2017 Week 1 College Football Picks & Predictions – Rice vs Stanford Odds & Free Pick 8/26/17

2017 Week 1 College Football Picks & Predictions – Rice vs Stanford Odds & Free Pick 8/26/17: The Rice Owls will battle the Stanford Cardinal to kick off the 2017 college football season on Saturday, August 26th(actually August 27th in Sydney) in the 2nd annual Syndney Cup from Allianz Stadium in Sydney, Australia. The game is scheduled for a 10 PM EST kick off from down under and the odds makers at Bovada Sportsbook have posted the early betting line on this game with Stanford being a strong -31.5 point favorite. Last year’s Sydney Cup marked the return of college football in Australia for the 1st time in 29 years as California steam rolled Hawaii to a tune of 51-31 in the 1st ever Sydney Cup. Let’s take a closer look at this year’s Sydney Cup and get our free college football picks started with a bang in 2017 with a free winner on the spread in this game.

2017 Week 1 College Football Picks & Predictions – Rice vs Stanford Odds & Free Pick 8/26/17

Game: Rice vs Stanford
Line: Stanford -31.5 at Bovada Sportsbook
Where: Allianz Stadium in Sydney, Australia
Time: 10 PM EST
Date: Saturday, August 26th, 2017

Stanford head coach David Shaw is one of the most underappreciated and best head coaches in all of college football. Shaw is 64-17 after 6 seasons as Stanford head coach after replacing Jim Harbaugh and he looks to have another outstanding Cardinal team this season. Stanford welcomes back 16 starters from last season’s 10-3 team that finished the season on a 6 game winning streak including a 25-23 win over North Carolina in the Sun Bowl.

Stanford’s strength as a team this season will be the defense once again. The unit ranked 18th nationally last season giving up just 20.4 points per game while allowing 368.1 yards per game to finish 38th nationally. Stanford defensive coordinator Lance Anderson expects this year’s unit to be even better led by a talented secondary that is one of the top units in all of college football. The Cardinal secondary should have at least 3 players on the All Pac 12 first and second team defense with junior cornerback Quenton Meeks, junior safety Justin Reid and senior cornerback Alijah Holder earning the honors.

On the other side of the ball, Stanford has some work to do offensively if it wants to be a legit Top 10 team nationally this season. The unit lost it’s star running back Christian McCaffrey to the NFL’s Carolina Panthers in the NFL Draft and he was the straw that stirred the drink for Stanford offensively. The unit only scored 26.3 points per game last season to finish 83rd nationally and it must get better production from junior quarterback Keller Chryst who was solid in leading Stanford to a 6-0 run to end the 2016 season but is far from elite.

Rice head coach David Bailiff will have his work cut out for him this season. Bailiff is just 56-69 overall after 10 years as the Owls head coach and he welcomes back 12 starters from last year’s 3-9 team. Rice was one of the worst teams in the nation on both sides of the ball last year so having 12 starters back might not be that much of a good thing.

Offensively, Rice scored just 25.3 points per game to end up 93rd nationally and averaged 384.8 yards per game to finish 86th nationally last season. Rice has 5 starters back on offense but will break in a new quarterback in sophomore Jackson Tyner. Tyner had limited playing experience last year as he finished with just 318 yards passing and 2 touchdowns in 5 games. The good news for Tyner and the offensive coaching staff is all 5 starters return on the offensive line. If the offensive line can hold down the fort than Rice should be improved offensively this season after dealing with a slew of injuries to the line last season.

Rice defensive coordinator Brian Stewart welcomes back 7 returning starters this season. The unit finished 114th in the nation in points allowed at 37.3 points per game last season and also finished 123rd in yardage allowed at 504.5 per game. Those stats are flat out ugly folks and, frankly, we don’t see them being much better this season despite the 7 starters returning. Rice simply lacks speed, size and talent on defense to be brutally honest. They might be able to compete with the bottom feeders in Conference USA but they will get man handled against everyone else that is of bowl quality.

Rice vs Stanford Free Pick and Score Prediction: Stanford to cover the -31.5 spread and win the game by a 45-10 score.

Bet on the Rice vs Stanford 2017 Sydney Cup game at Bovada Sportsbook