{"id":34422,"date":"2014-07-01T20:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-07-02T01:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=34422"},"modified":"2014-06-30T12:48:56","modified_gmt":"2014-06-30T17:48:56","slug":"ncaa-football-week-1-preview-alabama-crimson-tide-vs-west-virginia-mountaineers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-football-week-1-preview-alabama-crimson-tide-vs-west-virginia-mountaineers-34422\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Football Week 1 Preview: Alabama Crimson Tide vs. West Virginia Mountaineers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alabama Crimson Tide vs. West Virginia Mountaineers
\nSaturday, 8\/30\/14, 3:30 PM EST
\nOpening Point Spread:\u00a0 Alabama -26.5
\nCurrent Betting Line:\u00a0 Alabama -26.5
\nOpening Total:\u00a0 N\/A
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 N\/A
\nOdds Courtesy of 5Dimes<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Alabama Crimson Tide are laying nearly four touchdowns against the West Virginia Mountaineers in Week 1<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alabama won\u2019t be ranked No. 1 in preseason polls, which is important to consider when looking over the NCAA football odds page, but head coach Nick Saban\u2019s squad is loaded with talent at every position.\u00a0 The Crimson Tide will likely send out Florida State transfer Jake Coker to lead the offense under center, with the departure of AJ McCarron to the NFL.\u00a0 He\u2019ll have the luxury of handing the ball off to one of the deepest backfields in the country, with junior TJ Yeldon being the main player to watch\u2014gaining 1,235 yards on just 207 carries last season.\u00a0 Alabama has gone OVER the total in its last four games versus Big 12 Conference opponents.<\/p>\n

The Crimson Tide need to replace defensive captain CJ Mosley, who has moved onto the next level after registering a team-high 108 tackles last season, but the group has the bodies to reload at the linebacker position.\u00a0 Alabama\u2019s secondary will be a bit vulnerable in the early going, which is a bit worrisome in this matchup, considering West Virginia is known for spreading teams out and putting the ball up in the air under Dana Holgorson.<\/p>\n

West Virginia has captured eight of its last 11 first games played outside of Morgantown, which makes it a dangerous underdog when making your NCAA football picks, especially with a seasoned senior quarterback in tow.\u00a0 Clint Trickett completed just 52.8 percent of his passes for 1,605 yards last season, but he\u2019s now gotten a taste of Holgorson\u2019s up-tempo system.\u00a0 He has some weapons to target, with Mario Alford, Daikiel Shorts and Kevin White each accounting for 495-plus receiving yards in 2013.\u00a0 West Virginia is 0-6 ATS in its last six non-conference games.<\/p>\n

The Mountaineers go from having eight returning starters last season to 13 heading into this new campaign, which will likely close the gap in getting out-gained by an average of 95 yards during Big 12 play.\u00a0 West Virginia\u2019s defensive line is going to struggle in this game, which places a ton of pressure on a linebacking group that welcomes back seven of its top nine performers.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely play the total, as the OVER is 5-0-1 in the Crimson Tide\u2019s last six affairs on field turf.<\/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":"

Alabama Crimson Tide vs. West Virginia Mountaineers Saturday, 8\/30\/14, 3:30 PM EST Opening Point Spread:\u00a0 Alabama -26.5 Current Betting Line:\u00a0 Alabama -26.5 Opening Total:\u00a0 N\/A Current Total:\u00a0 N\/A Odds Courtesy of 5Dimes Alabama won\u2019t be ranked No. 1 in preseason polls, which is important to consider when looking over the NCAA football odds page, but […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":29429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[462,8329,5463,8328,588,449],"class_list":["post-34422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-football","category-headlines","tag-alabama-crimson-tide","tag-clint-trickett","tag-dana-holgorson","tag-jake-coker","tag-nick-saban","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34422","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=34422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34424,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34422\/revisions\/34424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}