It’s rivalry week in college football, which means that the North Carolina Tar Heels are preparing to face the NC State Wolfpack in the final game of the regular season. The Heels have been eliminated
from bowl contention if they were to make it via conventional means, and if they were to pull off a miracle and earn a bowl game as a five-win team, they would have to go through the most obnoxious barrier in order to do so.
As far as NC State goes, they have have a rocky season as well, but their story has been a bit different. The good news for Wolfpack fans is that their squad will participate in a bowl game, but it wasn’t without a lot of struggle. This team barely beat Virginia in the second game of the season, lost to a hapless Virginia Tech team, but yet somehow beat Georgia Tech, who was ranked #8 at the time. Dave Doeren’s job could be in jeopardy at the end of the season, but it’s possible that another win over UNC will buy him more time. Why? Because that’s the kind of weird thing they’re into in Raleigh.
With all of that said, let’s talk betting odds: right now NC State is the 7.5-point favorite per FanDuel Sportsbook, and the over/under is set at 48.5. It was actually quite a surprised that UNC was able to put up a decent amount of points against Duke last weekend, and it’s hard to say if that will be a repeatable event. Regardless, the defense may give up enough points to cover the O/U, so betting the over isn’t the scariest thought in the world.
What will be interesting in this game is how many times we see these two teams fight, how often we hear about how heated this rivalry is, and how often we hear about each coach and how much danger their job is in. We probably wont’t hear it as much about Belichick, but Doeren’s situation is a bit different considering the fact that State fans have been stuck on this merry-go-round of mediocrity for some years now. If you are not a gambling person, I’d recommend making a drinking game out of it to keep yourself entertained. Something tells me the Tar Heels will not provide much joy in this one, so you have to feel good somehow, right?
Anyways, what do you think about this week’s betting odds? What are some fun prop bets that you want to call out? Let us know in the comments below.
