Duke!?! Yes, DUKE!

Saturday's game between Duke & UConn will likely decide who gets the number one seed in the East bracket as two legends, Coach K and Coach Calhoun square off... this isn't a basketball game? But both of their football teams s*ck! Yes, these are two pretty bad football teams, and normally I just stay away, but there is a very compelling story in here. If you look at last season, UConn was 4-9, Duke was 0-12(riding a 20 game losing streak), I mean really look at every game, other than an early loss to the Richmond Spider Monkeys(1-AA), these are almost equally bad teams. Duke had a tougher schedule, simply in that, top to bottom the ACC is a tougher conference and no one wants to let their free win against Duke get away. Duke managed to have 3 near misses, 2 against pretty worthy opponents(Wake Forest, Miami-FL, albeit with a ton of suspensions), and after 3 early shutouts early, managed to start putting some points on the board with a true freshman making 11 starts at QB. Well Duke returns all 11 starters from that offense that started to show life, while UConn ships its starting QB to WR to make room for a hefty lefty from JUCO. Sure he put up big numbers in JUCO, but that really isn't proof of much(see Schaeffer, Brent, Ole Miss last season). No, UConn will run the ball, and that will keep Duke from being blown out, even though they cannot stop the run. If you look up and down Duke's schedule this year, especially at the home games, this game jumps out as the best opportunity for this team to break that miserable losing streak, and you can bet "everyone is 0-0 right now" is the battle cry for the Dukies. An offense with that type of continuity is rare and not to be discounted, even in the depths of a conference. Even more compelling is the line movement on this one as it opened at UConn -6 and now sits at UConn -4.5 in spite of the fact that Vegas is taking 2 to 1 wager volume in favor of UConn. That tells you 1 of 2 things, Vegas is taking a side with Duke here(not likely), or in the lighter wager volume, there is a lot of sharp money in favor of Duke and Vegas is trying to balance their cash exposure(a great sign for Duke wagerers). I say it ends here on a 3 from the corner(or a FG in this case), I'm going to shop for +5, but will take +4.5, Duke 89 UConn 87... I mean Duke(+4.5) 29 UConn 27.