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The Alabama Crimson Tide just keep on rolling. It’s rinse, wash, repeat as the Crimson Tide again look like one of the best teams in college football. No matter how many players Alabama loses to the NFL each season, it has the best recruiting pipeline in college football and continues to just reload without any hint of relenting in the near future. The Crimson Tide will get to play one more non-conference opponent before SEC play kicks off against Vandy next week and will look to best Mike Bobo and the Colorado State Rams.
This matchup in Week 3 of the regular season will take place on Saturday, September 16, 2017,
at 7 p.m. ET at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. This game will be broadcast on ESPN2.
College Football Opening Odds at BookMaker.eu
Colorado State +28.5
Alabama -28.5
Over/Under 53.5
Odds Analysis
Colorado State is about to go pick up some frequent flyer miles. The Rams are traveling to Alabama this week and then their next game will be on the road against Hawaii in two weeks time. The Rams started the season strong with a huge win against Oregon State, but that fizzled after a woeful offensive performance against Colorado and a snoozer over Abilene Christian.
The Crimson Tide were tested in the first half by the Seminoles, but made adjustments to pick up an easy victory over a quality opponent in their first game of the season. However, they weren’t able to cover the spread against Fresno State last weekend as the 42.5 points proved to be too much.
There are plenty of trendy reasons to like the under here. The under is 6-2 in the Rams’ last eight games, while the under is 8-2 in Alabama’s last 10 home games overall.
Players to Watch
Colorado State has no shot of an upset, but it should be fun to see what the combination of Nick Stevens and Michael Gallup can do.
Stevens has been one of the better quarterbacks in the Mountain West after finally winning the starting job midway through last year and has played well so far in 2017. He had solid outings against Oregon State and Abilene Christian, but did struggle versus Colorado. Stevens does have accuracy issues at times, and Alabama will exploit any poor throws.
Gallup is one of the few elite receivers in the Mountain West. Even Nick Saban thought so and briefly talked him up in his weekly press conference. He is strong and powerful, but will be challenged all game by Minkah Fitzpatrick.
Key Injuries
Alabama’s next man up mentality will be tested in the linebacker corps in this game. The Crimson Tide had four linebackers get injured in the opener against Florida State and two, Christian Miller and Terrell Lewis, are out for the season.
Anfernee Jennings and Rashaan Evans got banged up too in the win and are questionable for this week’s game. The loss of Evans would be big in this one as he might be Alabama’s best linebacker. Sure, this unit is still insanely talented, but those injuries at least soften the depth.
Free ATS Pick
Jalen Hurts continues to do it all for the Tide. Hurts is the team’s leading passer and rusher through the first two games of the year and hasn’t made a mistake yet. Although he is dinking and dunking a lot with his passes, that’s fine against most of Alabama’s opponents as Saban would rather have him do that then turn the ball over.
Alabama will want to put this one away early and start to get focused for SEC season. Look for the Crimson Tide to open things up a bit and jump out to a big lead. That will be enough to give Bama fans the cover here.
College Football Odds: Crimson Tide 48, Rams 10
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