NCAA Football
2018-09-08 - Colorado Buffaloes at Nebraska Cornhuskers
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
United States: NCAA Week 2
Saturday 8th September 2018 - Kick Off 3:30pm
British Time: 8:30pm
Preview
A new era has begun in Lincoln where Scott Frost will be making his first appearance at home as the new Nebraska Cornhuskers Head Coach. Frost takes over from Mike Riley who had two losing records in three years with Nebraska and the new Head Coach has built his reputation by guiding the UCF Knights to an unbeaten season in 2017 which included a Bowl win over the Auburn Tigers.
This is only the third year Frost will be a Head Coach in College Football, but he will be well received in Nebraska where he was the Quarter Back in 1997 as the Cornhuskers won the National Title.
Lightning strikes meant the opening game of the season versus Akron was cancelled and getting Nebraska back to a Bowl won't be easy for Frost considering they have what many have called one of the top ten toughest schedules in College Football this year. Losing a winnable game like the one they had against the Zips makes getting to 6 wins that much more difficult for the Cornhuskers, although they do have 15 returning starters and the expectation is simply to surpass the 4 wins they earned in 2017.
Getting Nebraska back on track Offensively is the first port of call for Frost who really aided the UCF Knights in his two years in Florida. Adrian Martinez may not have any experience at Quarter Back at this level, but Nebraska have some quality players around him Offensively and the Frost factor is expected to help them improve all around.
The immediate test comes against the Colorado Buffaloes who allowed just 13 points in their crushing win over rivals Colorado State in Week 1 and who have 6 returning starters. While they will be better than 2017, the Buffaloes may still have some trouble shutting down this Nebraska team who will have been itching to get onto the field for one whole week.
It is expected that Nebraska will have success both on the ground and through the air although Martinez will be under pressure at Quarter Back to look after the ball too. That becomes more important when seeing how Colorado scored points last week and the potential for this one to become something of a shoot out.
Colorado finished 5-7 in 2017 because they struggled on both sides of the ball and the Offensive unit is expected to be better simply because of the underachievement. They have lost some key players, but they have kept their experience at Quarter Back with Steven Montez the starter again and the Buffaloes looked effective through the air and on the ground last week.
However the Cornhuskers are expected to be far better Defensively compared with 2017 too and that could be an interesting battle when the two units face each other. It is the trenches where the Cornhuskers may have enough of an edge to force Colorado to turn to Montez more than they had to last week when finding great balance in the Offensive performance.
This is an old rivalry which will get the fans pumped up too and I do give a very slight edge to Nebraska on both sides of the ball. As long as they don't shoot themselves in the foot with a number of turnovers, I like the Cornhuskers to win this one by around a Touchdown even if they have been a very poor home favourite to back to cover numbers for a few years now.
A first home game for the new Head Coach and the number of starters returning means Nebraska can give Scott Frost the perfect start ahead of a very tough run towards the bye week at the end of October.
Prediction
I will look for the home team to win and cover in this one.
The Pick :
Nebraska Cornhuskers 31-24 Colorado Buffaloes
