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Kansas State vs Iowa State in Dublin – While week 0 usually doesn’t offer top match ups, this Farmageddon rivalry game kicks off the college football season with a bang at noon Eastern.
While returning Kansas State QB Avery Johnson didn’t excel at passing last season, he is electric with his running ability. He gets top receiver Jayce Brown back this season, and RB Dylan Edwards should be solid. The Kansas State defense lost two cornerbacks to the NFL, but this program has had a top 30 defense in each of the past 4 seasons by my numbers.
In an episode of The 2025 Preview Series, I had Iowa State as one of my overrated college football teams. My latest member numbers have Kansas State by 4.2 points, and there is value in Kansas State -3 (-115 available at DraftKings) but not -3.5 at other books.
Oregon win total – Bob Stoll, founder of Dr. Bob Sports, is an elite college football handicapper. This year, he doesn’t like Oregon as much as the markets.
While Oregon has brought in veteran QBs over the past few seasons, Bob notes that this year’s starter Dante Moore struggled at UCLA as a freshman in 2023. Despite being at Oregon last season, Moore is still fighting for the number one job. On defense, Oregon lost a ton of production, and Bob doesn’t think the transfers will keep this unit up to its standards.
Bob projects Oregon to win 8.8 games, and there is value on Oregon under 9.5 wins, +155 available at FanDuel. Check out all the services at Dr. Bob Sports.
Fading Conventional Wisdom – Mike Vrabel is an excellent motivator, and this will help the New England Patriots rebound after a 4-13 record last season. Many people cite this conventional wisdom, but I’m not sold.
In addition, Vrabel’s best teams in Tennessee were frauds. Let’s look at regular season record, playoff results and rank by my best numbers at The Power Rank:
- 2019: 9-7, won 2 playoff games before losing to Kansas City in AFC Championship game. 9th best team.
- 2020: 11-5, lost in the Wild Card playoff to Baltimore. 15th best team.
- 2021: 12-5 to earn the top seed in the AFC, then lost to Cincinnati in playoffs. 14th best team.
I discussed more on Vrabel as well as two other coaches in the Conventional Wisdom to Fade podcast episode on Friday. It was probably my favorite episode to make in The 2025 Preview Series, a daily series of podcasts that has four more episodes this upcoming week. Check out this page for a nifty guide to all the episodes.
Late Round Wide Receiver to Target – JJ Zachariason is the expert at projecting players for season long fantasy football.
To steal a WR in the late rounds of your draft, he has found that yards per team pass attempt from the prior season is a useful metric. While these late round WR don’t perform every week, players with a large value the previous season tend to have at least a few top fantasy performances.
Based on this analysis, JJ recommends targeting Atlanta’s Darnell Mooney, who gets promising QB Michael Penix Jr this season. Check out The Late Round Fantasy Football Draft Guide for more data driven insights.
Football humor – On the New Heights podcast, Taylor Swift told the story of what she said to Travis Kelce on their first date: “I legitimately asked him what it was like to see his brother Jason across the line of scrimmage in the Super Bowl.”
Jason and Travis both play offense, so…
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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