Eureka Springs Arkansas

What college football bettors need to know about Alabama at Arkansas (Saturday, September 25, 2010) from Pregame.com – Including predictions from Marco D’Angelo and analysis from host RJ Bell.

Sports Betting Line movement for Game of the day – Arkansas State at UL Monroe

Sports Betting Odds makers opened this game as a pick ‘em but the Red Wolves have been bet up to -2.

Sports Betting Measuring Sticks For Today’s Game:

ASU – picked to finish second in the sub belt this season – is just 1-3, but its losses have come against Nebraska, Troy and Iowa. The Hawkeyes narrowly held off the Red Wolves, 24-21, 10 days ago.

Arkansas State ranks 48th in the country in rushing, 98th in passing, 46th in offensive scoring, 81st in total offense and is tied for 18th inside the red zone.

The ASU pass defense is its Achilles heel, ranking 107th in the country, allowing 266.5 yards per game. They have yielded 1027 yards on 82-for-117 and nine touchdowns over the last three games.

Monroe has a chance to improve to 3-0 in Sun Belt play, which would be big considering the team was picked to finish seventh in the league.

The Warhawks bring a double-deuce offense into this contest, averaging 208.6 yards rushing and 210 passing. They are averaging 37 points per game in Sun Belt play. ULM leads the Sun Belt in scoring and tallied 577 yards of offense against FIU in its last game.

Weather Update:

Warm temperatures in the mid to upper 60s, under cloudy skies, are expected at kickoff. Showers and thunderstorms are likely with an 80 percent chance of rain. Southeast winds around 5 mph.

Player Profiles:

Arkansas State senior QB Corey Leonard was 22-for-40 for 216 yards, two touchdowns and an interception in the three-point loss at Iowa.

It prompted Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz to comment, “That quarterback is their catalyst, Leonard is a heck of a football player.” Leonard has 44 career touchdown passes, leaving him just five shy of the school record.

ASU RB Reggie Arnold is bidding to become only the eighth 1-A player ever with four straight 1,000-yard seasons. Arnold has only had 74 yards on 22 carries the past two games and needs to produce more than that to balance his team’s offense. He is still on pace for 1132 yards in the 12-game schedule.

Warhawks’ defensive end Alex Carrington, the preseason defensive player of the year in the Sun Belt, has just 11 tackles in four games, including a single sack.

ULM’s running game has improved vastly and QB Trey Revell is playing with a lot of confidence. The junior has thrown for more than 1,000 yards and four touchdowns, and has rushed for 185 yards and three touchdowns.  His running ability adds another dimension to the offense that features strong skill players. Equally impressive is the fact ULM has given up just five sacks this season.

Junior RB Frank Goodin leads ULM with 461 yards rushing and eight touchdowns while senior WR Darrell McNeal leads ULM with 22 receptions and four touchdowns.

Coach’s chorus

ULM coach Charlie Weatherbie on tonight’s game: “It’s always been a very close football game, it seems. I’m not sure there has ever been a blowout one way or the other. I would expect no different in this ballgame. I think both teams are very evenly matched athletically and I compliment Arkansas State on how they played Iowa. I thought they played very, very well and had a chance to win the game.”

Weatherbie went on to elaborate, “It’s a very big game for us. It’s step No. 3 in the Sun Belt race. It’s going to be one of those games that comes down to who executes the best and whose fundamentals are better.”

The Bottom Line For This Game:

Monroe is 2-2 SU and 4-0 ATS the last four meetings in this series, with the home team winning all four contests.

ASU is 12-2 ATS in games off back-to-back losses. Check out sports betting community for more information.

Sports betting experts often make their picks by betting against a certain team, instead of necessarily betting for the team they think is going to win. In other words, sometimes when you know a team is terrible, you can make money sports betting just by betting against the terrible team.

Here’s a perfect example. Take a look at my analysis of the Southern Miss vs. Memphis NCAA college football game:

Southern Miss -7 at Memphis

This game matches up Southern Miss, 4-4 SU, against a very bad Memphis team that’s gone 1-7 this season, with their only win coming against an equally bad Chattanooga team way back in week 2. That puts Memphis in the middle of a 6 game losing streak, while Southern Miss isn’t doing much better, losing 3 of their last four.

But here’s the key to this game. Southern Miss simply can’t move the ball when they’re over-matched. In their 4 losses they’ve scored only 7,6,6, and 17 points. However, when they’re playing teams they can push around, they have the offense to put points on the board. In their 4 wins, Southern Miss has scored 45, 37, 31, and 19 points.

Meanwhile, Memphis has given up over 35 points in 5 of their last 6 games, and 26 in their game against Arkansas St. This tells me that Southern Miss is likely to put up a lot of points tonight.

Look for Southern Miss to simply over-power Memphis and put up a lot of points tonight, while holding Memphis’ offense to under 20 points. Bottom line is that I would expect Southern Miss to win this win going away, 31-17, easily covering the 7 point line.

So what was the final score? Southern Miss won 42-21, easily beating the 7 point spread.

How much money do you think sports betting pros made on this game simply by recognizing how bad a team Memphis was?

There’s often no need to try to figure out who’s going to win the close match-ups. People who aren’t good at sports betting often get suckered into trying to figure out who’s going to win tight games, like the Super Bowl.

When you bet on a game where you know one team is terrible, you already know that the better team is going to win -it’s just by a matter of how much they’ll win by.