Phil Steele Over/Under

[PAC MAN]

https://www.philsteele.com/Blogs/2017/JUNE17/DBJune05.html

USC 10

UW 10

Stanford 9

CU 7.5

UO 7.5

UCLA 7

WSU 7

OSU 5.5

Utah 5.5

ASU 5.5

UA 4.5

Cal 3.5

[PapaG]

Utah and UCLA on the over are the best two bets, IMO.

UDub on the under is intriguing, too.  They lost a lot of NFL talent and Browning is coming off of shoulder surgery.

[All Hail]

10 minutes ago, PapaG said:

Utah and UCLA on the over are the best two bets, IMO.

UDub on the under is intriguing, too.  They lost a lot of NFL talent and Browning is coming off of shoulder surgery.

I wouldn't bet on Rosen being healthy the entire season and Mora coaching his way out of a season.  I think Utah, Cal (we will win 4 games dammit) and UW make great over bets.  I like the under on UA, CU,  and Stanford. 

I wouldn't touch UO, UCLA, USC as either direction wouldn't surprise me. 

I have no idea about WSU, OSU and ASU.  I don't know enough about their teams to have an opinion. 

[Scscsc89]

Can I bet that between the two of them, UW _and_ Stanford won't both make the over?

[All Hail]

4 minutes ago, Scscsc89 said:

Can I bet that between the two of them, UW _and_ Stanford won't both make the over?

Good question.  I think 5dimes would allow you to tease a futures bet but I'm not sure.  

[MrBug708]

I think ucla is pretty safe at 7

[row Z]

I like the over on Utah and Oregon State (I think Anderson is building something). I was tempted by Cal, but they will be breaking in a new QB and coaching staff and have no real stars on either side of the ball (Enwere maybe?).  They should win 4, but I can envision a faceplant too. 

[Scscsc89]

somebody's going to underwhelm bigly

[All Hail]

1 hour ago, row Z said:

I like the over on Utah and Oregon State (I think Anderson is building something). I was tempted by Cal, but they will be breaking in a new QB and coaching staff and have no real stars on either side of the ball (Enwere maybe?).  They should win 4, but I can envision a faceplant too. 

I think former 5-star #1 overall WR in his high school class Demetris Robertson qualifies as a star.  He has ridiculous speed and can outrun any CB in this conference.  

He had 760 yards and 7 TDs as a freshman and that's despite a very slow start due to lack of playing time (Dykes was a moron.)  The guy is probably already the best WR in the conference at stretching the field and I would be shocked if he wasn't taken in the 1st or 2nd round of the 2019 NFL draft.  Now that Chad Hansen is gone, Robertson will slide over to WR#1 and should put up some huge numbers in Baldwins often successful offense.

Speaking of Baldwin, this is why I am not too worried about breaking in a new QB.  Look at the mediocre QB talent he had at EW and despite this he always put together a great offense that would light up Pac 12 teams whenever he would play them.  By all accounts, either Bowers or Forest are good enough to be decent and decent QB play works in Baldwins offense.  The defense is another story.  There is talent at CB (Allensworth will be playing on Sundays) and at Safety but there is a HUGE talent void at LB, DE and DT.  Wilcox is a defensive coach but he will have to spin straw into gold to turn this group into even a mediocre unit.  Wilcox is a huge unknown, as is the QB, and the schedule is brutal but Cal always has at least decent talent if and Wilcox himself is decent then 4 wins seems very doable. 

[PAC MAN]

I'd take the over on CU.  CU returns a lot of firepower on offense and at least one JUCO DB stood out during spring ball.  The only question for CU's D is the interior and despite the loss of all three DL players, there's one returning player who was a starter in 2015.  Those new Buff DBs will get quality practice against the CU WR corps which has made the top five in unit rankings in some magazines and very well could have the best WR corps in the conference.  CU's D will not return to its pre-2016 form but won't be as good as last season.

MORE COMMENTS ON CU'S D: The reason why I am saying that CU's D will not revert back to its pre-2016 form is that during that time, CU had a ton of young players.  Due to the remarkable job by Mike MacIntyre in keeping the kids in Boulder, the class balance is so much better and when CU has that class balance, the Buffs are normally one of the better teams in any conference they are in.

I was surprised by Utah's O/U.  Their rival BYU does have an O/U of 10 which is probably too high.  But the last half of their schedule is a killer.

[row Z]

2 hours ago, All Hail said:

I think former 5-star #1 overall WR in his high school class Demetris Robertson qualifies as a star.  He has ridiculous speed and can outrun any CB in this conference.  

He had 760 yards and 7 TDs as a freshman and that's despite a very slow start due to lack of playing time (Dykes was a moron.)  The guy is probably already the best WR in the conference at stretching the field and I would be shocked if he wasn't taken in the 1st or 2nd round of the 2019 NFL draft.  Now that Chad Hansen is gone, Robertson will slide over to WR#1 and should put up some huge numbers in Baldwins often successful offense.

Speaking of Baldwin, this is why I am not too worried about breaking in a new QB.  Look at the mediocre QB talent he had at EW and despite this he always put together a great offense that would light up Pac 12 teams whenever he would play them.  By all accounts, either Bowers or Forest are good enough to be decent and decent QB play works in Baldwins offense.  The defense is another story.  There is talent at CB (Allensworth will be playing on Sundays) and at Safety but there is a HUGE talent void at LB, DE and DT.  Wilcox is a defensive coach but he will have to spin straw into gold to turn this group into even a mediocre unit.  Wilcox is a huge unknown, as is the QB, and the schedule is brutal but Cal always has at least decent talent if and Wilcox himself is decent then 4 wins seems very doable. 

Hmm. I forgot about Baldwin. He is worth another win or two on his own. Robertson looks promising, but he had an NFL arm throwing bombs to him last year. Do Bowers or Forest have that arm? I probably take the over, but I am not that comfortable doing it.

 

[PAC MAN]

AH,

Just looked at Cal's 2017 schedule.  It's very apparent why their O/U is just 3.5.  There is a chance Vegas is being generous on its outlook on Cal.

@North Carolina

Weber State

Ole Miss

USC

@UO

WSU

UA

@CU

OSU

@Stanford

@UCLA

 

2018 has North Carolina & Idaho State at home and a trip to BYU.  Plus the conference schedule is more manageable.  Bowl game is possible.

[Mano]

Utah should win more than 5 games, would be very disappointed if they did not cover that.

[PapaG]

1 hour ago, Mano said:

Utah should win more than 5 games, would be very disappointed if they did not cover that.

I'm still trying to figure out how the worst Oregon team in almost 30 years beat a solid Utah team that was still competing for the South title in Salt Lake.  That was a stunner.

[glduck]

and if dillon mitchell didn't make the worst attempt at a punt return ever, we wouldn't have even needed the last second touchdown.

the last two oregon/utah games have been weird.

[Mano]

2 hours ago, glduck said:

and if dillon mitchell didn't make the worst attempt at a punt return ever, we wouldn't have even needed the last second touchdown.

the last two oregon/utah games have been weird.

I greatly preferred the one two years ago to the one last year.

[glduck]

12 minutes ago, Mano said:

I greatly preferred the one two years ago to the one last year.

 

my lasting memory of that game will always be that punt hitting the television wire, forcing a re-punt, and utah executes a perfect fake for the FINISH HIM final move straight out of mortal kombat.

[row Z]

27 minutes ago, glduck said:

 

my lasting memory of that game will always be that punt hitting the television wire, forcing a re-punt, and utah executes a perfect fake for the FINISH HIM final move straight out of mortal kombat.

i hereby nominate that game as the most shocking outcome in a Pac12 game in the last 5 years. 

[PapaG]

17 minutes ago, row Z said:

i hereby nominate that game as the most shocking outcome in a Pac12 game in the last 5 years. 

Some will say the Alamo Bowl meltdown was the defining moment of Helfrich's post-Mariota time at UO.  For me, sitting through that Utah game at Autzen with a few HS friends who went to UU was the real start of the rapid Avalanche of Fail, and it was all downhill from there.

I never saw it coming. By the end I just had to laugh as my buddies were celebrating.  Other Duck fans near us were congratulating them.  I think we all knew at that moment the Chil era was over.

[row Z]

13 minutes ago, PapaG said:

I never saw it coming. 

Right, neither did anyone I think, except maybe in the Utah locker room. There was no hint that slaughter was coming. Breath-taking like a stock market crash. UW v. Stanford last year, by comparison, was a surprise but not a shock.