College Football Betting: Wake Forest at Boston College

By BetOnline September 25, 2019

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There may not be a more phony 3-1 team in the country than Boston College. Their wins have come against an overvalued Virginia Tech team, a Rutgers team that has a record of 12-39 SU over the past 4 seasons and FCS Richmond (a team coming off of a 4-7 season a year ago). The real Boston College Eagles are likely the team that was routed by Kansas on their home field 48-24 as they Jayhawks won their first road game over a ‘Power 5’ team since the George W. Bush administration. More recently, the Jayhawks had previously one only two road games since 2009 (at Central Michigan, at UTEP).

WAKE FOREST AT BOSTON COLLEGE
LINE: WAKE FOREST -6.5
TOTAL: 71

One of my sports betting associates often says that sometimes you have to ‘let the betting board speak to you’. It’s definitely doing that in reference to this game. The public and casual fans might still think that the Boston College name carries some cachet but they need to just check the college football betting odds for a big dose of reality. Wake Forest is a -6.5 favorite here and that’s a sobering wakeup call for a 3-1 team that has traditionally been a very profitable underdog. This shows that while the decline of the BC defense might be lost to this point on recreational bettors the linesmakers are clearly aware of it.

As if the Eagles ability to make the Kansas Jayhawks look like Ron Dayne’s Wisconsin Badgers circa 1999 wasn’t enough. BC allowed 567 yards to Kansas including 329 rushing (7.3 yards per carry). The Eagles are ranked #102 in total defense (437.7 YPG), #98 in rushing defense (179.5 YPG), #98 in passing defense (258.8 YPG) and #71 in scoring defense (26.3 PPG). They’ve yet to play an opponent that had a winning record last year. The cumulative 2018 record of the Eagles four opponents to date is 14-34.

Wake Forest’s defense has improved significantly from last year and that’s bad news for Boston College. The Eagles’ one dimensional offense lives and dies with running back A.J. Dillon and the Deacons have improved the most at stopping the run. They allow just 3.47 yards per carry on the ground and if BC can’t run the ball they don’t have a very good ‘Plan B’ with pedestrian quarterback Anthony Brown under center. For a long time, Wake could put up points but couldn’t stop anyone. That is in the process of changing.

Making Wake Forest all the more dangerous is that they can still put up points. They have a massive quarterback advantage with Jamie Newman who can hurt opponents on the ground and through the air. He’s got a 71% completion rate and 12 TD passes this season. Wake Forest beat a much better Boston College team on this field in 2017 by a 34-10 margin. It could be even worse for the Eagles this year.