Week 8 Weeknight Musings

Quick recap: Went 6-5 last week to bring the total number to 41-32-5, or about a slightly higher than 56% clip. Ho-hum for the most part. Hopefully we'll have a better week this week, although I must say that the lines appear a bit tight, and as usual, the numbers have moved contrary to my wishes despite heavy action on the other side in many cases. Frustrating. More to come later.



1. Tonight. @ NC State +11 v Florida St: Will I be on a double digit home dog on Thursday night? Friends, if you have to ask this question, I have a series of others for you: Does a bear shit in the woods? Does the Pope wear a funny hat? Is the sky blue? Will Obama carry Harvey, IL (if anyone can figure out a way to stagger into the polling places)? Yes! With vigor, I will type in 1 unit and press submit. So far this year there have been 4 home dogs on the Thursday night ESPN game(if you count Wake last week, who moved to a dog late in the day Thursday), and those dogs are 4-0 outright. That includes a couple of significant dogs in Vandy v South Carolina in week 2 and of course, the Oregon St victory over USC in the Trojans' annual gag job. In this game, we have NC State, who has been up and down, with their fortunes fluctuating based on the availability of their starting QB Russell Wilson. In week 1 vs South Carolina, he got hurt in the first half, after which NC State got blitzkrieged. In the subsequent games they've had him, they beat East Carolina and hung to the end with BC as significant dogs. In the games they haven't had him, they have gotten their asses kicked, mostly due to the 43% completion ratio and 2/8 TD/INT ratios of their horse manure backups. One of these backups, Daniel Evans, actually beat FSU on Thursday night 2 years ago in a very similar pointspread situation. With Wilson in there, NC State is betable. Florida St, meanwhile has played much better since their laughable performance earlier in the year against Wake, with back to back victories against Colorado and Miami in which they outgained both rather easily. However, they still have exhibited a penchant for letting teams they should be hammering stay around, like the Miami game. They are still terribly mistake prone, and if they make mistakes in this game, (which based on past experience is almost a certainty), they run a large risk of losing outright. I will certainly take the 11. Actually, in my estimation the chances of NC State winning this game are probably equal to those of FSU covering an 11 point spread. Lots of value on NC State here.

I am still looking at the other game for tonight, which should be a very good one in the Mountain West, BYU(-2) @ TCU. People have been pointing to the season wrap-up game between BYU and Utah as the end all be all in the MWC this year, but TCU has been flying somewhat under the radar this year, spending most of it's time dismantling opposing offenses. Big trouble potentially for BYU tonight. They've been screwing around against inferior competition the past couple of weeks, so they've gotten out of rhythm, and they have shown some weakness on the road against the likes of Washington and Utah St. TCU will be licking their chops waiting for the Cougs. Not sure if TCU has the offense to win this one, but I might be back with another play later on,.....