It’s the morning of the first kickoff of the year in the college football betting world, and here at Bankroll Sports, we are zooming in on the props on the card on Thursday that are worth backing. Be sure to sign up for an account at Hollywood Sportsbook for the best NCAA props on the internet!

Dion Lewis (Pittsburgh Panthers) Over/Under 132.5 Rushing Yards
Lewis is arguably the top running back in the nation this season, especially if Alabama’s Mark Ingram is really hurt for any period of time. The Panthers are taking on a relatively stout front seven for the Utes, even though former DE Koa Misi has since graduated and is playing with the Miami Dolphins. The simple fact of the matter is that HC Dave Wannstedt had a heck of a lot more confidence in his former QB Bill Stull than he will in his current one, QB Tino Sunseri. Until that trust is formed, we expect a man that he does trust, Lewis, to get a ton of carries. That being said, he’s probably going to end up Over 132.5 Rushing Yards -115 at Hollywood Sportsbook.

Jereme Brooks (Utah Utes) Over/Under 5 Receptions
Brooks posted four games of at least five catches in his last five games of the season last year, but that doesn’t mean that we like his chances in this one. With Lewis carrying the ball so frequently for the Panthers, the Utes aren’t going to have as much time with the pigskin as they are used to. The last time they played a team with this type of makeup, the TCU Horned Frogs held Brooks to just one reception. That clearly won’t cut it today. Brooks might be the top receiver on this team, but with the ferocious pass rush coming to get QB Jordan Wynn, we aren’t so sure that he is going to have enough time to get rid of the football, particularly up the field. Go with Brooks Under 5 Receptions -125 at Hollywood Sportsbook.

South Carolina Gamecocks Over/Under 30.5 Points
The Gamecocks have already lost TE Weslye Saunders for this game, and there could be more problems on the horizon for them as well before kickoff due to some suspensions. Regardless of whether there are anymore SC players that end up sitting this one out or not, we have to listen to a fantastic head coach in Larry Fedora when he says that this is one of the best front sevens that he has ever coached at Southern Mississippi. That’s saying something considering the fact that the Golden Eagles allowed 392.5 yards per game last season. However, keeping South Carolina Under 30.5 Points -115 at Hollywood Sportsbook shouldn’t be that difficult considering the fact that this is an offense that hasn’t been all that explosive over the course of time with QB Stephen Garcia under center.

Will Either Teams Score in the First 6 Minutes? (USC/Hawaii)
Of course they will. The Trojans are set to come out for blood in this game, and we can’t imagine that it is going to take more than six minutes for QB Matt Barkley to find the scoreboard in the first game of his sophomore season. This is a prop that should probably either be lined at -250 or so, or should be knocked down to about 4:00 or 4:30 or so. Hawaii’s only method of moving the football is through the air, which should result in a lot of clock stoppages as well. It’s an added bonus that the Warriors could score in the first six minutes, but we have no doubt that USC will. One team will score in the first six minutes (-140 at Hollywood Sportsbook) of this game!

It’s here! Our 2010 college football picks are ready and raring to go here at Bankroll Sports, and to get you ready for the first week of play, we’ve got the list of only the best NCAA football trends that can point you in the right direction towards cashing in on a slew of winners! Get your college football betting season off on the right foot with these hot college football trends!

Thursday, September 2nd: Pittsburgh Panthers @ Utah Utes
Trends of Note
-The Panthers are only 2-6 ATS in their L/8 games played in the month of September
-Utah is a whopping 27-12-1 ATS in its L/40 games played outside of the MWC
-The Utes are 10-4-1 ATS in their L/15 home games

Series History
Utah defeated the Panthers 35-7 in the Fiesta Bowl in 2005, marking the first time that a non-BCS team went to one of college football’s premier bowl games. The Utes destroyed the 14 point spread that day and made an embarrassment out of U-Pitt, the Big East champs for that year.

Friday, September 3rd: Arizona Wildcats @ Toledo Rockets
Trends of Note
-The Wildcats are just 2-7 ATS in their L/9 road games
-Arizona is 0-4 ATS in its L/4 games played outside of the Pac-10
-Toledo is just 1-4 ATS in its L/5 games overall dating back to last year

Series History
These two teams have met twice before, in 2008 and in 1985. Arizona won both games, crushing the Rockets 41-16 in ’08 and easing to a 23-10 decision two and a half decades ago. Young RBs Nick Grigsby and Keola Antolin, both of which are still around for the Cats, combined to rush the ball 29 times for 157 yards and three TDs in the victory two years ago.

Saturday, September 4th: UCLA Bruins @ Kansas State Wildcats
Trends of Note
-The Bruins are a perfect 5-0 ATS in their L/5 non-conference tussles
-UCLA is 34-16-2 ATS in its L/52 games played in September
-K-State is 4-1 ATS in its L/5 home games and 5-1 ATS in its L/6 overall
-The Wildcats are just 5-17 ATS in their L/22 non Big XII games

Series History
Last year, the Bruins used a stifling defense and 119 rushing yards from RB Johnathan Franklin to roll to a 23-9 victory over the Wildcats. That was the only lifetime meeting of these two schools prior to this week’s NCAA football betting bash in Manhattan.

Saturday, September 4th: Connecticut Huskies @ Michigan Wolverines
Trends of Note
-The Huskies are 7-0 ATS in their L/7 road games and are 12-2 ATS in their L/14 overall
-UConn is 34-16-1 ATS in its L/51 non-conference clashes
-Michigan is 4-1 ATS from last September

Series History
First meeting

Saturday, September 4th: LSU Tigers vs. North Carolina Tar Heels
Trends of Note
-The Tigers have covered four straight NCAA football spreads against the ACC and 15-7 ATS in their L/22 non-SEC duels
-LSU is 4-1-1 ATS in its L/6 neutral site games
-North Carolina failed to cover both spreads last season against the other five BCS conferences

Series History
You have to go back to 1985 and 1986 to find the last two times that these teams met. LSU won both games and covered both spreads, winning 30-3 in the Bayou and 23-13 on Tobacco Road.

Saturday, September 4th: Oregon State Beavers @ TCU Horned Frogs
Trends of Note
-Oregon State is 23-9 ATS in its L/32 games overall
-The Beavers are 8-21-1 ATS in their L/30 games played in the first month of the season
-TCU is 6-2 ATS in its L/8 games overall

Series History
First meeting

Sunday, September 5th: SMU Mustangs @ Texas Tech Red Raiders
Trends of Note
-SMU has gone 4-1 ATS in its L/5 road games
-The Mustangs are just 3-13-1 ATS in their L/17 games against the Big 12
-Texas Tech is 3-1-1 ATS in its L/5 games played in the month of September

Series History
The home team is 4-1-1 ATS in the L/6 clashes of these Lone Star State rivals. The Red Raiders are 3-1-1 ATS in their L/5 and 6-2-1 ATS in their L/9 against SMU. Two years ago, the Mustangs were defeated 43-7 by T-Tech, marking the third straight year in which they were beaten by at least 32 points in this series. SMU hasn’t covered a college football betting line in this rivalry since 2004, a 27-13 win for the Red Raiders. The Mustangs haven’t won a game in this series for two decades.

Monday, September 6th: Boise State Broncos vs. Virginia Tech Hokies
Trends of Note
-The Broncos are 7-1 ATS in their L/8 games played outside the WAC
-Boise State is 17-7-1 ATS in its L/25 games overall
-Virginia Tech has covered five straight spreads
-The Hokies are just 4-9 ATS in their L/13 games played in September

Series History
First meeting

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College Football betting season will be here in just over a month! To get you ready, let’s take a look at the odds to win the very contentious Big East conference at Bankroll Sports, sponsored by BetUS.com.

Among the solid contenders for this year’s title are the Pittsburgh Panthers (+250 at BetUS). The offense has a new starting quarterback in sophomore Tino Sunseri, but new QBs are not uncommon this year in the conference. Plenty of talent surrounds him, starting with RB Dion Lewis, last season’s National Freshman of the Year. Sunseri will also have two talented throwing options in junior Jonathan Baldwin and sophomore Mike Shanahan. The defense will remain difficult to beat, with an excellent pair of pass rushing senior DEs in Jaball Sheard and Greg Romeus. Senior safety Dom DeCicco will anchor the secondary. The Panthers have a difficult schedule; they will face Connecticut and Cincinnati on the road, while hosting West Virginia. However, non-conference games against Utah and Miami(FL) will prepare this unit for Big East glory.

The Connecticut Huskies (+250 at BetUS.com) lost several close games last season, but return plenty of stars to take another crack at the title. It starts with senior QB Zach Frazer, who didn’t end up with impressive numbers last season, but had a strong finish. He is accompanied by junior running back Jordan Todman, a rising star in the Big East. The wide receiving corps is now lacking a big playmaker, but juniors Kashif and Isiah Moore at least have some experience. On defense, there is little concern. Eight starters return, including first-team all conference linebacker Lawrence Wilson. Three of the front four are also back. The Huskies kickoff conference play at Rutgers, but things are made slightly easier because Pittsburgh, West Virginia, and Cincinnati all travel to East Hartford.

Looking to sneak into contention are the Rutgers Scarlet Knights (+500 at BetUS). Their offense features the return of QB Tom Savage, who showed great talent last season as a freshman. With him will be a versatile weapon in sophomore WR Mohammed Sanu. Senior RB Joe Martinek will again lead the rushing attack, while freshman Casey Turner will provide a second option. The Knights’ defense could again be one of the best in the nation, let alone the conference. All-American DT Scott Vallone leads a large line upfront. Two senior starting linebackers return, and safety Joe Lefegad will lead the secondary. Rutgers opens conference play at home against Connecticut, with spread out road tests at Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, and West Virginia.

The Big East is loaded with talent, but somebody has to lose. In the cellar, you will find the Louisville Cardinals (+800 at BetUS). First year head coach Charlie Strong is implementing a new spread offense for senior quarterback Adam Froman, who took a beating on the field and on the stat sheet last year. A razor thin wide receiving unit will be led by junior Doug Beaumont, who didn’t catch a touchdown pass last year, and sophomore Josh Chichester. The rushing attack will be led by three backs: Victor Anderson, Darius Ashley, and Bilal Powell. A defense that has just four starters returning will see plenty of new faces. Short of two senior linebackers coming back, several starters remain unnamed. The team is expecting big things from freshman DT De’Antre Rhodes. It will take awhile for this unit to gel, and the pressure will be on as the offense learns its new system.

Big East Odds @ BetUS Sportsbook (as of 7/27/10):
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Connecticut +250
Pittsburgh +250
West Virginia +250
Cincinnati +500
Rutgers +500
South Florida +500
Louisville +800
Syracuse +1500

Someone’s going to have to forgive Big East Commissioner John Marinatto if this is what he looks like after yesterday’s NCAA Tournament games from his conference.

It’s bad enough that that’s Buzz Williams, the head coach of the Marquette Golden Eagles, who crashed out of the dance in their most predictable fashion: losing by two points practically at the buzzer. It was par for the course for a team that only suffered one loss by double digits all year long and lost six games in conference by less than a touchdown.

An 11 seed (as the Washington Huskies were) from a power conference (even though there’s a debate about just how “powerful” the Pac-10 was this year) isn’t the end of the world. Upsets happen all the time like that this time of year, and the Big East knew that it wasn’t going to have an 8-0 first round of this tournament in all likelihood.

Even losing the Notre Dame Fighting Irish wasn’t all that big of a deal to the Big East. After all, the Irish were probably the weakest of tournament teams out of this conference, and they were still adapting to a new system and life where their best player (Luke Harangody) was coming off of the bench and not starting.

Notre Dame was probably an overrated #6 seed playing against an Old Dominion squad that was probably an underrated #11. So it was par for the course for the luck of the Irish to run out late in the game against the Monarchs, and again, it wasn’t that big of a deal or that black of an eye to take.

Now… Villanova…. You’re a significantly, significantly different story.

Once upon a time a threat to take over the #1 spot in the AP Poll, the Villanova Wildcats entered this tournament looking to make amends for a bad showing in the Big East Tournament, which wrapped up after just one game following a loss to the aforementioned Golden Eagles. Surely, there was no way that there was even a remote struggle coming for a team that was going to be on the #1 line of the tourney if not for that late season swoon, right?

Wrong.

Nova was acting like a defeated team before it even stepped anywhere near the court in Providence on Thursday. HC Jay Wright benched both G Corey Fisher and G Scottie Reynolds at the outset of the game for a violation of team rules. His Cats fell behind Robert Morris, the Northeast Conference champions early. No big deal, right?

It is a big deal when you’re still behind by nine points late in the game! However, thanks to officiating that allowed the Wildcats back into the game and some great free throw shooting from Reynolds (who had better have had a great day from the charity stripe after going 2/15 from the floor and 1/8 from downtown), somehow, the Cats clawed their way into overtime. From there, they asserted themselves, and finally downed the scrappy Colonials.

It was all over the news during the 2:30 games as well as in that break between the morning and afternoon sessions. Everyone was talking about how Villanova is done and how St. Mary’s is going to pick it off on Saturday and that that was that for the Big East giants.

That statement might’ve been almost right… But maybe that was that for the Big East period.

Hey Georgetown Hoyas, all you had to do was go out and take care of an Ohio Bobcats team that was probably overrated as a #14, as it was the #9 seed in its own lousy conference during the year and really beat no one of any real note outside of the MAC this year. You could’ve restored order in your own conference.

Instead, you fell behind by double digits in the first half, played a miserable defensive game, and ultimately crashed out of the tourney in the most embarrassing way possible.

It’s not even like the Hoyas can say that they were just a victim of the proverbial “March Madness.” This wasn’t a situation where Vanderbilt was in, where it just got unlucky with a crazy shot at the end of the game. There were no crazy shots. There was just sheer domination.

So now, the Big East enters its second day of basketball, and Syracuse, West Virginia, Louisville, and Pittsburgh will hope to make a better impression on the college basketball world than what their conference brethren did yesterday.

The lesson learned, though, is that the big, bad Big East might not be quite as big and bad as we once thought.

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Current BCS Standings (as of October 25, 2009):

2009 BCS Predictions (as of October 20, 2009):

Well let the controversy begin or at least that is what the BCS Standing major goal is to accomplish right? In case you missed it, the first BCS Standings were released this week for college football. Will this finally be the year we have such a catastrophe in the BCS Polls that it finally causes a playoff to be adopted in college football? We think it could be for a number of reasons. Most importantly is that one of the non major conference teams will be undefeated and when say non major we mean outside the SEC and Big 12. Boise State, Cincinnati, and TCU all have really good chances to end the season undefeated. Of course if any team ends the year undefeated they have the right to make their claim for a National Title especially after Utah thumped Alabama in the Sugar Bowl last year. All of this expectations and predictions may be a little premature. However rest assured in early December after all the Conference Title games have been played, the BCS will implode and cause some major disappointments for college football enthusiasts. Check out these big BCS Standings predictions.

BCS Standing Prediction #5 – TCU and Iowa will fade.

TCU is catching a lot of attention as there is a lot of people who think they can run the table. The Horned Frogs have a very talented defense that will keep them in every game they play this season. However, they have some big games left on the schedule against BYU and Utah. The TCU offense will have to step up if they are to run the table and quite honestly they do not have the firepower to keep up with those explosive scoring teams. TCU may get a win out of those two games, but they will lose at least one knocking their chances for a BCS Bowl out of the picture. Iowa is in a similar boat as well. The Hawkeyes keep winning in less than convincing fashion, but their momentum is running on thin ice. The Iowa offense is not moving the ball very well and they rank outside the top 75 in total offense with just 351 yards per game. In fact the offense has just produced 24 points per game this season as well. While the Big Ten teams are not known for huge offensive numbers, they are known for strong defenses. The Hawkeyes offense will be stopped in their tracks and it could be as early as this weekend on the road at Michigan State. If that does not knock them off track, the Buckeyes will get their chance to do the deed at the Horseshoe.

BCS Standings Prediction #4 – The SEC will sport two BCS Bowl Berths

Well this is a pretty easy prediction. Florida ranks number 1 in the standings and Alabama holds down the number 2 spot. In fact they are exactly vice versa in the AP Polls. It is a fair argument to say they are the best two teams in the country and are on a huge collision course for the Georgia Dome that will host the SEC Championship game. There is not any team left on either schedule that poses any big threats. Of course Florida has looked vulnerable while the Tide has rolled. Even if one falls to an upset they will meet in the SEC Championship. The winner will be fighting for the SEC’s 4th straight National Championship and the loser will still earn an at large berth in one of the other 4 BCS Bowl Games.

BCS Standings Prediction #3 – No. 20 Pittsburgh will earn a BCS Bowl Berth

The Pittsburgh Panthers may be well down the BCS Standings at this point in the season, but they will make a climb to the top. Despite being a fairly average team, the Panthers conference schedule sets up beautifully for them to win the Big East. Pittsburgh already suffered a loss to North Carolina State this year and will likely suffer another out of conference defeat when the Fighting Irish come to town in a few weeks. However, those losses will keep the in conference games in perspective and not allow any upsets. West Virginia and South Florida will both have a good chance to take down Pittsburgh, but the Panthers will have just one Big East loss when they host Cincinnati in their final game of the year. QB Bill Stull and freshman running sensation Dion Lewis provides Pittsburgh with plenty of weapons to take on Cincinnati. Plus Cincinnati star QB Tony Pike is questionable for his arm to stay healthy. Pittsburgh may have anywhere from an 8-3 to 9-2 record when they host the Bearcats in the season finale. However, there will only be one conference loss giving the Panthers the opportunity to win the Big East at home and they will get the job done.

BCS Standing Predictions #2 – USC quest for 5th straight Rose Bowl will end

USC has been to the Rose Bowl the last 4 straight season and 5 of the last 6 years as well. The Trojans have won 7 straight Pac-10 titles and have reached and has reached a BCS Bowl Game in every year of that impressive stretch as well. However, we are sticking to our early season prediction that USC will not win the Pac-10 title this season. The Trojans got a big win over California, but the Golden Bears are not the team we thought they would be. However, the Oregon Ducks will play the spoiler role. Oregon is still the only team left in the Pac-10 that has not suffered a conference loss and they control their own destiny in terms of a BCS Bowl Game. The Ducks also hold a big advantage as they will get USC at home on October 31st. That will be a huge game for both sides and we still like Oregon to pull out the victory. However even if USC wins and they experience another slip up as they are accustomed to experiencing, Oregon will still make it to the Rose Bowl ending the Trojans impressive run.

BCS Standings Prediction #1 – Boise State will shake up everything

If the other BCS Busters can not get the job done, the Boise State Broncos should throw a wrench into everything this year. Boise State faced one of their biggest remaining challenges towards perfection this past week with a 28-21 victory over Tulsa. Out of the remaining 7 games on the schedule, only Idaho owns a winning record. However, the Broncos are not likely to give into the upset bug like so many others will experience during the latter part of the year. QB Kellen Moore has the offense under control with 16 touchdowns to only 2 picks this season along with 1,404 yards. Hawaii and Nevada are potential teams that could pull of the upset along with Idaho. However, it does not seem things will work out so perfectly for the BCS as it has in year’s past. The Broncos offense will run the table against the weak pass defenses of the WAC and they will be undefeated when the BCS puts a 1 or maybe even a 2 loss team in the BCS Championship game instead.

BCS National Championship Odds From BetUS (as of October 20, 2009):
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