College Football Odds – North Carolina State vs. Wake Forest

North Carolina State Wolfpack (3-1 SU, 1-1 ATS) at Wake Forest Demon Deacons (2-2 SU, 1-2 ATS)

Saturday, October 3 – 3:30 PM ET

BetOnline NCAA Football Odds:  WAKE FOREST -2.5, Total 48

Here are some of the NCAA college football betting trends as they relate to this matchup:

• NCST has won seven of its last nine games SU
• NCST is 4-0-1 ATS in its last five road games
• NCST has lost 13 of its last 17 road games SU
• NCST has played four of its last six road games UNDER the total
• WF has won four of its last six games SU
• WF has won 14 of its last 17 home games SU

Also….

• WF has covered five of the last six meetings
• WF has won four of the last six meetings SU
• Four of the last six meetings have gone OVER the total
• WF has covered the last five meetings as the home team
• WF has won five of the last six meetings SU as the home team

North Carolina really started the season out on a rough note, as the Wolfpack gained a paltry 133 yards in the season-opening loss to South Carolina, and lost in the college football odds category. The offensive explosions to follow were not anything to draw conclusions from, as they came against Murray State and Gardner-Webb, but you couldn’t argue with the output they had against a relatively strong Pittsburgh team last Saturday. N.C. State had 530 yards of total offense, and scored the last three touchdowns of the game.

Russell Wilson, the sophomore quarterback, threw for 322 yards and four touchdowns. He is an interesting case, in that it makes big headlines when he throws the ball to the other team. How big? Well, in 17 games as a collegian, Wilson has thrown 29 TD passes with just ONE interception. His current streak is 364 passes without a pickoff. So you can be reasonably sure the football odds are that the Wolfpack is not going to give the opposition any cheap opportunities of that nature.

N.C. State is also ranked first nationally in total defense, allowing just over 201 yards a game. That could be interpreted as very deceiving, because of the FCS schools on their schedule, but Pittsburgh and South Carolina, two schools who will almost unquestionably be seeing bowl action, gained just 556 yards between them.

What we’re saying is that this is a pretty solid team taking the ride to Winston-Salem, allowing less than six yards a pass attempt and 2.4 yards a rush, and not turning it over very much, so Wake Forest, which managed to blow it against an offensively-challenged Boston College team last week, will have to earn everything it gets to win this as far as the football odds are concerned. Wilson will move the chains, one way or another, and North Carolina State, which has covered 15 of its last 21 games, continues to over-achieve against the number.

For us, it’s the Wolfpack plus 2.5 points in the BetOnline NCAA football odds.

JAY’S PLAY:  NORTH CAROLINA STATE +2.5 ***

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)