Notre Dame’s Clausen vs. USC’s Pass D:  There are some interesting matchups  on Saturday, and one of them is Casey Clausen vs. the USC pass defense.   Clausen is averaging 10.4 yards per pass attempt, this is massively improved from his freshman (5.1) and junior (7.2) seasons.  Can Clausen keep up the pace? In the last five years the only QB to average over 10 yards per attempt was David Johnson of Tulsa last season, though Johnson’s big numbers were marred somewhat by throwing 18 INT’s in 400 attempts. 

Clausen needs to try to keep that up against a USC defense that is allowing 5.4 yards per pass attempt after finishing #1 in that category last year and #2 nationally the previous season.  The Trojan D is the only one in the country that has yet to allow a TD pass on the season, but the secondary has only 3 interceptions in 160 opponent pass attempts.

Notre Dame gave the Trojans a run for their  money in the famous 34-31 “Bush Push” loss in 2005, but since Southern Cal started to hit their stride in Pete Carroll’s second year, the Trojans have beaten the Irish by 20 or more every other season.  Series scores starting last year and going backward have been 38-3, 38-0, 44-24, 34-31, 41-10, 45-14, and 44-13. 

Florida State’s Catastrophic Pass Defense:   In recent years blame for the failures of the Florida State Seminoles have been placed firmly on the shoulders of their offense.   Mickey Andrews’ defense was always sound, and usually even better than their stats, accounting for the tough positions their offense would put them in due to turnovers and overall inefficiency.   But that’s not the case this year.  Florida State’s defense is allowing 10.4 yards per pass attempt, ranking them #120 out of 120 teams in that important statistic.  That number includes games against 1-AA Jacksonville State and QB-less Boston College.   This is a sudden collapse, as last year FSU ranked 28th nationally, allowing 6.2 yards per attempt.

Busing for Dollars:  Looking to reduce travel expenses, Cal is busing to UCLA for the Bears game against the Bruins, which you have to figure would add about 3 hours each way to the 377 mile one-way trip.   Miami’s doing the same thing to get to Orlando for their game with Central Florida, but their trip is only two-thirds as long, and probably will only add about an hour to what it would have been door-to-door.  It’ll be interesting to see how much energy the Hurricanes, and especially the Bears, have both early and late in those contests.   Here’s guessing  it isn’t a big handicapping factor, as the players are young and healthy and have a hotel stay to rest up the night before. 

Strange Box Scores:  Ohio State was outgained by Wisconsin 368-184 yet covered the 15-point spread in a 31-15 win.  How does that happen?  The Buckeyes earned only 8 first downs and only a single offensive TD, but two INT returns and a kickoff return provided the points they needed.  That hidden strong play by Wisconsin explains the big early week betting that took the Badgers from +1 to -3 against Iowa (the game has since settled at Wisconsin -2.5).  Betting Bret Bielema over Kirk Ferentz requires some major statistical validation. 

ACC Handicapping and Betting Notes:  How good would Virginia be if they started the season in late September ever year?   Since 2005 UVA is now 0-10 against the spread in their first two games of the season  (includes 1-AA games this year and last in which they  covered neither pointspread posted at a few books).   But they’re 12-5 against the spread in games 5-8.  Unfortunately, it is unlikely that trend players will have Al “Mr. October” Groh back next year to take advantage of those patterns.  Duke’s Thaddeus Lewis was 40-50 for 483 yards, 5 TD’s and no INT’s in the Blue Devils upset win over NC State.   “That’s about as good as it gets,”  said his coach David Cutcliffe.  Cutcliffe, who coached both Manning brothers, also said it was the best college game by a QB he’s ever seen.   Just a few weeks before Lewis was pulled from a game against Army for poor performance.  Bettors need to ascertain whether Lewis is reaching his long-promised potential or if he just freaked in the NC State game.

Big 12 Scoring Down:  The Big 12 was a TD festival last season, but Oklahoma and Texas enter their matchup a combined 1-7 to the under this year.  Last season the Oklahoma/over parlay cashed in 10 of the Sooners 13 lined games.   This season the reverse is true, with opponent/under 3 for 4 this far.  Unders are 3-5 in Big 12 conference games, but the only game of the 8 that saw the two teams score more points than they did the previous season was Kansas/Iowa State in the Jayhawks 41-36 win last Saturday.   Texas defeated Colorado by the identical 38-14 score they beat them by last season.  And the other six games have all been lower scoring than last season.  So scoring is down in the Big 12.  But that’s hardly news. After last year’s fireworks, how could it not be.