions to answer. Luckily, the Wolfpack defence is also a significant concern for the visitors on Thursday night, so we might just see two offences ahead of the defences early in the season.
Brennan Armstrong is taking his left arm to N.C State after playing for the Virginia Cavaliers the last 3 seasons. Armston has put up 8,776 passing yards of his own entering his first season with the Wolfpack program. I saw a 3:30 YouTube segment last week in which Armstrong was talking about working with his new teammates, and he seemed pretty excited to show everyone what they can achieve in 2023.
New offensive coordinator Robert Anae has been right alongside Armstrong for the last 3 years at Virginia, so the two will instantly be able to have an influence on the 7 returning starters on that side of the ball for the Wolfpack.
With just over a handful of defensive players returning for N.C State, that doesn’t convince me that they’ll be able to slow down UConn at home. The Wolfpack have played the Huskies 3 times, and the Huskies have covered the handicap/spread on all 3 of those occasions. These two programs haven’t met in quite some time so that is just history, but it is positive history for us on Thursday night.
I think that both of these offences will have plenty of success with two new quarterbacks slinging the rock around the yard, and I do not think that Wolfpack is just going to walk all over the Huskies either.
This line of +14.5 with the home team gives us that opportunity everyone loves, and that is the hook we don’t even need to buy. With a 37 – 30 expectation for this game, I expect a much closer game than the line setters are trying to say.
Odds available as of August 31st 2023. Odds may Now differ.
Minnesota Golden Gophers vs Nebraska Cornhuskers: HUSKERS WITH A NEW OUTLOOK UNDER MATT RUHLE
I am personally surprised that the line setters are leaving us the proverbial hook with the +7.5 handicap, and if I am being honest I think that line could move to +6.5 or +6 even as kickoff draws near.
Matt Ruhle got fired before the end of last year’s NFL season, and on November 26 he was hired at Nebraska to pick up the pieces from his dismissal. Oh, he got a $40M buyout for being fired by the Carolina Panthers, so dinner is on him!
Money isn’t a factor anymore for Ruhle, obviously, but he did sign an 8-year, $74M offer sheet from the Cornhuskers to keep that bank account flowing until 2030. His head coaching record at the collegiate level will be mentioned constantly, and it is because he has a knack for taking over struggling programs and building them up to prosperity.
In 2013, Ruhle took over at Temple after a rough 2012 for the Owls, and he managed to win 10 games in both of his final seasons with that program before moving on to Baylor. After a dismal 1 – 11 campaign at Baylor in year 1 of his tenure, he took the Bears to a bowl game the following year and led Baylor to the 2019 Sugar Bowl with an 11-win campaign.
Quarterback Jeff Sims joined the Huskers through the transfer portal after 3 years with the Georgia Tech Yellowjackets. His 23 starts give him plenty of experience working with an offensive line that has a combined 120 starts under their belts.
PJ Fleck has carried the Gophers to two consecutive 9-win seasons, this being his 7th year manning the Minnesota sidelines.
Fleck may not have an experienced quarterback to rely on, but the expectations for the Greek Gunslinger Athan Kaliakmanis. The hype around Gopher Nation has everyone hoping he will shine under the bright lights, but he has a lot to prove to me. Sure, the 5 starts are something to work with, but the 3 – 4 TD – INT ratio isn’t all that impressive despite that sparkling effort against Wisconsin in the 2022 season finale (319 of his 946 overall yards came against Wisky).
I expect this to be a game that comes down to the wire, and a boot through the uprights near the end of the game will decide the winner of the contest. I honestly don’t see why Nebraska can’t win this game outright, but if the line setters want to leave me +7.5 points to put in my pocket, so be it.
Odds available as of August 31st 2023. Odds may Now differ.
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