{"id":35100,"date":"2014-08-26T12:00:39","date_gmt":"2014-08-26T17:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/?p=35100"},"modified":"2014-08-26T11:28:57","modified_gmt":"2014-08-26T16:28:57","slug":"ncaa-football-week-1-picks-west-virginia-mountaineers-vs-alabama-crimson-tide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/ncaa-football-week-1-picks-west-virginia-mountaineers-vs-alabama-crimson-tide-35100\/","title":{"rendered":"NCAA Football Week 1 Picks: West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Alabama Crimson Tide"},"content":{"rendered":"

West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Alabama Crimson Tide
\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 55.5
\nCurrent Total:\u00a0 55.5
\nOdds Courtesy of Bookmaker<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Alabama Crimson Tide return 13 starters and 51 lettermen for NIck Saban in Tuscaloosa<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

West Virginia has produced 24 games with 400 or more yards of total offense in the Dana Holgorsen era, but that number is going to be difficult to achieve against one of the top programs in the country, which is important to consider when making your Week 1 NCAA football picks.\u00a0 The Mountaineers are 98-29-4 SU all-time in season openers, including a 24-17 victory over William & Mary in 2013.\u00a0 Offensively, the squad welcomes back 31 players with starting experience, with quarterback Clint Trickett expected to open things up for the eighth time during his career in Morgantown.<\/p>\n

The Mountaineers return 12 players on defense with starting experience, but it\u2019s important to point out that 17 players were injured and missed 73 games of possible time in 2013.\u00a0 West Virginia\u2019s returners account for 655 of the team\u2019s 900 tackles last season, with leading tackler Nick Kwiatkoski back in the fold after recording 86 a year ago.\u00a0 Holgorsen may benefit greatly from all three of his specialists returning, including All-Big 12 Conference punter Nick O\u2019Toole.<\/p>\n

Alabama has laid claim to three of the last five BCS National Championships, which can\u2019t be ignored when looking over the NCAA football odds page, especially since it has had 37 players taken in the NFL draft over the last five years.\u00a0 The Crimson Tide return 13 starters and 51 lettermen from their 2013 squad that finished 11-2\u2014tied for the SEC\u2019s Western Division.\u00a0 During the Nick Saban era, the team has captured 11 of 15 games played on a neutral field, with this matchup being played at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta.<\/p>\n

The Crimson Tide\u2019s dominance starts and ends with their defense\u2014a group that leads the country in allowing just 91 touchdowns since 2009\u201436 better than the next closest team in that all-important statistical category.\u00a0 Alabama is also capable of winning games offensively, as it has compiled a 60-1 straight-up record when rushing for at least 140 yards.\u00a0 Running back T.J. Yeldon is the main player to watch, as he ranks 12th on the school\u2019s all-time list with 2,343 career rushing yards.<\/p>\n

Sports bettors will likely back the Mountaineers due to the Crimson Tide being 0-2 ATS in dome stadiums since 2012.<\/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":"

West Virginia Mountaineers vs. Alabama Crimson Tide 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 55.5 Current Total:\u00a0 55.5 Odds Courtesy of Bookmaker West Virginia has produced 24 games with 400 or more yards of total offense in the Dana Holgorsen era, but that number is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":181,"featured_media":29435,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[200,1444],"tags":[462,8329,5399,588,7992,449],"class_list":["post-35100","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-holgorsen","tag-nick-saban","tag-t-j-yeldon","tag-west-virginia-mountaineers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35100","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=35100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35101,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35100\/revisions\/35101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.madduxsports.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}