College Football Betting: Wake Forest at Army

We were fooled by Wake Forest somewhat heading into the season. We focused on the coaching continuity at where Jim Grobe is in his 13th year on the job. Wake returned 15 starters from last year’s team but they’ve become softer on defense and their offense has been nonexistent. Our initial take was that their backloaded schedule with a slew of tough ACC games starting on September 28 at Clemson would produce a strong focus on their early schedule. That didn’t happen and now the Deacons enter Saturday’s game at Army with a 1-2 record, their only win coming against FCS Presbyterian.

In sports betting you’ll often find added value by ‘buying on bad news’ and that’s what we’re doing here. No, we haven’t changed our opinion of this Wake Forest team and unless something changes we’ll be looking for opportunities to play against them down the stretch. It’s just that the marketplace has become too enamored of an Army team that is typically outclassed by legitimate FBS level competition. Army lost talented quarterback Trent Steelman to graduation and while Angel Santiago looked decent has looked decent replacing him so far there’s still a class disparity. The most compelling case against Army is their pointspread records: 10-16 ATS overall since 2011. Army has cancelled several future games against MAC foes in favor of more ‘winnable’ games against Patriot League teams. Good reason for that–the Black Knights have lost eight straight games to MAC foes going 1-7 ATS in the process. Wake Forest isn’t a MAC team, of course, but the Black Knights’ performance against the MAC underscores the difficulty they have in playing legit FBS programs.

Wake is nothing special but this is a game they can win. And they definitely need a win heading into the meat of their ACC schedule. Army’s option attack plays into the Deacons’ defensive strength. The price on this game reflects an overreaction to the Deacons’ problems to date but the reality is that they’re still a better football team than Army and we’ll gladly lay less than a FG. Army admittedly has been a decent pointspread play at home but typically they’re getting a lot more points.

BET WAKE FOREST -2′ OVER ARMY