Welcome to the first installment of this year’s college football mid-major betting report. Last year’s mid-major betting report netted $100 per-unit bettors $1,280 in profit based on a record of 7-2-1.  Last year, I followed the Rice Owls. This year it will be the Ohio Bobcats. All season I’ll be following Ohio beat writers, Twitter feeds, and press conferences from the football program. By becoming an expert on this program, I want to show the betting world how specialization is a profitable sports betting strategy.  

How does this work? In each weekly installment I’ll have a recap of the previous game, some notes of interest, betting trends, and college football odds for the upcoming game. At the end of each weekly article, I will make a selection for that weekend’s game. Doc’s Sports Unit Betting System will be used for every pick, which should help readers follow along and track the results of these weekly college football picks.

2011 Ohio Bobcats Season Recap

For the first time in school history, Ohio won a bowl game. The Bobcats squeaked out a 24-23 win over Utah State in the Idaho Potato Bowl. The win gave Ohio a final record of 10-4 in 2011. The Bobcats missed another chance in the MAC Championship Game last year. Ohio has had three chances at a MAC Championship in the past six years, but they haven’t won any of those games. In last year’s contest they led Northern Illinois 20-0 at halftime, but they ended up losing, 23-20. Frank Solich has done a great job moving this Ohio Bobcats program forward, and 2011 was a great example of the major progress.

Notes of Interest

- The Bobcats first opponent of the 2012 season will be the Penn State Nittany Lions. Penn State has obviously been in the news for all the wrong reasons in the offseason. This isn’t the huge powerhouse matchup that it seemed it would be when the Ohio football schedule was made, but the Bobcats still must take on a Big Ten opponent.

- In this week’s press conference, Solich spoke at length about the unique challenge of playing in front of 108,000 screaming fans at Happy Valley. The Bobcats understand that this game will be played with a ton of emotion, and the crowd will be a major factor.

-Seth Austin, who is an Ohio Bobcats beat writer for the SpeakEasy Magazine in Athens, pointed out in his recent blog that the Ohio Bobcats defense has been dominating the inter-squad scrimmages in the past few weeks. In fact, in the team’s first scrimmage, the Bobcats defense held the offense to one score in 10 drives.

-Checking around the Twitter universe, it is easy to see that many of the Ohio Bobcats players have gotten wind of a prediction by Sports Illustrated writer Holly Anderson that the Bobcats will finish 12-0 this year. Anderson even says she believes the Bobcats could be a team to watch to bust the BCS. Over the past couple weeks several players have tweeted pointing to the Web site where this prediction was posted. This team has a lot of confidence right now.

Betting Trends

-Penn State is 0-6 against the spread in their last six nonconference games.
-Ohio is 10-3 ATS in their last 13 games as an underdog.
-The “under” is 8-0 in Penn State’s last eight games against a MAC opponent.
-The under is 4-0 in Ohio’s last four games overall.

Ohio vs. Penn State College Football Odds

Penn State opened as nine-point favorites at BetOnline, but as the news got worse in Happy Valley money continued to come in on the underdogs from Ohio. The Nittany Lions are current six-point favorites. The posted total in this one is set at 44.5 points.

Ohio vs. Penn State College Football Picks

Both teams have been waiting for this day for a long time. The Bobcats want a chance to prove they are for real on a national stage. All Penn State has wanted to do for the past several months is get back on the football field and try to take a step toward putting the ugly past behind this once-proud program. It’s hard to tell what kind of emotions will come from the Penn State crowd in this one, but one can be sure there will be a ton of passion inside Beaver Stadium.

Ohio is a complete team that should be great on both sides of the ball, but I don’t feel comfortable making any ATS selections in a game with so many emotional unknowns. The Bobcats defense has dominated in preseason scrimmages, and Penn State’s defense is clearly the strength of their team. The pick in this matchup is one unit on under 44.5 points. Keep an eye out for the second edition of the mid-major betting report when we’ll look at Ohio’s home opener against New Mexico State.

Pick: #161 - Take Ohio/Penn State Under 44.5 for 1 Unit (Saturday, Sept. 1, Noon EST)

Season Results: 0 Wins 0 Losses - 0 Units

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