One of the chase games set to go late Saturday night will have the mighty Oregon Ducks looking to move to 2-0 on the year against a Virginia Cavaliers team that fell at home to Richmond in new head coach Bronco Mendenhall’s Charlottesville debut. With that, the Quack Attack finds itself one of the bigger favorites on the Week 2 board, as well as one of the biggest exposures for bookmakers everywhere.
This contest in Week 2 of the regular season will go down Saturday, September 10, 2016, at 10:30 p.m. ET at Autzen Stadium.
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Virginia +24.5
Oregon -24.5
Over/Under 70.5
Odds Analysis
Better than 76 percent of the betting public is laying the three touchdowns and a field goal with the Ducks who looked as if they didn’t skip a beat in last week’s 53-28 beat down of UC Davis. That said, they came nowhere close to covering the Aggies as 48 point home chalk. Still, the Ducks were immediately bet up to -24.5 from the 23.5 point opener, and more Oregon money is likely to come with those down on the day looking to chase losses.
As is always the norm, the over is getting hit with reckless abandon. A whopping 88.2 percent of the bets are backing the high side of the total with it already jumping up from 68.5 to 70.5. It’s an Oregon game at night in Autzen, so if you think this will be a high scorer, you better jump in now because the number to beat will only go higher the closer we get to kickoff.
Player to Watch
For the second time in as many years, the Ducks will hitch their offensive wagon to an FCS graduate transfer to run their fast paced attack. Unlike Vernon Adams who could pass the heck out of the ball, new Ducks QB1 Dakota Prukop is more excelled at rushing the pigskin. He ran for 1,763 yards and scored 24 touchdowns at the FCS level.
UVA just allowed the Spiders to rip them on the ground for 187 yards and a 4.6 yards per carry average. On top of that, they were also picked apart for 337 yards through the air. Royce Freeman is no doubt going to get his in this match-up, but if Prukop is also able to get in on the action, it’s going to be awfully tough for a UVA defense to get off the field without surrendering points.
Key Stat
Virginia got outgained by an FCS foe last week 524-302 and lost the turnover battle 4:0. Furthermore, they only converted two of nine third down attempts. That forced them to go for it three times on fourth down of which they converted two. Because of their inability to keep drives going, they got killed in the time of possession battle with the Spiders holding a near 20 minute advantage.
Oregon was hardly firing on all cylinders last week yet still managed to put forth a 9.8 offensive YPP average, and did so only holding possession of the football for just under 23 minutes. Virginia must do a better job of extending drives and eating as much time off the clock as possible since they by no means have the offensive makeup that would allow for them to exchange points with the Ducks for a full 60 minutes.
Free ATS Pick
Do not, I repeat, do not read too much into what went down with both of these teams last week. That’s exactly what the linemakers want you to do. So far, it looks like that’s exactly what’s occurring. If I polled 10 people right now on who they would rather back in this match-up just by going what occurred last weekend, there’s not a doubt in my mind that all 10 of them would choose to lay the points than take them.
These are my favorite kind of spots. The books will no doubt need the Cavs to cover this one badly as the Ducks will get hammered on the pointspread, as well as in parlays and teasers. Regardless of how bad they looked last week, Virginia has some nice pieces to the puzzle. Especially on the offensive line and in the secondary. Should the defense find a way to limit what the Ducks can do on the ground, it would force Oregon to the air which isn’t Prukop’s forte.
I had this lined in the 17-18 point range and will gladly take the extra cheddar while most everybody else chases their losses with a huge favorite breaking new players in up and down the roster.
College Football Odds: Oregon 48, Virginia 31
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