Saturday night College Football and we will see the Duke Blue Devils take on the Troy Trojans at Veterans Memorial Stadium in Troy, Alabama. The game has a start time of 7:00 pm (Eastern) and will be televised on ESPN 3. Current Vegas odds have the Rebels listed as 19 point favorites, while the total is set at 64.5.
Analysis: The Troy Trojans went 6-6 last year but it wasn’t enough to land them a bowl bid. This year they have 56 lettermen back including 12 starters which should give them a solid shot at a bowl invite. Troy did not get their year off to a good start as they were blasted 48-10 by UAB. The Trojans really struggled on both struggled on both sides of the ball in the game. Not only did the offense put up just 10 points in the game, but they did it on just 272 yards of total offense, including 71 yards on the ground. Brandon Silver hit 70.8% of his passes, but for just 162 yards. He had no TDs and no INTs in the game. On the other side of the ball they allowed just 152 yards through the air, but that’s just cause the Blazers ran over and through this defense, to the tune of 338 yards at 6.1 yards per pop.
The Duke Blue Devils came out of nowhere last year to win the coastal division of the Atlantic Coast conference, but then took it on the chin with a 38 point loss to the Seminoles in the ACC title game Duke does have 14 starters back from that team and after game 1 they look like they haven’t missed a beat. Yes the Blue Devil took on an FCS foe (Elon), but still they had an impressive 52-13 win in that game. The Duke offense looked really good as they racked up 567 yards of total offense and were very balanced with 275 yards on the ground and 292 yards through the air. They struggled on third downs (3 of 12), but did convert on 5 of 6 fourth down plays. Anthony Boone had a solid outing hitting 22 of 33 passes for 247 yards and 4 TDs, with no picks. Jamison Crowder was his favorite target last year and was so in this game, catching 7 passes for 93 yards and 2 TDs. The defense was solid as well, holding Elon to 328 yards of offense and just 4 of 14 on third downs.
Pick: Have to look at the Blue devils in this game. Troy got crushed last week and will now take on a Duke team that has been getting better every year of late. Duke has 14 starters back from last year’s team that landed in the ACC Title game and they started this year on a high note with a 52-13 win over FCS foe ELON. Troy went into UAB as a road favorite last week, but ended up getting crushed by a 48-10 score. Duke is far better than UAB and should have another easy win in this one.
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