College Football Betting: Duke at North Carolina
ACC football action on Saturday as the Duke Blue Devils travel to face in state rivals North Carolina. Duke is riding high for head coach David Cutcliffe with a 9-2 record both straight up and against the spread. North Carolina hasn’t been as successful this season with a 6-5 SU/6-4-1 ATS record on the season.
We haven’t had much confidence in North Carolina this season. That being said, they enter this game playing their best football of the season having won five straight games SU and six straight against the spread. They’ve benefited somewhat from a favorable schedule but have beaten some decent teams like Boston College and Pittsburgh along the way. The Tar Heels big hope at the start of the season was talented quarterback Brynn Renner but he’s out for the season. They’ve done a good job despite that injury and are coming off a very impressive offensive showing last week when they put up 80 points against overmatched FCS foe Old Dominion.
We generally like this Duke team but they may not be as good of a team as their record suggests. Duke’s two losses came when stepping up in class but they’ve shown some moxie winning tough road games at Virginia and Virginia Tech and at home against Miami. Duke is still playing for something-as they could win the ACC Coastal assuming things fall the right way. That being said, North Carolina is in top form at the moment and the Tar Heels have dominated head to head play in this series. North Carolina is on a 19-2 SU run overall and a 9-1 SU run at home. They’ve won 8 of the last 9 meetings against the Blue Devils so that lopsided dominance can’t be explained away by the fact that the Duke program has been upgraded significantly in the past few years. We generally don’t like the idea of laying points with this scrappy Duke team but we think the spot favors the home team and their flat out domination in the series can’t be ignored. Duke has had a great year and will get a bowl bid but we’re backing the Tar Heels here.
BET NORTH CAROLINA -5′ OVER DUKE