Oddsmakers have released win totals for the 2016 college football season.
I’ll take a look at each power conference and pick the teams with the best chances to earn the over and the under. Here’s my look at two teams in the ACC destined for the under in 2016.
Pittsburgh Panthers, over/under 7 (+100 over/-120 under)
Let’s not get too excited about Pittsburgh’s meteoric rise last season. OK, maybe it wasn’t meteoric by any other team’s standards, but the Panthers finally polished off eight wins for the first time since 2010. Usually, the Panthers’ preview story is about how they’re trying to get over the hump of the 6-7 or 7-6 record, which had been a mainstay from 2011 to 2015.
Now, after last season, the storyline has changed. Pittsburgh finally has their man in head coach Pat Narduzzi and the team returns 16 starters. However, this team benefitted from a weak ACC last year and a favorable schedule.
Don’t forget that Pittsburgh started 2015 at 6-1, losing four of its final six games, and it went 5-1 on the road last season, which doesn’t seem possible for a second straight year.
This year, despite an average ACC again, the Panthers have a much tougher road to eight regular-season wins. Three of the first four games are at home against Penn State and on the road against Oklahoma State and North Carolina. At Clemson and Miami in back-to-back weeks in November also will be provide plenty of headaches.
Pittsburgh is still an average team that will hover around that six-win mark and isn’t ready to take that next step. — Under
Wake Forest Demon Deacons, over/under 5.5 (+110 over/-130 under)
I’m getting garbage value with this pick, but I can’t ignore the obvious. Wake Forest isn’t going to a bowl game this season.
I wasn’t completely against backing Wake Forest against the spread last season because oddsmakers were completely one-sided against the Demon Deacons. But they didn’t win many games thanks to an atrocious offense. That offense returns plenty of starters from last year, but is that really a good thing? Sure, they’re more experienced, but was there that much talent in the first place?
I doubt it. The defense also will suffer this season, losing its two best linebackers from last year. Mostly, this over/under is in response to the perceived notion that Wake Forest should get better with all the experience those underclassmen earned last year. That’s a fair analysis, but I don’t believe that will translate into three more wins this season.
The schedule isn’t horrible, but the Demon Deacons will either have to win all the games they should compete in, like at home against Syracuse, Tulane, Delaware, Boston College Army and Virginia, or steal a road game at North Carolina State, Duke or Indiana.
There’s a way to the over, but I’m not banking on it. — Under
