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The Betting Public is Bullish on the Delaware Blue Hens and Temple Owls
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College football starts this weekend with a couple of decent Week 0 matchups. We’ve got North Carolina vs. TCU in Dublin, #14 USC hosting San Jose State, and Virginia vs. NC State in Charlottesville. Jacksonville State vs. NDSU might be a low-key banger as well.
Temple and Delaware do not play until next week, but I hit up our friends at BetMGM to see if they had any information on how the public is viewing each team. Turns out customers are bullish on the win totals:
Delaware
- over/under opened at 6.5 wins
- no movement on the total
- 76% of bets on the over
- 80% of the money on the over
Temple
- over/under opened at 5.5 wins
- no movement on the total
- 96% of bets on the over
- 88% of the money on the over
These are absurdly high numbers, especially for Temple. You’ll always find a handful of teams each year that the public gets behind. They’ll back a trendy pick into the 80% range for both money and handle, but 96% and 88% are incredibly lopsided.
We went over Temple’s schedule a few weeks ago, settling on a 6-6 record, a bowl game appearance, and a cresting of the over 5.5. They should beat Rhode Island, Charlotte, UAB, and Rice at home. That means they need to win two of three against Toledo, Army, and UConn to reach their total.
As for Delaware, they’ll play the following schedule:
- vs. Merrimack (on a Thursday night)
- at Vanderbilt
- vs. Coastal Carolina
- at Virginia
- vs. Liberty (on a Friday night)
- at Middle Tennessee State (Tuesday night)
- vs. Missouri State (Tuesday night)
- at Western Kentucky (Tuesday night)
- at Kennesaw State
- vs. Florida International
- at New Mexico State
- vs. Jacksonville State
The schedule is funky. Delaware only has three Saturday home games this season. Conference USA does the Tuesday night October thing because it gives them some better TV time slots and the opportunity for national attention, otherwise they’d be swamped by the big conferences on Saturdays. The Hens actually get some decent breaks between games because of this.
If we chalk up UVA and Vandy as losses, Delaware would need to go 7-3 in the other games to hit the over 6.5 total wins.
Merrimack is an FCS independent coming off a four-win season. That should be an easy home win.
Coastal Carolina is a bang-average Sunbelt team. The Hens should also win that game at home.
In conference play, Western Kentucky and Kennesaw State are getting a lot of love. UD gets both of those teams on the road in early November, which is tough. Liberty is always pretty good, and could absolutely win the conference. That’s gonna be a good home game on a Friday night.
The winnable games are against Middle Tennessee State, Missouri State, Florida International, and New Mexico State, two of which are home and two of which are on the road. If they can handle Merrimack and Coastal, then beat those four conference opponents, they’d need to win one of two against Liberty and Jacksonville State to get to seven wins.
But I wouldn’t rule out upsets against WKU and KSU. And Vandy is a question mark in the post-Diego Pavia era. The Hens return a bunch of starters, among them quarterback Nick Minicucci, who logged 3,683 passing yards and 23 touchdowns with 10 rushing scores. He’s legit. Tons of experience and throws a nice ball. Makes good decisions.
The Delaware defense is not great, or at least it wasn’t last year, but if they’ve improved at all on that side of the ball, they will win seven games. This is their second season now at the FBS level and they know what they’re up against.
There’s no value on the spread or moneyline for Week 1 against Merrimack, but the over is definitely in play for the Hens, and I’d play it:
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com