{"id":17366,"date":"2011-09-03T07:00:01","date_gmt":"2011-09-03T12:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=17366"},"modified":"2011-09-03T02:27:52","modified_gmt":"2011-09-03T07:27:52","slug":"football-picks-from-the-wiseguys-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/football-picks-from-the-wiseguys-5-17366\/","title":{"rendered":"Football Picks From the Wiseguys"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Wiseguys have been using South Florida as one of their top football picks this Saturday<\/figcaption><\/figure>Like nearly every year, the Notre Dame Fightin\u2019 Irish is supposed to return to prominence this season. I\u2019ll believe it when I see it.\u00a0 The Irish opened as 11\u00bd point favorites, but that line has come down to 11 or\u00a010 \u00bd despite the fact that the public is trending Notre Dame\u2019s way at about 70%. When the public is leaning one way and the line moves opposite, the wiseguys are the likely culprit. The sharps seem to be lining their weekly college football picks up behind the Bulls.<\/p>\n

Considering all of the talent and speed for Skip Holtz\u2019s USF squad, 10 points deos feel like a few too many. You have to be impressed with the way USF has earned a level of national respectability. The football program began in 1996, played as an Independent in I-AA from \u201997-\u201900, and jumped to I-A in 2001. Last year, Holtz replaced Jim Leavitt and South Florida continued their bullish ways, beating in-state rival Miami in overtime, and a pretty good Clemson team in its bowl game.<\/p>\n

With all that USF has accomplished \u2013 and in\u00a0a short period of time \u2013 how big would a win in South Bend be? If the Bulls can defeat #16 Notre Dame and all of its tradition in Indiana, the program would likely christen the victory as the biggest in school history. Personally, I love backing an underdog with a purpose. Especially one getting double-digit points.<\/p>\n

Notre Dame might be the most storied program in all of college football. But in recent years, the Irish haven\u2019t inspired much confidence. Aside from first year miracles for Charlie Weiss and Ty Willingham, Notre Dame has been pretty average. In Brian Kelley\u2019s first season last year, the Irish won their last 4 games to end up 8-5. In fairness, they finished the season well enough, beating Utah, Army, USC, and Miami (FL) in its bowl game. But at the same time, ND\u2019s wins over USC and Pittsburgh very easily could\u2019ve gone the other way. Imagine ND loses those two tight games and they finish 5-7, without a bowl game. Pretty average.<\/p>\n

What bothers me the most about Notre Dame is the absence of an offensive identity. You hear pundits talking about it all the time. Texas, for example, had nothing resembling an offensive identity last year. The Irish were supposed to sling the ball around in Brian Kelley\u2019s spread offense. But Kelley showed a predilection for running the ball much more often than his teams at Cincinnati. So what does ND do this year? Move forward with Kelley\u2019s spread, similar to his time at Cincy, or aim for balance like last year? Considering the uncertainty surrounding the quarterback situation, my guess is balance. If that\u2019s the case, I think oddsmakers have inflated the spread by a few points. For me, this line should be in the neighborhood of 7 \u00bd.<\/p>\n

South Florida, however, has a more concrete identity \u2013 defense. The speed and athleticism of the Bulls is sure to give the Irish all sorts of problems. One of the biggest criticisms levied at South Bend is the depletion of the talent pool. How and why Notre Dame can\u2019t pull in more blue chip recruits is beyond me. But I expect the talent edge to actually be in South Florida\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n

Offensively, look for USF to pound the football, work the play-fake, and get BJ Daniels out of the pocket. While Daniels can be terrible throwing from the pocket, he\u2019s quite good putting the ball on receivers when he\u2019s moving around. Additionally, the Bulls have Darrell Scott and Dontae Aycock available in the backfield; Scott transferred from Colorado, Aycock from Auburn. Each was highly sought after coming out of high school.<\/p>\n

I do not expect Notre Dame to run away with this. I think South Florida simply has too much athleticism and purpose in this game to get blown out. And 11.5 points seem like an awful lot.<\/p>\n

Maddux Sports is locked and loaded for another wallet stuffing Saturday.\u00a0 If you are looking for help betting the games today be sure to check out the college football predictions we offer to visitors of the website.\u00a0 Using our experts advice can help lead you to a winning day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Like nearly every year, the Notre Dame Fightin\u2019 Irish is supposed to return to prominence this season. I\u2019ll believe it when I see it.\u00a0 The Irish opened as 11\u00bd point favorites, but that line has come down to 11 or\u00a010 \u00bd despite the fact that the public is trending Notre Dame\u2019s way at about 70%. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":3995,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[2098,2298,2839,1311,1155,2524],"class_list":["post-17366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-college-football-picks","tag-college-football-predictions","tag-football-picks","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-south-florida-bulls","tag-wiseguys"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17366"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17433,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17366\/revisions\/17433"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3995"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}