NCAAF Week 8 Wagering – North Texas Mean Green at Louisiana-Monroe
The Mean Green of North Texas (0-6 SU, 1-5 ATS) will try to put their first win of the season on the board on Saturday when they lock horns with the Warhawks of Louisiana-Monroe (1-5 SU, 2-3 ATS) in a Sun Belt Conference game in NCAA football that is scheduled for 7 PM ET at Malone Stadium (natural turf) in Monroe, LA.
Saturday, October 18
BetUS NCAAF Betting Odds: UL-MONROE -18, Total 66
Here are some of the NCAA college football betting trends as they relate to this matchup:
* NT has covered one of its last seven games
* NT has lost its last seven games SU
* NT has played four of its last five games OVER the total
* NT has covered five of its last 20 road games
* NT has lost its last 11 road games SU
* NT has played five of its last six road games UNDER the total
* ULM has lost five of its last six games SU
* ULM has won four of its last six home games SU
* NT has won four of the last six meetings SU
Once in a while you run across a team that is so bad in some capacity that you just can’t help but write about it at length. The Mean Green of North Texas is currently ranked 116th in the country in total defense, allowing 482 yards a game. They are 116th in pass defense, and 119th in scoring defense, yielding over 53 points a contest. They have allowed opponents 9.5 yards per passing attempt.
What’s incredible, if you want to look at the stats on “yards per point,” you’ll see the incredible discrepancy between what UNT has to gain for every point it has scored (23.4 yards) and what opponents have to do against their stop unit (only nine yards per point). At least half of this wasn’t meant to be. When Todd Dodge, who had quickly become a legend in Texas high school football, took over the UNT program, he was supposed to bring a wide-open offense to the table. Well, gaining 528 yards against Louisiana-Lafayette was a good thing, and indeed behind Giovanni Vizza this team is statistically ranked 38th in passing offense.
However, it hasn’t translated to scoring points, where Dodge’s team ranks 117th (15.8 ppg). Why is that? Because they have committed 16 turnovers, that’s why. And that’s what might eventually put Dodge’s job in jeopardy,
North Texas may have to run the ball with Cam Montgomery (336 yards), and that might be a very profitable way for them to go, since UL-Monroe is the worst team in the country at defending opposing ground attacks (6.7 ypc). The question is whether they will actually go that route, having thrown the ball 100 times more than they have run it.
We figure that if Paul McCall of Florida International was able to exploit UNT’s defensive weaknesses (4 TD passes), Kinmon Lancaster (57%, 8 TD’s, 2 INT’s) ought to be able to do the same. We’ve no faith in North Texas at present, so we’ll lay the points with ULM, the 18-point favorite in the BetUS NCAA college football betting odds, in what is a small recommendation.
