SMART BET NCCAF for Saturday, September 29, 2012

Solid start to the week with a winner on Thursday with Washington. Hopefully, we can turn that positive momentum into a winning weekend.

CLEMSON (-7) vs. Boston College: I have recently made several posts about situational plays and at first glance you may think I would lean BC here as Clemson comes off the tough loss to FSU. However, I think we have an overreaction here against Clemson. Yes, Clemson is coming off a tough loss verse FSU, but Clemson was a 15 point underdog so winning outright was probably out of reach anyways. I am sure Clemson was disappointed with the loss, but not devastated as some teams may be. More importantly though, you cannot deny the talent mismatch on the field in this ACC battle. BC doesn’t even have a decent loss yet. They get beat at home verse Miami, who is weak at best, and then lost last week on the road at Northwestern, clearly the 5th or 6th best team in the Big 10. BC’s lone win comes against Maine, half the teams in the Lingerie Football League could beat them (OK maybe not, but you get my point). I think there are too many mismatches on both sides of the ball. So long as Clemson comes with some general incentive to win this game they should easily cover this spread.  PLAY ON CLEMSON (-7) for 1 unit.

Arizona St at California (+2). Situational play with Cal here. Type this game into google and the one continual theme is that Cal is in a must win position. I hate when people say that, but Cal does need to win here or a bowl game may be out of reach. Overall Cal has played ok. I think their fans had overly high hopes for this year. Cal has talent all over the field, but have struggled to put it altogether. ASU has played well above their heads so far this year. However, they notoriously struggle on the road and that is where their one loss came this year. Cal is a better team overall and benefit from playing this important game at home. I think ASU struggles here as everything has seemed to go their way so far this year. Cal takes advantage of some ASU mistakes and gets the win. Play on Cal for 1 unit.

Wisconsin (+11) at Nebraska. Important points here. First Big Ten game for both teams. Wisconsin’s offense has struggled, but their D remains solid. They will cause some turnovers. I don’t like the number here, way too much for Neb to lay. Play on Wis for 1 unit.

Good luck.