There’s always a few surprises in college football, both good and bad. If you can guess which teams will either have unexpected success or failure, then you should be in good shape in predicting win totals.
Here’s three college football teams prepared to go over in win totals in 2017.
Oklahoma Sooners, Over/Under 9.5
Oddsmakers obviously believe in Bob Stoops more than I do. The Stoops effect will hinder the Sooners…but it won’t happen until a few years down the road. Similar instances happened in Oregon, Miami, etc. The main coach leaves, then the team has some success in the next year or so, and then the program crashes back to earth. Oklahoma won’t have as much of a fall as the previous two programs, but that fall won’t happen in the next year. The Sooners return pretty much everyone on offense, including a veteran offensive line. Oklahoma has to travel to Ohio State, so even if I concede a loss in that game (which isn’t guaranteed), Oklahoma still has to lose two more games to go under this win total.
That won’t happen in the Big 12. The Sooners have two tough road games against Oklahoma State and Kansas State, but the Sooners have had solid success against both teams. There aren’t really any major landmines other than the Buckeyes, and possibly those two road games. Oklahoma should win at least one of those games, so buy the Sooners in 2017.
UCLA Bruins, Over/Under 7.5
It’s not hard to find eight wins on this schedule. The Pac-12 is balanced, but it isn’t necessarily the scariest conference. Washington and USC are top-tier national teams. The rest of the conference doesn’t put any fear in me, especially when I have one of the best quarterbacks in the nation in Josh Rosen.
Rosen didn’t fare too well last year, but injuries played a hand in that production. He should be a top-three quarterback this season, and that matters in college football. A quality quarterback can mask a lot of warts on a team. And UCLA does have a few of those. But they’re not as bad as they showed last year. The offense is going to be much better and the defense has good enough athletes that it should compete. Everyone was buying high on the Bruins last year only to see them fail. This is an excellent opportunity to buy low on a team with enough talent to compete every week and a quarterback who will be the best player on the field during the majority of weeks. Eight wins is easily attainable for UCLA.
South Carolina Gamecocks, Over/Under 5.5
I’m confused by this number. It’s likely that South Carolina will be favorites in three of the season’s first four game, and I’m not sold on South Carolina being an underdog in week 1 against North Carolina State. The Gamecocks were horrendous on offense last year and still finished with six wins. The defense should be good once again and the offense returns 10 starters.
The SEC isn’t what it used to be either, opening up more opportunities for South Carolina to compete on a weekly basis. The Gamecocks are being overlooked and they’ll show how much they deserve to have more hype in week 1 against the Wolfpack. When South Carolina gets off on the right foot in the first week, it should be smooth sailing to six wins.
