some chalk stuff
Chalk Bits
Army, which hosts Temple on Saturday, got its breakthrough 2016 underway with an upset of the Owls in the opener. That game ended a six-game run of straight-up and ATS dominance for TU, which had only let the Knights come within 13 points once in that span. The Knights, notorious for underachieving as chalk, are giving weight to an FBS team for the fifth time this season and are 1-4 ATS so far.
TCU has beaten league doormat Kansas each year since joining the Big 12, but something about the Frogs brings out the best in the downtrodden Jayhawks. The average margin of victory is just a touchdown, and just once has TCU scored more than 27 points.
BYU and Florida State have been the season's biggest money-burners thus far -- they are the only two teams yet to cover a game. Georgia Tech, Buffalo, UCF and Utah are the four remaining teams with unblemished records at the window.
Southern Miss and Louisiana Tech have only been Conference USA league-mates since 2013, but this is a heated regional rivalry of the 1980s and '90s that was renewed back in 2010 and has seen six meetings in the seven years since. Underdogs have covered four of the six, including a pair of Southern Miss upsets the past two years, and bettors would be wise to know the story of the bad blood in those games before moving on this year's tilt.
The teams met to close the 2015 regular season with the West division on the line, and Southern Miss delivered a 58-24 road blowout. Last year, Tech entered the game in Hattiesburg with an 8-3 record, the West division already clinched and jawing at Southern players on social media about running up the score in retaliation for the 2016 blowout on a scuffling Eagles team that had lost three straight and five of six. Southern Miss, at 5-6, needed the win to earn a bowl berth in Jay Hopson's first year and responded with a physical beat-down of the visiting Bulldogs that wasn't nearly as close as the 39-24 final.