College Football Picks, Model Projections - Week 2 2023 - From Gambling911
Here is where we get a little wonky as Gambling911.com digs deep into the numbers in hopes of providing readers with an edge before placing their 2023 Week 2 College Football bets.
Overlays Greater Than 5 Points
Our sampling from last year was greater than 90 percent of all games that met this criteria. Dogs overwhelmingly won 15 of the 17 times. However, that being said, we were already crushed last week by South Carolina in their loss to UNC. The Gamecocks entered that game meeting the criteria with a 5-point overlay. In fact, Gambling911.com detected that the wrong team had been favored here.
Care to guess who might be a +5 or greater overlay in Week 2? That would be Nebraska.
The Huskers meet college football's newest darlings, the Colorado Buffaloes.
The number has hardly moved off the -2.5 for Colorado. They were seeing excellent action at close to 80 percent on the spread.
Nebraska continued its long stretch of underperforming - or so it seemed - in Week 1 versus the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Then again, that was only a three point 13-10 loss on the road.
On paper, the Huskers actually overperformed. Minnesota is rated No. 31 on Sagarin this week (78.15). Nebraska comes in at No. 51 (74.51). Factor in the Golden Gophers home field advantage (2.90 this week), Minnesota should have beaten the Huskers by 6.5 points in Week 1.
We like the Huskers here +2.5.
Eastern Carolina Pirates
This one is well under the radar. Marshall went from a PICK'EM way early to a -3 favorite with as much as 75 percent backing the Thundering Herd.
Eastern Carolina, however, comes in rated No. 78 (67.74), one notch better than Marshall at No. 79 (67.73).
The line on this game has moved above and below the critical 3 point base (2.5 and 3.5) and we are seeing an overlay of 5 to 6 points as a result being that Gambling911.com comes up with a number of -2.89 favoring ECU.
Looks obvious right?
Well not exactly. Sagarin does not immediately take into account key injuries and some other factors. This type of overlay suggests the Pirates will come into this match with one or more missing pieces.
While there are no major injuries to speak of here, ECU has bounced between Mason Garcia and Alex Flinn as the program's starter. As such, there is a giant question mark sitting over Eastern Carolina.
ECU (0-1) began the 2023 campaign with a 30-3 loss at No. 2 Michigan, which has likely also factored into this line. East Carolina’s Rahjai Harris and Javious Bond looked like amateurs last week. The East Carolina defense did hold Michigan's vaunted running attack in check.
Eastern Carolina has won nine of last 15 non-conference games dating back to 2019.
Home field really does matter here too.
From ECUPirates.com:
East Carolina has usually been able to claim plenty of hometown support when playing at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium - establishing itself among conference attendance leaders on a near annual basis. In all, a total of 9,411,430 fans have seen the Pirates in action since 1963, and since the completion of a 7,000-seat expansion project in 2010 (to push capacity to 50,000), the Pirates have drawn 3,140,141 fans.
Iowa State
Their interstate battle with the Hawkeyes appears to feature a line that is off with around 60 percent action on the favorites Iowa.
The Cyclones (1-0) haven't beaten the Hawkeyes at home since Sept. 10, 2011. The Cyclones did win the last meeting of this series.
Half of the last four wins by Iowa were by 3 or fewer points.
We have Iowa State as the favorite here with the number -2.63 compared to the actual line of iowa -3.5. That's a 6-point overlay on top of the wrong team being favored.
Iowa State +3.5 looks quite enticing this week.
What About Auburn at California?
The Auburn Tigers come in as the -6.5 favorites whereas we get a number of -0.80, indicating a 5 point overlay.
The last time Cal faced an SEC team was 2019, when the Bears defeated Mississippi 28-20 on the road. Before that Cal had not played an SEC team since 2007.
Cal scored 58 points (most Cal points since 2016) and gained 669 yards (most in eight years) against North Texas in its opening win.
Injury is a bit of a factor here as Sam Jackson V is expected to start at quarterback for Cal but his status is officially listed as day-to-day. He injured his left arm in the second quarter last week and did not play the rest of the game but Ben Finley played well in his place regardless.
Auburn played two quarterbacks in the win over UMass and are expected to do the same this week.
Action is relatively balanced on this one where the spread is concerned.
We have Cal covering here on the +6.5 number at least. We are getting this one at +6 on the Gambling911.com Sports Hub handicapping page.
- Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com
