North Texas at Alabama

Written by Riley Martin

north-texas-alabama-odds-091809 Alabama looks to improve to 3-0 this week with an easy game against North Texas on Saturday. Game time is 12:20pm at Bryant Denny Stadium. The college football lines currently have Alabama as 39.5 favorites at home. No chance Bama comes close to losing this game but they do need to step up the intensity. SEC play is on the way and the performance they gave against Florida Atlantic last week wasn’t too impressive, as they needed a late surge to put them away. North Texas isn’t just a joke Sun Belt team either. Their record stands at 1-1 with a 10-point win at Ball State week 1 and a 1-point loss to Ohio last week.

This North Texas team looks to be a much-improved team this year. Obviously not a good team, but they’ll win more than their one win last year. Coach Todd Dodge, 3-21 in his tenure, really needs to turn it around if he wants to keep his job too. An interesting part of this team is that coach Dodd’s son, Riley Dodge, is actually the quarterback this year. He’s a redshirt freshman and seems to be a better quarterback than last year’s Giovanni Vizza. The bottom line is that with a ten-point win against Ball State in the books, they can’t possibly be as bad as last year. Yes the will be bad, not 1-11 though. Hopefully it will be good enough to get the coach through the year and others to come.

Alabama on the other hand looks no different from last year when they went 12-0 in the regular season. They should easily get through this game with a huge win. They can’t let up through out the game like last week though. Bama did lose quarterback John Parker Wilson from last year, but the defense alone is good enough to take them to the SEC title game. The linebackers could possibly even be the best in the nation with all star Rolando McClain. One factor to keep a look on is the status of Julio Jones, who is currently questionable for this weekend. If he doesn’t play, it shouldn’t affect the outcome of the game but it could take away a touchdown, as he is a major key to their offense. This leads me to exactly why I chose to cover this game. Alabama’s offense this year is not s good as last year. Therefore, they shouldn’t be beating teams by 40 to 50 points like Florida does every week, making the 39.5 point line this week seem a little high for my tastes.

Yes Alabama is 15-2 straight up in its last 17 games but find me one game that they won more than 39.5 points. Honestly, go and try and find that game because the fact is that you can’t find it. They never beat up on teams that bad. They’re a defensive force to be reckoned with but their offense just doesn’t look good enough to get it done this time. Sure, I see this game cutting it close with maybe a 41-7, 45-10 type win, but I don’t think its going to break 39.5. Also North Texas doesn’t have a terrible offense. They’ve scored 50 points in two games so far and should at least be able to put 7 on the board. Take North Texas against the spread.

Prediction: Alabama 45 North Texas 10

Riley’s Pick: North Texas +39.5

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