College football 2014 week 1 part 1

Below are my picks for the Thursday and Friday night games.  Tomorrow I will post my picks for the weekend games.

Thursday:
South Carolina vs Texas A&M over 61 points - Texas A&M defense has been bad the last couple of years, the only reason they've won games is because of the offense.  No reason to suspect anything different this year.  South Carolina has it's most experience offensive line in school history, and the Aggies are returning 89 starts on it's offensive line.  South Carolina lost 2 All American defensive lineman.  While I do believe South Carolina will win this game, I'm not confident on how many points they will win by.  I am confident that both offenses will take advantage of weak defenses and score lots of points.

Louisiana Monroe -1 vs Wake Forest - Last year Wake Forest won this game, but that was a fluke.  This year, ULM get's revenge.  WF is only 5-20 in it's past 25 openers on the road while ULM is 5-1 in it's past 6 home openers.  WF has a new HC, new scheme, basically a new everything.  ULM HC is entering his 5th year and returning 15 starters.

Tulsa -6.5 vs Tulane - Again another team getting revenge over a loss last year.  Tulane beat Tulsa for the first time in 9 tries last year at home.  Tulsa wants revenge.  Tulsa has 10 starters returning on defense.  Tulane won't move the ball as well against them this year, plus Tulsa has advantage of being at home, and laying less than a touchdown shouldn't be a problem.

Temple +14 at Vanderbilt - this is more a play against Vanderbilt than it is a play for Temple.  The Commodores have a new HC and only returning 10 starters.  Temple played much better than last years 2-10 record, which included 5 games lost by 7 points or less.  Vanderbilt should win the game, but it will be closer than the 14 point spread.

Colorado -3 neutral site vs Colorado State - CSU lost its leading rusher and 4 starters on the O-line.  Colorado leads this series 17-6.  CU won last year by 14 points, and the only reason it was that close was because of 2 big special teams plays by CSU.  CU is returning 16 starters compared to CSU's 12.  Finally CU coach MacIntyre has beaten CSU 3 straight years if you include his tenure at San Jose St.

I tweeted all of these picks the other day, but the lines have changes since my tweets.  I've updated the lines for this blog.  Follow me on twitter @Dustin_Dominiak for more picks.