No. 17 Nebraska opens up the college football season today against visiting Southern Miss. The game is scheduled for a 3:30 pm EST start time and it will be televised nationally on ABC. Currently the odds for the game have Nebraska favored by 19.5 points.
Nebraska is favored by way too many points in this game here today. We're away of Southern Miss and the coaching change and we're away that Nebraska quarterback Taylor Martinez and running back Rex Burkhead both return to school. But still, the Southern Miss defense has built itself a reputation over the past years as being a solid defensive club. The Golden Eagles are the defending Conference USA winners, as well.
Yet, the Cornhuskers will be looking lengthen the nation's longest active winning streak in season openers to 27 games with a victory in today's game. In each of the previous 26 season-opening victories, Nebraska has won by at least 10 points. Last year Nebraska finished with a 9-4 record overall and went 5-3 in the Big Ten, their first year in the conference. The Huskers duo of Burkhead and Martinez last season rolled up a total of 2,231 rushing yards and overall Nebraska ran the ball more than 600 times.
Southern Miss won 12 games in the 2011-12 season and were amazing offensively, racking up 36.9 points and 461.4 yards per contest. Junior QB Chris Campbell is going to have a big void to fill from last season as Austin Davis is now gone. Southern Miss has prided itself on playing hard-nosed defense as well, but head coach Larry Fedora left and took the North Carolina job. Enter Ellis Johnson, the former South Carolina defensive coordinator. Dude knows how to coach defenses. Southern Miss should actually be better on that side of the ball this season. Even better? Johnson's Gamecocks squad beat Nebraska in the Capital One Bowl to end last season, so he has an idea of what's going on with the Cornhuskers.
Free Pick: Southern Miss and the points, here. That's just a ton of points to lay against a team that is returning a lot and should be better defensively than they were last season. This has the makings of a pretty good game and the 3-touchdown spread is just too much.
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