Friday Night Lights – Missouri Tigers vs. Nevada Wolf Pack

BetOnline NCAA Football Betting Odds: MISSOURI -7

In many ways, Missouri is picking up where it left off. Derrick Washington is doing well enough in his running back spot to offer the Tigers enough balance to create room for the new signal-caller. Six-foot-five Missouri quarterback Blaine Gabbert has come in for Chase Daniel and really absorbed the Missouri offense, throwing for 747 yards already and eight touchdowns without an interception.

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

• MIZZ has won four of its last five games SU
• MIZZ has covered ten of its last 13 road games
• MIZZ has won seven of its last nine road games SU
• MIZZ has played ten of its last 13 road games OVER the total
• NEV is 0-5 ATS in its last five games
• NEV has lost four of its last five games SU
• NEV has played four of its last six games OVER the total
• NEV has won 17 of its last 23 home games SU

He’s more of a dropback type than the multi-dimensional Daniel, but can still move around and buy time, and he is completing 68% of his passes. Okay, there may have been two patsies in there, but one of them (Illinois) wasn’t, and against them Gabbert tossed three TD passes and had 319 yards on the day. Maybe the jury is still out on defense, but Missouri was able to hold Illinois (Juice Williams, Arrelious Benn & Co.) to just 325 yards in total offense and nine points.

Nevada’s issues involve being able to move up and play against higher-level opposition. A truly bad sign was the season opener against Notre Dame, where the Wolf Pack converted only two third down opportunities and barely broke 300 yards in offense. Maybe the team was intimidated by the surroundings, but they simply gave Colin Kaepernick no time to operate.

Kaepernick, a unique athlete with running ability and a strong arm, has thus far been intercepted four times in two games. The statistics are kind of deceiving because there is such a small sampling, but Nevada ranks 120th (that’s last, folks) in turnover margin at -8 and is 107th in total defense.

In last season’s meeting, another futile attempt to move up and beat a higher-caliber squad, the Wolf Pack gave up 651 yards in a 69-17 defeat. Certainly some of the characters have changed; Daniel has left Columbia, as have tight end Chase Coffman and wide receiver Jeremy Maclin, but with Nevada’s loss last week to a limited Colorado State, we wonder if they can tame offenses of even middling ability.

Kaepernick needs to go to the next level with his game, if this team is going to be any kind of a threat for the WAC title. He’s already thrown more interceptions than he did in his entire freshman season (three).

The "Pistol" doesn’t seem as difficult to solve anymore, but the bigger problem here will be keeping the other team from putting it into the end zone. Inasmuch as Missouri is making its transition rather smoothly, we’ll count on that not happening this week.

Yes, Nevada has covered 19 of its last 27 at home, but that was largely against lower-level and WAC opponents. We’ve lost faith, and so we’re laying a touchdown with Mizzou, the seven-point favorite in the BetOnline NCAA college football betting odds.

JAY’S PLAY: MISSOURI -7 ****

(Graded on a scale of 1-4 stars)