Another Saturday and another full day of College Football. The lineup this week is not quite as appetizing as last week but that is to be expected as so many of the top teams opened the season against other powerhouses. Don’t fret though because there are plenty of entertaining matchups to keep you busy as you wait for the opening weekend of the NFL tomorrow.
You will not have to wait long to enjoy the matchup of the weekend as the 11th-ranked Ducks of Oregon travel to the Horseshoe in Columbus, Ohio to face the 3rd-ranked Buckeyes of THE Ohio State University. This game may lose some of it’s luster if All-American DE Kayvon Thibodeaux cannot suit up for the Ducks. He is currently listed as day-to-day but fingers are crossed that he will be able to play. Oregon is a quality club without him but they become menacing for opposing teams when he is coming off the edge. On the other sideline, OSU was a tale of two-teams last week. They started slow out of the blocks, scoring only 10 points in the first half before cranking out 31 points in the final 30 minutes. Either way, the Elldee Sports formula is calling for a comfortable Buckeye win and the points to sail over the total.
Another matchup with season-changing implications for both teams is the rivalry game between Iowa and Iowa State. The city of Ames, Iowa and the Iowa State Cyclones will host the Iowa Hawkeyes to see who will take home the Cy-Hawk Trophy this season. Iowa dismantled a top-25 Indiana team last week while ISU snuck by FCS Northern Iowa. Iowa leads the overall series and has won five straight between the two. You can toss history out of the window, though, as this will be the first time that both teams are ranked. To really crank up the heat, they are both in the top-10! The Elldee Sports Formula is calling for more of the same, though, with Iowa pulling off the “upset” and winning by two touchdowns. Although, we all know that rivalries rarely go as predicted.
Hopefully, there are a more than a few close games this weekend to keep us entertained. For a full list of NCAAF predictions, go to the NCAAF tab or https://elldeesports.com/ncaaf/. Until next time, good luck.
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The Dallas Cowboys are commonly known as America’s Team but their fans have been tested for most of the last 20 years. Although they own five Super Bowl titles, their opponents from Tampa have won two since the Cowboys last championship. Tampa brought in Tom Brady last year and shocked the league as the 43-year old quarterback pulled off his greatest feat yet, winning the Super Bowl on a team not named the Patriots. Dallas thinks they might be the team that shocks this year as they get the return of their All-Pro quarterback, Dak Prescott. Dallas should be much improved but the rust from Dak and the homefield advantage will prove too much as the Bucs will win and cover.
The Kansas Jayhawks are coming off of their first win in over 2 years! So what if it was against an FCS team and required late game heroics. That is not why I would be worried about them. The problem for Kansas is they are running up against America’s darling in Coastal Carolina. They burst on the scene last year and had an amazing season. They were a breath of fresh air as they treated football like a game and not the hum-drum professional look that we see so often these days. Between faux wrestling matches and mullets, this team stole America’s heart and appears to be humming along again this year. I would expect a big win from the Chanticleers but the Elldee Sports Formula does not have them covering the large 25-point spread.
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North Carolina, the preseason #10, fell on the road at Lane Stadium to the Virginia Tech Hokies. Enter Sandman played as the Hokies entered the stadium and on cue, the VT defense put Sam Howell’s Heisman Trophy hopes to sleep. On top of that, Charlotte upset Duke and Michigan State upset Northwestern, just as predicted by the Elldee Sports Formula. As a whole, the formula has had mixed results. On predictions with percentages of 65% or better, the formula has gone 86% on the moneyline, 60% on the spread, and 50% on over/unders.
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The headliner this Saturday is a Big Ten matchup between Nebraska and Illinois which was supposed to take place in Dublin but due to COVID reasons, will take place in Champaign, Illinois. Illinois is getting 7-points at home to a team that they defeated the last time they met, on the road, by 18-points. That seems odd at first glance and appears that the odds makers are trying to take advantage of Nebraska’s name recognition. These two teams appear to be headed in different directions with Scott Frost on thin ice in Lincoln. Even still, the Elldee Sports Formula is calling for a 31-20 Cornhusker win. 
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The Atlantic Coast Conference has been ruled by the Clemson Tigers in recent years and Dabo Swinney has built a monster in Clemson, South Carolina. They will once again go undefeated, beating Georgia to open the regular season and outscoring North Carolina at the end during the ACC championship game. The best over/under win total pick in the conference is North Carolina over 9.5. They have the talent to blow past that number of wins en route to a Coastal Division championship.
The Big Ten is once again led by the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Buckeyes are another team with a marquee non-conference match-up this year as they will easily handle the Oregon Ducks. They will coast through the rest of their schedule on the way to a fifth-consecutive Conference championship. The Iowa Hawkeyes will test them in the championship tilt but will not have enough firepower to hang with the mighty Buckeyes. The top selections for over/under win totals in this league are both under. Wisconsin has a solid team but will fail to reach the predicted 9.5 wins. The Michigan Wolverines have been sliding and will officially implode this season and get nowhere near the total of 7 wins.
The Big Twelve will be won by the Oklahoma Sooners, in a repeat of the past 6-years. The Sooners do not play a particularly strong schedule as they have no big-name out-of-conference matchups. The only team that can challenge them in conference is the Iowa State Cyclones. In fact, ISU beat Oklahoma during the regular season last year, only to fall in the conference championship game. History will repeat itself. Expect the Texas Longhorns to finally turn the corner with a few quality wins and reaching over the win total on a Vegas projection of 8 wins.
The PAC-12 is quite possibly the most unpredictable of all the Power 5 conferences. It seems that the winner of this conference is never who the experts predict. That happens again this season as the Elldee Sports Formula is calling for an unconventional prediction of the UCLA Bruins finishing the season undefeated and with a conference championship over the Washington Huskies. This is a tall order as the Bruins would have to defeat six pre-season ranked teams. Sadly, as an under the radar team, they would still not make the playoffs. The top over/under pick in this conference is, obviously, the Bruins as they will sail over the 7-win Vegas number.
Finally, the Southeastern Conference will be Alabama and everyone else. The Crimson Tide will finish with an undefeated regular season for a second year in a row. Georgia will once again squander a talented roster and lose in the SEC championship game. The over/under projections seem to be spot-on for this conference with the only outlier being the Texas A&M Aggies. Elldee Sports is predicting the Aggies to only have one loss, to Alabama, and finishing the regular season with 11 wins. That allows a 2-game cushion as the current Vegas over/under is 9.5 wins. 
Some of the highlights that can be counted on per the Elldee Sports Projection Formula are the NY Jets at Carolina Panthers, Minnesota at Cincinnati, and San Francisco at Detroit. The biggest win, percentage-wise, is Carolina (-4) at NYJ. The Jets are a dumpster fire and just cannot seem to get it right. Take the Panthers at home to easily cover. Minnesota and San Francisco will both feast on perennial bottom feeders. Due to playing on the road, the spreads are lower than they should be, especially during Week 1 where teams are not road weary. Expect both of these teams to win outright by double-digits.
The odd thing about the AFC South is that calling the best team in the division a team from the “south” is questionable. This division is all about one power team and three weak teams. The age-old question in a group like this is whether the power team is actually good or the record is propped up by getting to play the other three teams twice a year. In this case, I believe that Indianapolis is a good team. The Indianapolis Colts are projected to win the division with a 14-3 record by the Elldee Sports Formula. The Tennessee Titans are in a distant second at 9-8, just missing the playoffs. The dysfunctional Houston Texans are projected third with a 3-14 record. In last, again, are the Jacksonville Jaguars at 1-16.
The Indianapolis Colts have had a revolving door at the quarterback position in recent years and I can’t say that I believe an often injured Carson Wentz is going to bring stability to the position. Luckily for the Colts, the team is bolstered by a balanced offense and strong defense that includes last season’s #2 rush defense, allowing only 90.5 yards per contest. Tennessee on the other hand had the league’s #2 rushing offense. The issue with the titans was not their rushing attack but rather the complimenting pieces. The passing attack was poor at best and the defense was one of the worst in the league. It appears that the Titan GM recognized this and went hard after some help in this year’s draft class. The real question is how long it will take for these players to make an impact.
This division will be the strongest in the entire NFL this year. The NFC South is home to the defending Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers but also has two other playoff contenders. The Elldee Sports Formula is calling for another strong year for the Buccaneers as they will finish 16-1. There only loss comes to fellow South Division rival New Orleans Saints who will finish second, only due to strength of schedule, at 16-1 as well. The Atlanta Falcons finish third but earn a 7th seed playoff spot at 11-6. The Carolina Panthers will finish 6-11, in part due to the monster schedule they face of playing in the NFC South.
The Baltimore Ravens were picked to win the Super Bowl the past two seasons by the formula but have failed to reach the big game either time. Once again, the Ravens, led by Lamar Jackson, are picked to carry the top seed into the playoffs but this year they are picked to lose in their first game! Baltimore relies on an old-school style of power running and a stout defense. It has not been enough to beat the elite teams in the NFL, though. Cleveland will make the playoffs, too! They will face the same fate as Baltimore as both teams are projected to lose to Indianapolis. On paper, the Browns look great as they are led by Baker Mayfield, Nick Chubb, Jarvis Landry, and OBJ on offense and also have big names in Jadaveon Clowney and Myles Garret on defense. Expect this group to be a surprise team this year.
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