Three 1st Half Plays for College Football this Week

These aren't necessarily the best possible bets available for first half wagers, they're just the ones I like where I'm not looking to wager more on games where we have full game wagers...with one strong exception.

.7 unit: NIU -2.5 (-115)

Not sure what we'll get out of the passing game for NIU with Santacaterina at QB, but he seems to run as good as any of their other QBs, and that alone might be enough versus a Kent defense that performed gamely in their last home game missing star LB Holley, but then completely fell off a cliff at Bowling Green last week. Kent is back home, but NIU is playing good enough defense right now to give them shorter scoring fields than Kent should see all day.

.8 unit: AFA Over 32.5

Air Force and Boise combine for a first half scoring average pretty near this number in their games played, but individually average 14 and 24 points, respectively, almost a touchdown better than this number. The weather forecast presents no problem, and 14-24 seems like a good halftime score for this match up.

1 unit: USF -6.5 (-105)

This week we're harkening back to the early weeks of the season when we showed monster value on South Florida pretty much every time we had a strong opinion on them. I'm glad to see we get one more opportunity before the season ends. USF's dual threat offense is very tough to stop, and QB Flowers and crew are running the ball better than they have all season. Meanwhile, UCF continues to struggle because their passing game is almost non-existent. This allows team to cheat against the run, resulting in games like last week (in a spot where we loved Tulsa as one of the top 3 plays of the week) where UCF couldn't score an offensive touchdown until the fourth quarter, even though Tulsa only has my 92nd ranked run defense. USF has a similar defense to Tulsa: not good against the run (109th), but pretty decent against the pass (54th). I wouldn't expect UCF's offense to be that much better than last week, and they're on the road this game. Yes we've already loaded up a play of the week against UCF on a full game bet, but I'm anticipating the line to go even higher before game time, presenting an even better middling opportunity than we currently have. I might middle off a unit on game day, just so we're not completely mortgaged on the Bulls.