Colonels vs Ducks NCAA Football Spread/Handicapping
The Oregon Ducks are set to open the season at home against Nicholls State. They’re a top-three team entering the year, and needless to say, their opponent is not. The Colonels will enter Autzen Stadium as huge underdogs. They won just a single game in 2012, which is the amount of games the Ducks lost.
Nicholls State (0-0) @ No. 3 Oregon Ducks (0-0)
Saturday, Aug. 31, 2013, 4:00 PM ET @ Autzen Stadium
Moneyline: N/A
Spread: Oregon -59
O/U:
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This game is going to be a blowout, but the question is whether or not Nicholls State can make it respectable when the second and third string players hit the field.
Nicholls State
The Colonels are going to have their hands full in the season opener against the Ducks. For comparison’s sake, the best team they played in 2012 was the Oregon State Beavers, and they were trounced 77-3.
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The Beavers scored 44.5 points above their season average, and needless to say, the game was well in hand early.
The Ducks will be the most potent offensive attack the Colonels see all season, and considering how poorly this group played on defense a year ago, there’s the potential that a lot of points are scored in this game—even if most of them come from the home team. In 2012, Nicholls State held South Alabama to just nine points.
Every game after that, though, it saw the opponent score at least 27 points for an average of 44.4 points allowed per contest.
Offensively, this team had a game against Evangel that was beyond memorable. It scored 73 points and routed its opponent by 56 points. Other than that, the picture wasn’t as pretty. The Colonels averaged 12.2 points in every other game, which is a major reason they went just 1-10 on the year. [soliloquy id=”82219″]
Oregon Ducks
Heading into this game, there’s one big question when it comes to the Ducks: How early will Mark Helfrich pull his starters?
During the 2012 season, we saw it over and over again. The Ducks got out to a hot start, the first string was pulled by halftime and then the score evened out by the time the game came to an end. You have to imagine this game could be similar, but the caliber of opponent might just allow the Ducks to stay the course.
When the Ducks opened their 2012 season against Arkansas State, the score didn’t reflect the blowout.
Arkansas State kept it respectable in the second half, and the final score was 57-34. However, when the team faced Tennessee Tech two games later, a 63-14 win was more what fans were expecting.
This team has a history of taking down FCS teams in grand fashion during the Chip Kelly era. In 2011, Oregon defeated Missouri State 56-7. In 2010, it put up 69 points against Portland State in a shutout.
Kelly may be gone, but don’t overthink this matchup against Nicholls State.
The Ducks will score a lot of points, and at the end of the day, they will win big.
Score Prediction: Oregon 66 – Nicholls State 10
