The Miami Hurricanes are rolling along, just having entered the top ten in the polls. On Thursday night they will have the opportunity to solidify that ranking and remain among the nation’s undefeated teams as they take on the North Carolina Tar Heels in an ACC matchup.
If Miami emerges victorious, they will find the path relatively clear to an unbeaten record going into a November 2 matchup with Florida State (which has to play Clemson this weekend).
Currently, Miami is #10 as ranked by the Associated Press, and #11 in the USA Today coaches’ poll.
The game is set to kick off at 7:45 PM ET at Kenan Memorial stadium in Chapel Hill, NC.
In the college football odds that have been established on this game by the people at GetThatBet, the ‘Canes are the clear road favorites:
Miami Hurricanes -9
North Carolina Tar Heels +9
Over 64 Points -110
Under 64 Points -110
First, some news on the injury situation. Bryn Renner, the talented sophomore quarterback for North Carolina, will get the start after missing the game against Virginia Tech with an injury to his foot. He just couldn’t plant it to throw. But that’s not really the whole story for the Heels (+295 money line underdogs at GetThatBet), who dropped to 1-4 straight-up with that loss, having beaten only Middle Tennessee. The defense under Larry Fedora is extremely vulnerable, as evidenced by a 55-point allowance against East Carolina.
Renner can’t really help the defensive situation all that much, and he isn’t in the same kind of form he showed last year, when he threw 28 touchdown passes against only seven interceptions. As college football bettors remember, last season he was 65% accurate; this year he is a shade below 60%.
His counterpart on the Miami side, Stephen Morris, may not be as talented, but the 37 credentialed personnel scouts that will be in attendance (a record for Tar Heel game) will be keeping an eye on him as well. The general feeling among Miami fans is that Morris has not been able to show his best stuff because of the ankle injury that has been bothering him.
Perhaps the best player the scouts will be looking at is someone who will be out of their reach for at least another year. Duke Johnson, the sophomore running back for Miami, could be the most talented player on the field, and he may be the player with the most impact when it comes to evaluating this contest for college football betting purposes. Johnson had a terrific freshman season, as everybody knows, averaging almost seven yards a carry and 33 yards a kick return, and was being hyped for the Heisman before the start of the season. That talk has died down a bit, even though Miami has increased its chances to end up in the BCS title game.
Johnson is logging the ball for seven yards a carry, but he has just 572 yards to date and he would probably need more gaudy statistics to move past the plethora of quarterbacks who are up for the award.
As we mentioned, Miami is still in the hunt to win the national championship, though there will be hoops to jump through; for one thing, ,they will have to get through the rest of the slate undefeated, and that means scoring wins over Florida State and Virginia Tech, among others. As it stands right now, the Hurricanes are priced at +1250 at GetThatBet to win it in football futures betting (Alabama is the favorite, at even money).
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