College Football Week #2: Carolina Blue
The University of North Carolina football team plays 17 home games a year and wins none of them. At least that's the way it seems, right? Don't you picture mustachioed head coach John Bunting charging onto the field with thousands of sky-blue-clad fans waving slightly effeminate-looking pompoms, the natural grass in Chapel Hill contrasting nicely with both the cornflower-blue of the team's home jerseys and the gas-light blue of the crisp autumn sky...only to watch Carolina get absolutely waxed? In actuality, since Bunting replaced Carl Torbush (who replaced Mack Brown) at UNC in 2001, Carolina is 24-36, putting it right up there with the University of Illinois and the University of Arizona, pretty nice company in college hoops, but pretty crummy cohorts here in the land of college pigskin. Those who say North Carolina is a tough place to win college football games (because of the school's emphasis on basketball) never told Brown, who post three 10+ win seasons in his tenure at Carolina, including back-to-back 10-2 and 11-1 seasons in 1996 and 1997 that got him the University of Texas job. Whether Torbush destroyed the program before Bunting got there or whether Bunting participated in the job, the school hasn't posted a winning season since Bunting's first year ('01), and if last weekend's icky home loss as a favorite against Rutgers is any indication, things aren't any better this year down Tar Heel way. This week, Carolina is home yet again (surprise!) against Virginia Tech, who's coming off a season-opening mauling of Northeastern, 38-0, in which (surprise!) Tech blocked a punt, making it the 109th time in coach Frank Beamer's (and his goiter's) 228 games that the team has blocked a kick. This may be something of a down year by the Hokies' lofty standards, as Marcus Vick's dismissal from the quarterback role left a void that sophomore Sean Glennon, who'd never started a collegiate game, will have to fill, and the departure of tailback Cedric Humes means Branden Ore will have to handle backfield duties mostly by himself. But there are few reasons to believe Tech doesn't have enough in '06 to handle Carolina, and then some. They defeated the Tar Heels 30-3 last season in Blacksburg (though to be fair, Carolina kept the previous season's meeting closer, losing only 27-24). But here's the thing: Beamer is mercy-free. His teams are 9-2 against the spread in their last 11 games where they were favored by 10.5 points or more, 5-0 in their last five against the spread as a road favorite, and 7-0 against the spread overall in their last seven road games. Carolina is better as a home 'dog (5-1 ATS) than as a favorite, but in the recent past are 0-4 ATS overall, 0-3 ATS in their last three conference games, and 0-3 ATS in their last three home games (including the loss as a fave last week to New Jersey's finest). Really, the Rutgers loss last week wasn't as close as the score indicates; the Scarlet Knights led 21-10 midway through the fourth quarter, and had the ball, but nearly choked away the win late. Most troubling was the fact that Rutgers' tailback, Ray Rice, rushed for a career-high 201 yards. Ore is quite a bit more heralded than Rice (he was a prep All-American), and is one of the more explosive open-field players in the ACC. I don't think Carolina can contain Ore, and I don't worry that the Hokies will let down after a big opener. I am eyeballing that Carolina record as a home 'dog, but in the end, I'm relying on Beamer's lack of mercy and taking Virginia Tech at Carolina (-11.5). Last Week: Oops. Color me fooled by the California Golden Bears. Rarely has a team looked less-prepared than Cal did last week traveling across the country to be humiliated on national TV by the Tennessee Volunteers. I'm not quite ready to anoint the Vols as the favorite in the SEC East just yet; I think last weekend's whooping (which I picked against, by the way) was more a product of unbelievable and utter flatness on the part of Cal. But Bears fans have to be concerned about a QB situation that, contrary to my assertions last weekend, are absolutely not solved by Nate Longshore's return from injury. Joe Ayoob probably actually looked better than Longshore, and even seemed as though he might lead a fiery comeback, but then his old inaccuracy reared its head, and the game was sealed. Either way, it was a bad pick, and I'm 0-1 on the young season against the number. Christopher Harris is a featured writer for the Professional Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com |
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