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Play to Win 2-Dimes
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Duke looked awful last week losing to a Division I-AA team in Richmond at home. Duke has high hopes for 2009 and the ACC is down big this year with many teams losing to out of conference teams they should beat. I donât believe that will happen here today as I see Duke a little angry and ready to take it out on Army. Army starts a freshmen QB in Trent Steelman for the first time ever! Now I do not consider the QB a huge position for the Academy as they will put it on the ground more times than not. So why does Duke win this game? Duke can still fling the ball as veteran QB Thaddeus Lewis actually had a great game throwing for 350 yards 2TD and 0 INTâs. Duke has a young athletic bunch at WR in Williams and Kelly and I think they will give Armyâs secondary a lot of issues here. The scare is how will Duke hold up against an Army team that can run the ball, but Iâm not worried the same problem was there last year when Duke faced Navy and they cruised to a 41-31 win. Duke can put up the points if they have to and I see them doing such today if the game goes towards a high scoring affair.
I think Tennessee has a major advantage playing last week while UCLA did not. Tennessee was favored by 7.5 last year when they visited the Bruins and now at home they are just 10 point favorites? Yes UCLA beat them, but in my opinion Tennessee under achieved last year where as UCLA was where they should have been. This line is the way it is because UCLA beat Tennessee last year, but with revenge on Tennesseeâs side I see them winning by 2TD or more.
UCLA offense finished 111th in the nation last year where as Tennessee did not finish much better, but Tennessee is far better on defense as they were 4th in the nation allowing just 264 YPG. They have athleticism, speed and talent all over the field every year. In my opinion coaching that talent is the biggest challenge a coach can have and we will find out shortly if Kiffin can pull it off. I believe he will have this squad motivated today and UCLAâs offense wonât scare them a bit with Kevin Craft returning off a 7/20 TD/INT year and Tenn has 3 of their 4 starters in the secondary returning.
Tennessee also has a question mark at QB, but against UCLAâs secondary I think they will have enough success as the Bruins loss Hester to a broken leg.
