Florida State vs. Boston College Odds, Pick & Point Spread: October 3rd 2009

Florida State vs. Boston College
Free Pick: Florida State -3.5 -110 odds - point spread
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Bobby Bowden’s troops make their way to Chestnut Hill to face ACC rival Boston College on Saturday. Boston College is coming off an OT win over Wake Forest while the Seminoles are licking their wounds after losing at home as a two touchdown favorite to little brother University of South Florida.

Boston College has struggled this season and almost blew the game with Wake last week leading 24 to 10 at the halfway point of the fourth quarter and their defense couldn’t hold the lead it took overtime to finally secure the “W”.

Eagle’s freshman QB Dave Shinskie will face a much tougher opponent this week with the FSU defense more athletic and certainly faster than that of the Wake Forest team he saw last week. BC passing attack was 18 of 29 for 228 yards in the win over the Deacons and their rushing attack added an additional 170 yards over land. They will find the going much tougher this week especially with the Noles speed on the defensive side of the ball.

A week earlier the Boston College Eagles faced Clemson which has similar speed on defense and they held the Eagles to 29 yards rushing on 28 attempts and they were 5 of 21 for 25 yards through the air. Now we must remember that this game was halted due to weather a couple times and it was a rain soaked field. Against Kent State which is well below average on the defensive side of the ball the Eagles only rushed for 126 yards and passed for 223 in the win. They do not have the talent or playmakers to facilitate a win over the Seminoles on Saturday.

FSU is led by QB Christian Ponder who has thrown for more than 1000 yards this season and he has completed over 66 percent of his passes to this point. In their win over BYU in Provo they rushed for 313 yards and Ponder was 22 of 28 for 199 yards through the air. Against South Florida last week they only rushed for 19 yards and passed for 269 on 25 of 37 passing attempts. We expect to see the FSU team that performed so well against BYU on the road.

The Seminoles are playing with revenge for a 27 to 17 home loss last season to the Eagles. The key play in that game was an 87 yard interception return for a touchdown that gave BC an early 14 to 0 lead that they never relinquished.

The BC Eagles are 0-4 ATS as a host in this series and FSU is 5-1 ATS when playing with conference revenge. The road team has also won and covered the last four in this series and Bowden’s troops have covered three of their last four as road chalk. The Noles are 15-3 ATS off a SU loss as a favorite facing an opponent off a SU win. Key Angle for this contest is FSU is 7-0-1 ATS the game following their last 8 SU losses.

A check of the database reveals a CFB System that is active for today’s game and it says to Play AGAINST a home team (not a favorite of 14+ points) off a home SU win of less than 41 points against Wake Forest. These home teams are a miserable 0-12 ATS and have averaged losing to the number by 12.5 points per game.

We look for the Seminoles to continue with what they have done in the past and that is to get the SU and ATS win following a SU loss. Quick note FSU is a perfect 3-0 both straight up and against the spread dating to last season when playing away from home. Lay the short price as the Noles grab the SU and ATS win on Saturday in Chestnut Hill.

PROJECTED FORECAST: FSU Seminoles 29 Boston College Eagles 18