College Football Week 1 continues today and we will see the Purdue Boilermakers travel to the Cincinnati to take on the Cincinnati Bearcats. The start time is 12:00 pm (Eastern) and the game will be televised on ESPN. Current Odds have Cincinnati listed as 10.5 point favorites, while the total sits at 50.
Analysis: Purdue has new hope with the hire of Darrel Hazell, but he has some work to do to get this team back to respectability. The former Kent State head man brings a ton of energy to this team, but does he have the players to make that energy work? Hazell led the Golden Flashes to an 11-3 mark and into the national rankings for a short time thanks to his successful approach on offense, but this year he steps in to a situation where just 5 starters are back on offense and they must replace not 1 but 2 QB's that saw significant playing time last year. 5th year senior Rob Henry, won the job at QB and has thrown only 200 passes in his career and has completed just 53.5% of them for 1,212 yards, with 11 touchdowns and eight interceptions. The Boilermakers will also be breaking in a new running back and a slew of receivers, so this is an offense that could struggle in the early going. The defense brings back 8 starters from a group that allowed 31.2 ppg last year. Leading tackler Landon Feichter (80 tackles, four INTs) was impressive at safety last year and will be looked on to take an even larger leadership role.
The Cincinnati Bearcats had been very solid in the Big East as they had a share of or won 4 of the last five titles. Now a new coach (Tommy Tuberville) will take over and he has 13 returning starters from a team that went 10-3 last year. Tuberville brings a 130-77 career record from stints at Ole Miss, Auburn and Texas Tech, as he takes over for Butch Jones, who left for Tennessee. Kay (1,298 yards passing, 10 touchdowns, two interceptions) and Legaux (1,716, 13 TDs, nine INTs) saw time last season. Kay, a sixth-year senior, went 4-1 as a starter last season and was MVP of the Belk Bowl and will be the starter in this one, but we could see Legaux at some point. Cincinnati returns 6 defensive starters from a group that allowed just 18.5 ppg last year, to rank 14th in the nation. The Bearcats do have some holes to fill on this side of the ball as they do lose 4 of their top 6 tacklers from a year ago. Greg Blair and Nick Temple help to form the best LB unit in the league, while the secondary is in good hands with Deven Drane and Arryn Chenault.
Pick: I will go with the Under in this one. Purdue's defense will be ahead of their offense this year, as they lost both QB's and some key skill players from a year ago, plus they will be taking on a top 20 defense in the Bearcats. It's just hard to see Purdue scoring much. On the other side we have a Cincinnati offense that will be solid, but in game 1 I give Purdue a shot at slowing them down enough for this game to stay under the total.
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Football Tips from Vegas Professional Sports Bettor Chuck Edel
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