Sharps Counting on UNLV to Bounce Back Against Idaho

September 9, 2017 by Staff

The first week of the 2017 NCAA college football season lived up to the hype as expected, with exciting games between ranked teams, come from behind victories, and the biggest point spread upset in college football history.

With the first week of exciting action in the books, here’s a look at college football odds for week 2.

UNLV made the wrong kind of history last week when they lost to Howard University, which came into the game as a 45 point underdog. The Rebels couldn’t get anything going right, especially on the defensive end, and now have to live with the fact that it might take a while for another school to unseat them as the team that suffered the worst point spread cover in history.

Despite UNLV’s embarrassing start to the season, professional bettors really like them this week against Idaho.

Idaho comes in winners of eight of their last nine games, including their victory over Colorado State in the Potato Bowl. The Vandals have also won their last six contests.

Idaho is led by quarterback Matt Linehan, who continued to rewrite Idaho record books and added two more touchdowns to his career total last week against Sacramento State. Linehan, who is projected to be one of the quarterbacks chosen in the NFL Draft next year, will be very difficult for the UNLV defense to contain, after failing to slow down Howard’s Caylin Newton last week.

Since the professional bettors always know something average betters don’t, it might be a good idea to throw some money on UNLV.

Oklahoma is a seven point underdog against Ohio State. The Buckeyes beat the Sooners in Norman last season so keep the revenge factor in mind when betting this one.

Clemson is a 5.5 point home favorite against Auburn, and Notre Dame is a 4.5 point home favorite against Georgia.

A lot of the lines have moved drastically due to heavy action on the teams.

Another team the sharps like this week is West Virginia. The Mountaineers, who lost by seven points to the Virginia Tech Hokies, have had a lot of action placed on them this week that the point spread went from opening at -19.5 to -24.

The sharps liking the Mountaineers makes a lot of sense since they played well last week and East Carolina got embarrassed at home by James Madison, in what was a banner week for FCS schools.

Oklahoma State is another team the sharps are high on this week, thanks to the Cowboys impressive performance against Tulsa. The point spread for that game opened at -24.5 and has moved to -28, due to the large amount of money being bet on the Cowboys.

Thanks to their high-scoring offense, bookmakers believe there will be a lot of money bet on Oklahoma State whenever they play inferior opponents.

We are still in the middle of the week, so the lines might still move before game day. If you want to place bets on any of these teams, make sure you place your bets as early as possible to avoid the line moving against you before placing your bets.

Check back after the games are played for our week 3 betting preview.