ESPN College Gameday Podcast loves SMU in matchup at Duke
SMU is looking to keeps its road win streak (the longest active road win streak in the nation) alive this weekend when it faces Duke in Durham, N.C. The Mustangs and Blue Devils are both 6-1 overall.
SMU is unbeaten in ACC play while Duke has one blemish, a loss to Georgia Tech.
The ESPN College GameDay podcast recently previewed the Week 9 slate of games, which includes SMU’s pivotal ACC matchup Saturday night at 7 p.m. CT on ACC Network.
College GameDay host Rece Davis, ESPN insider Pete Thamel and gambling expert Stanford Steve made picks for the biggest games of Week 9 straight up and against the spread.
Stanford Steve, Rece Davis and Pete Thamel each believe SMU will win and cover the 11.5-point spread.
Stanford Steve: SMU -11.5
Rece Davis: SMU -11.5
Pete Thamel: SMU -11.5
“SMU, since making the quarterback change, has scored at least 34 points in every game. Even if they don’t quite get to that number, it’s really hard seeing Duke getting close to that,” Davis said. “So I’m going to take SMU to win the game. I’m going to go ahead and take SMU to cover, too. I think the offensive firepower will carry the day for SMU.”
“I love what I’m seeing from both teams obviously this year. SMU’s got their legs now that Jennings is the quarterback,” Steve said. “Duke, as great as its been, there was a point last Friday night where I’m like, are they really going to blow this game to Florida State? To their credit, they gutted it out and got the win. I don’t think Duke’s offense can keep up with SMU’s.”
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Thamel agreed with Steve’s thoughts on the SMU-Duke matchup while also noting Mustang tight end RJ Maryland is lost for the season. “I think SMU’s going to figure out a way to score. It’ll be interesting to see how they overcome that (Maryland’s injury),” Thamel said.
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Former SMU quarterbacks coach Jonathan Brewer is familiar with Rhett Lashlee’s program, but now heads up a Duke offense that faces one of the best defenses in the country every day in practice.
“Well, we have a top five defense in the country,” Brewer said this week. “I’m anxious to see the SMU offense against our defense. I know what our defense brings to the table. We will score as much as we need to win a game, even if that’s two points. I don’t really look at the stats. I don’t even care about that. It’s about the team win and doing whatever it takes to win the game. We did that enough the other night, obviously we’d like to execute at a higher level and really put the game out of the question in the first half.
“We had the chance to do that and we didn’t do it. We had to kick a field goal down in the red zone, which I think if we went up 21-3, I think the game would get put out of question pretty early and we would all feel pretty good. But we didn’t do that and we have got to clean that up this week.”
SMU hoping Brewer’s unit doesn’t clean up and find its footing this week. If the Mustangs can carry a win out of Durham, the College Gameday crew might be picking SMU-Pitt in-person from the Hilltop next week.
