{"id":29772,"date":"2013-08-26T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2013-08-26T13:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=29772"},"modified":"2013-08-25T16:59:09","modified_gmt":"2013-08-25T21:59:09","slug":"ncaa-football-week-1-picks-north-carolina-tar-heels-vs-south-carolina-gamecocks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-football-week-1-picks-north-carolina-tar-heels-vs-south-carolina-gamecocks-29772\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Football Week 1 Picks: North Carolina Tar Heels vs. South Carolina Gamecocks"},"content":{"rendered":"

North Carolina Tar Heels vs. No. 6 South Carolina Gamecocks
\nThursday, 8\/29\/13, 6:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 South Carolina -10.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 South Carolina -10.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 56.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 56.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The South Carolina Gamecocks have one of the best players in college football in DE Jadeveon Clowney<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

North Carolina has posted five consecutive winning seasons, at it looks to pick up a season-opening victory over an FBS school for the first time since beating Tulsa in 2000.\u00a0 The Tar Heels are led by quarterback Bryn Renner, who has thrown for 54 touchdown passes in the last two years combined\u2014becoming the only player in school history to throw for 20 or more scoring strikes in multiple seasons.\u00a0 North Carolina is 0-5 SU and 1-4 ATS as underdogs since 2011, with the OVER going 4-1 in that situation.<\/p>\n

The Tar Heels ranked first in the ACC and 20th in the country with 16 interceptions a year ago, which can\u2019t be ignored when making your NCAA football picks Thursday night.\u00a0 North Carolina returns seven defensive starters, including all four starters in last season\u2019s secondary.\u00a0 The program is 2-8 all-time in games against ranked teams when opening up a new campaign.\u00a0 All eyes will be on senior A.J. Blue and sophomore Romar Morris, as they attempt to replace standout Giovani Bernard, who will be playing in the NFL this season.<\/p>\n

South Carolina is 79-36-4 in 119 season openers, including 13 consecutive victories in that situation, which is important to consider when looking over the NCAA football odds page.\u00a0 The Gamecocks will likely come away triumphant in this spot due to head coach Steve Spurrier\u2019s 22-1 all-time record when starting a new campaign, including a 8-0 mark during his time in Columbia.\u00a0 South Carolina is 1-2 as home favorites of 10.5 to 14 points the last two campaigns, with the OVER going 2-1 in those three opportunities.<\/p>\n

The Gamecocks are 8-2 in Thursday night tilts under Spurrier, including a 5-1 record at Williams-Brice Stadium.\u00a0 South Carolina made just one coaching change during the offseason, as veteran defensive line coach Brad Lawing left for Florida.\u00a0 Fans are excited to see junior defensive end Jadeveon Clowney back on the field, as he\u2019ll likely be the top pick in the 2014 NFL Draft.\u00a0 Quarterback Connor Shaw will lead the offense\u2014completing 66.8 percent of his passes since making his team debut in 2010.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Gamecocks due to their 5-1 ATS mark versus ACC opponents.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t miss out on a winning season and let the college football handicappers at Maddux Sports line your pockets with cash.\u00a0 Long term packages are available now!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

North Carolina Tar Heels vs. No. 6 South Carolina Gamecocks Thursday, 8\/29\/13, 6:00 PM EST, TV:\u00a0 ESPN Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 South Carolina -10.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 South Carolina -10.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 56.5 Current Total:\u00a0 56.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker North Carolina has posted five consecutive winning seasons, at it looks to pick up a season-opening […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":29420,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[387,5743,5508,5307,32,3126,2781,7526],"class_list":["post-29772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-acc","tag-bryn-renner","tag-connor-shaw","tag-jadeveon-clowney","tag-north-carolina-tar-heels","tag-south-carolina-gamecocks","tag-steve-spurrier","tag-williams-brice-stadium"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29772","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\/181"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29772"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29773,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29772\/revisions\/29773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}