Sports Betting coverage provided by Action NetworkCollege football early Week 2 pick: Buy low on Louisville
Get ahead of the betting market with an early preview for the Week 2 matchup between Louisville and UCF.
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Week 2 of the College Football season provides savvy bettors with plenty of opportunities to take advantage to overreactions from a one-game sample size.
One of those opportunities presents itself on Friday night with a matchup between Louisville and UCF.
After losing as a road favorite to Syracuse in Week 1, the Cardinals now head to Orlando as a 6.5-point underdog against UCF, who are coming off a 56-10 trouncing of South Carolina State out of the FCS.
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A 31-7 loss to Syracuse as a 5-point favorite is certainly not an ideal way to start a season, but there’s plenty of variance in a single game of college football and things certainly went a little haywire for Louisville at the Carrier Dome. Under the surface, everything checked out just fine, the Cardinals gained 6.2 yards per play and crossed the Syracuse 40-yard line five times, but they somehow managed to come away with just seven points.
Louisville turned the ball over three times in the game (two interceptions and a fumble) and were 0-for-2 on fourth downs, so it was more of an execution issue than anything else.
It wasn’t the best start to the season for quarterback Malik Cunningham, who went 16-for-22 for 152 yards with two picks and just gained 34 yards on the ground on 13 attempts, but we’ve got enough of a sample size on the dual-threat signal-caller to know that he’s got a much higher ceiling than what he showed last Saturday. According to Pro Football Focus, Cunningham put up a passing grade of 82.7, averaged 8.6 yards per attempt and recorded a 70.7% adjusted completion percentage.
He also was one of the country’s most effective rushers, as he posted the fourth-best run grade (90.7) according to PFF and led all FBS quarterbacks with 20 rushing touchdowns. Additionally, 755 of his 1,142 rushing yards came from designed runs, which was the best mark in college football.
A bounce-back from Cunningham should be expected, especially against a Knights defense that ranked 74th in Defensive Line Yards, 70th in Rushing Success Rate Allowed and 118th in rushing explosiveness allowed in 2021.
Even if the Louisville offense gets back up to speed, the defense will also need to improve after allowing 449 yards of offense to Syracuse.
They should have a shot, though, as they’ll be taking on a UCF offense that will be captained by Ole Miss transfer John Rhys Plumlee. A highly-regarded recruit out of high school, Plumlee’s college career never really got going in Oxford and he was eventually converted into a wide receiver. He attempted just one pass for Ole Miss in 2021.
Plumlee didn’t look rusty in his UCF debut, throwing for 308 yards and four touchdowns in a 20-for-31 effort, but that was against an FCS defense. Replicating that effort against an ACC unit, even one that just struggled against Syracuse, will be tough sledding.
After opening at 5.5, this line has moved towards UCF thanks to what we saw out of both teams in Week 1. That number is too high, as the Action Network projects this spread to be closer to UCF -1.
A bet on the Louisville spread and a sprinkle on the moneyline seems like a good way to take advantage of a classic Week 1 overreaction.
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