The Kansas Jayhawks will take a trip to South Carolina to take on the Chanticleers of Coastal Carolina and if they are successful, it will be one of the biggest upsets of the week. Let’s analyze this lopsided matchup and see if we can keep rolling with another ATS cover in our college football picks.
Friday, September 10, 2021 – 07:30 PM EDT at Brooks Stadium
The college football odds, at most of the best online sportsbooks, had the Jayhawks as 11-point home favorites against a middling at-best FCS team, South Dakota, last week. But after Kansas engineered a come-from-behind 17-14 victory you would have thought they had just gotten their ticket punched to the College Football Playoff as fans streamed onto the field and congratulated Lance Leipold’s successful debut as head coach of the Jayhawks.
After going winless last year, the victory halted a 19-game losing skid dating back to October of 2019 which explains the euphoria erupting from the stands and spilling onto the field.
"Right now, we’re not going to get concerned about style points and things like that. We needed to get a win," Leipold said. "Getting a victory was first and foremost right now and as I said, then we go to the film and work to get better."
The Hawks had been holding a 10-0 lead until the third quarter when South Dakota came alive and scored two unanswered touchdowns. That’s when quarterback Jason Bean found Lawrence Arnold for a 16-yeard TD strike which would seal the deal on the 17-14 win. It was the second Bean-to-Arnold touchdown of the game after the two connected late in the second quarter.
"I feel like it was never in doubt about us coming back," Arnold said. "There’s always momentum changes in the game, it’s about how you respond. We never looked at it like we couldn’t come back or couldn’t do this."
UCC is the mightiest little team in the FBS and they started the 2021 season in fine fashion, beating The Citadel, 52-14, and covering the 32-point impost. The Chanticleers held a dominating 38-0 lead early in the third quarter before the military boys were able to pierce the veil of the UCC defense.
It could have been more of a case of disinterest by the Chanticleers than anything else but when the dust settled, the Sun Belt powerhouses not only chalked up a W but covered for all those who backed them in their college football picks.
Quarterback Grayson McCall was a surgical 16-of-19 for 262 yards and one passing TD but it was the UCC rushing attack that won the day. The Citadel had no answer for the multi-pronged ground game as the Chanticleers backfield recorded 266 yards and five touchdowns with Shermari Jones doing most of the heavy lifting as he chewed up 100 yards on nine carries and a pair of scampers into the end zone.
Kansas may have stopped their losing streak last week but had they lost to lowly South Dakota, it would have been a humiliating defeat. I’m not sure how they are going to gain any traction against a stout UCC defense when they could barely manage 17 points against a far less imposing UD squad.
The early line on this game at most of the top sportsbooks is UCC -27 but BetOnline is the outlier, hanging -26 as of this Monday morning writing. To be honest, I’m not sure how much better Kansas is than the FCS team the Chanticleers met last week.
The Citadel and South Dakota are both middle-of-the-road, if not subpar FCS squads, and using the same kind of logic the masses use so unsuccessfully if the Jayhawks could only beat South Dakota by three points yet the Chanticleers barely broke a sweat in trouncing a very similar caliber team then…
Look, it’s always dangerous to entertain those mental gymnastics and the season is new so it is difficult to figure out if what we saw last week was illustrative of what each team will be this week or if one, or both, is still working out the kinks. But what I do know is Kansas could only manage 82 yards on the ground against a defense they should have chewed up and spit out. Their aerial attack didn’t prove much more potent as Jason Bean could only manage 163 yards through the air.
Maybe Kansas surprises us and keeps this close but based on what we saw last week, I highly doubt it. Let’s be square and lay the lumber with the home chalk. Go Chants!
NCAAF Pick: University of Coastal Carolina -26 (-110) at BetOnline (visit our BetOnline Review)
*The line and/or odds on picks in this article might have moved since the content was commissioned. For updated line movements, visit BMR’s free betting odds product.