NCAA College Football: Purdue vs. Notre Dame
By Chico Rodriguez • Sep 2nd, 2010 • Category: NCAAFThe Purdue Boilermakers will take on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in their NCAA College Football season opener Saturday (3:30 pm ET, NBC). Without doubt, these two teams will have hopes of turning things around after awful seasons in 2009.
Notre Dame is an 11-point favorite and the over/under total is 54.5 in NCAA Football Betting at JustBet.
The Fighting Irish are supposed to be one of those teams that show up each year to contend for the championship. Unfortunately, the Irish simply could not get it done last season. They were led by a quarterback that was arguably the best one in the nation, but they still could not manage better than a 6-6 record on the season. The question is, will the Fighting Irish drop even further with the loss of Jimmy Clausen. Clausen threw for 3722 yards last season to lead the team to the 5th best passing offense in the nation.
The Purdue Boilermakers managed just a 5-7 record in 2009. The team is not necessarily known for being a dominant force in college football, but they are a team that expect to be over .500 each and every season. The key for the Boilermakers in 2010 will be defense. While their offense was solid, averaging nearly 28 points a game, their defense was poor. The defense surrendered over 29 points per game. The point totals on defense cannot be this high if they hope to compete.
The Irish will similarly need to work on defense this season if they hope to sneak back into the top 25.
Look for both of these teams to look sharp as they try to turn things around in 2010.
Chico Rodriguez is is a sports handicapper with more than 15 years in the industry. He specializes in NFL and NCAFF analysis.
He was born and raised in Los Angeles and is still based out of the city. Since Los Angeles has no NFL team, his favorite is the Indianapolis Colts.
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