Call me crazy, call me stupid, but I like GT here, a lot.
1)First Serious Test for Unimpressive NCST - They've played no one; beat up on D1-AA school, beat UCF by 7, and beat up on terrible Cinci at home on thursday night. They might be riding high on themselves thinking they're better than they are, now they have to go on the road to GT. This is the type of game where they could get caught sleeping and get beat by 3+ TDs.
2)Public Fade - A solid 70% of the action is on NCST, and I think for two reasons: 1)They percieve line value and 2)They saw NCST kill Cinci on primetime TV, so now they're like "really good and stuff". The thing is though, the public rarely ever bets relatively sizeable road dogs. I compare this to the public pounding FSU in week 2 @ OU right around 7/8, like here. In both cases, I think they're primarily betting off their own projected image of the team so far, which is faulty, shortsighted, and exactly what the books are looking to bank on. With OU, they saw that they struggled with Utah State, and that FSU pounded a D1-AA team, so they though FSU +7 was great value; they got killed. Here, the perception is GT is way overrated after losing @ Kansas, and that NCST is solid after beating Cinci. It's as if there is no anticipation whatsoever that things will change week to week. Also, where is the line movement? 8.5 does seem high, but it's only moved half a point with the money? Why? Hopefully the books are confident enough not to move the line down. This is a token public fade opportunity, imo.
3)GT Run Game At Home Too Much for NCST - GT is 3rd in rushing w/ 345 ypg and 6.1 rush yards per play. The Triple Option, run by Senior QB Josh Nesbit, will overwhelm and wear down an untested NCST D. NCST is 20th in Rush D, but that is against a D1-AA school and a 54th ranked rush O in UCF and 96th ranked rush O of Cinci. GT has been top 4 in rushing 3 years straight under coach Paul Johnson; NCST was just 57th in Rush D last year.
4)Other Match-ups - GT is ranked a decent 30th in Pass D with 160 ypg and 6 ypp. Against North Carolina's 11th ranked, 310 ypg passing Offense, GT gave up a respectable 209 yards - on the road. I've heard a lot of hype about the NCST's QB (Russell Wilson) and passing game, but I was not at all impressed when I saw him play against Cinci. He had a few big plays, but for the most part missed recievers and made bad throws into coverage; and Cinci is 91st in Pass D. Besides, NCST is only 28th in Pass O with just 263 ypg and 7.3 ypp (.3 lower than GT); and that's against terrible UCF/Cinci/D1-AA. If that's all they can do against those teams, then I think they will struggle, because they sure can't run it effecitvely with a 74th ranked, 140 ypg, 2.7 ypp rush O. GT has 18 returning starters in all (with QB). NCST has 13 returning starters (with QB).
I think GT is due for the break-out game here they've been waiting for and win by 2-3 TDs, exposing NCST as a fraudulent 3-0 team getting too much public action.
GL.
