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VICTORY!!! BYAH!!!

THE PASS RUSH started off the opening season with a 2-0 record ATS. It always feels good to start the season with two wins during Thursday’s prime-time openers. Brandon provided a hell of a pick with his call of South Carolina -14 over Southern Miss. If you took that one, you were loving it from the get go as it was a money in the bank cover with a 41-13 win.  You can’t beat a 14-point cover when you’re already giving up 14 points.

My pick in Pitt +3.5, on the other hand, made you sweat it out. It was ugly, but a win is a win. Utah’s D stepped up in this one, especially their run D, which was rather weak last season. Utah’s D held Pitt to just 2.3 yards per carry. Pitt’s D likewise stepped up in this one too as they forced 3 turnovers including a blocked punt.

In the 4th quarter, Pitt was down by 11, 24-13. Future first-round draft choice WR Jon Balwin finally decided to show up to score a 44-yard touchdown and a 2-point conversion to put Pitt back in the money with 5 minutes left. With Pitt down 24-21, it was good to be back in the money.

There’s a reason I liked the 3.5 points. I knew that if Pitt would lose, they would lose by exactly 3 points. Fact. I knew I would not like this spread anything short of…

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Coach Wulff will likely improve WSU in his 3rd year as coach.

WASHINGTON STATE COUGARS (+16.5) @ OKLAHOMA STATE COWBOYS

I’m doing one more week 1 college football preview before shifting gears and getting into the week 1 NFL lines. This time I want to take a look at Washington State @ Oklahoma State (-16.5). I was eying this line up early when the Cowboys were 14.5 favorites and the line has moved to 16.5 which shows the public is pounding the Cougars.

Washington State is absolutely terrible! They posted a 1-11 record last year, but managed to come out 5-7 ATS. That’s because they were mostly spotted between 20-45 points every single game! They gave up an average of 38.5 PPG while scoring just 12 PPG. The Cougars D was dead last in the country giving up 512 yards per game! On the upside, Washington State can’t get any worse as they are returning 15 starters from last season and are in the 3rd year of Coach Paul Wulff’s tenure.

The question now becomes, can Oklahoma State be as good as they were the last two seasons because if they are, I’m all over the Cowboys in this one. Despite OSU’s 9-3 regular season record last year, they were just 5-6-1 ATS. They had a balanced attack last year gaining about both 180 yards rushing and passing and putting up an average of 28 PPG while allowing 21 PPG. Oklahoma State will be forced…

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Can Scotty McKnight help lead the Buffaloes to a winning season?

There’s two more games that I wanted to get around to before the college football season kicks off. Colorado vs. Colorado State and Oklahoma State vs. Washington State. Why am I previewing these games? Because Colorado State and Washington State are terrible teams which has me thinking that easy money could be made, so let’s check that out. I loved betting against the Browns, Raiders, Rams, and Lions last year because it was easy money. Let’s see if we can pick against the weaker college teams early this season.

COLORADO BUFFALOES (-11.5) @ COLORADO STATE RAMS

We’ll start with the Rams since their usually atrocious. The Rams had a 3-9 record last season (2-9 ATS). They started off with 3 wins, including a win over Colorado, then went 9-0. They had an impressive win over Nevada, but then got crushed by the likes of BYU, TCU, San Diego State, Air Force, and UNLV.

Like Brandon suggested, target teams to bet against that are losing a lot of offensive linemen. Colorado State is returning just one lineman and they’ll be forced go with a true freshmen QB Pete Thomas. Thomas was a highly touted recruit who threw for 5500 yards and 52 TDs in just three years of high school ball, so the kid has some skills. See highlights below.  RB Leonard Mason will do his best to help take pressure off Thomas in his first collegiate start.

Colorado was…

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Gentlemen, we are one day away from embarking on another season of football. The day is finally upon us. For the past three weeks I’ve been going through the week 1 college football spreads to see if I can strike gold early. I hate to be the bearer of bad news and inform you that I haven’t been able to spot any “must take” spreads where I can easily strike “pay dirt.” I’ll be playing these games very conservatively since I firmly place them all in “toss up” territory. Here is an overview of the games that we’ve previewed.

Before we get started, you’ll want to go ahead and sign up for our NFL Pick ‘Em League on Yahoo. Click the link for details or simply check out the section on the right-hand side of the page for log in and password information. You’ll get a shot at THE PASS RUSH title with your name engraved in glory and a custom NFL Shop t-shirt of your choosing if you win the league, all of which is free.

WEEK 1 COLLEGE FOOTBALL PICKS AGAINST THE SPREAD

1.) Virginia Tech (+2.5) over Boise State — Confidence 1.5/5

Brandon likes Boise State and that is the likely play to make in this one — don’t kid yourselves.  I’m not betting on this one, but this is the big week 1 college football game and I had to preview it. I’m simply trying to be a “tough guy” and picking against the…

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UNC has one nasty defense, but they're riddled with controversy.

I’ve done over a half dozen college football previews. I got a head start about two weeks ago looking at the Week 1 college football lines to see if there’s any games that I really like. I haven’t been able to spot any games which I would give a 4/5 rating (worthy of a nice bet), but I’m cautiously optimistic in Cincy -1.5 over Fresno State and Pitt +3.5 over Utah. I’m cautious with both teams on the road, but you’ll have to read those reports to understand what I’m seeing in those two games. I tend to be rather conservative betting on the first few weeks of football until I get a good feel for the year. You’ll also want to read Brandon’s week 1 picks as he like South Carolina -14 over Southern Miss. What I wanted to do today was preview a big Saturday Night primetime game between LSU and UNC, which takes place in the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.

No. 21 LSU TIGERS VS. No. 18 NORTH CAROLINA TAR HEELS

The line on this one has moved from LSU -1.5 to UNC -1.5 and reports were that 80% of the bets were on LSU -1.5, but for some reason, the line was moved to UNC -1.5. The line was then taken down due the controversy going on in UNC that is going to be a major distraction for…

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QB Zach Collaros can get it done in the air or on the ground. He's the real deal.

When I saw the line open at Cincinnati -1.5, my eyes opened up and I was in a state of disbelief. Something has to be up because this football spread is just too favorable if my first impression serves me correct. Sure, Cincinnati lost their head coach Brian Kelly to Notre Dame and they don’t have QB Tony Pike this season either (29 TDs last season in just 8 starts), but did the oddsmakers forget that Fresno State lost the nation’s best running back RB Ryan Matthews (1808 yards, 19 TDs) and play in the WAC?

Cincinnati has a more than capable quarterback in QB Zach Collaros (1436 passing yards, 344 rushing yards, 10 passing TDs, 4 rushing TDs in 4 starts), who filled in for the injured Tony Pike last season. I am enamored with this kid. In Collaros’s five games after Pike’s injury (he had 132 rushing yards in his debut once Pike went down vs. USF), he averaged 65 rushing yards per game. Collaros helped lead the Bearcats to a 12-0 regular season by going 4-0 as their starter and beating quality teams such as Connecticut and West Virginia. He threw for 4 TDs against Syracuse and racked up 480 passing yards, 75 rushing yards, and 3 TDs against Connecticut. Collaros won over Bearcats fans and there were many who wanted him to…

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WR #15 Jermaine Kearse is the player to watch in this one.

WASHINGTON HUSKIES @ BYU COUGARS -3

Washington has been a notoriously awful football team for the better part of the last decade, but has shown signs of turning their program around last year. Ever since their 2001 Rose Bowl appearance, they’ve struggled big time. Here are their records since 2001 in chronological order: 7-6, 6-6, 1-10, 2-9, 5-7, 4-9, 0-12, 5-7. The bottom line is that this team hasn’t produced a winning season since 2002, but they were able to improve on their 0-12 2008 season by going 5-7 this past year. Everyone tried to pound the Huskies last year and more often than not, they got burned as the Huskies had a 7-5 record ATS. They covered against USC, Notre Dame, Arizona, UCLA, and Cal. Even more impressive was the fact that they closed the season by defeating Cal 42-10 after shutting out Washington State 30-0, as well as upsetting USC 16-13. However, Washington struggled on the road going 0-5 and getting crushed by the likes of Oregon State and Stanford, who they were unable to cover against.

BYU was tremendous this past season, closing the year with an 11-2 record and going 8-5 ATS and finishing 14th in the BCS standings ahead of teams such as Pitt, Oregon State, Stanford, Utah, and West Virginia. That kind of performance last year begs the question, why is this team only giving…

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