#357 ASA PLAY ON 8* James Madison +7 over Appalachian State, Saturday at 3:30 PM ET - Just a terrible spot for App State here. They are now off 3 hugely emotional games to start the season and face a team that is in their first year of making the move from FCS to FBS. ASU lost 63-61 in their season opener vs big boy in-stater UNC missing a 2 point conversion that would have sent it to OT. Then they traveled to Texas A&M and pulled a huge upset winning in College Station 17-14. A&M has shown us they are not nearly as good as people thought (including us). Last week ESPN college game day was in Boone, NC for the App State vs Troy game so another game to get up for. On top of that, ASU scored on a hail mary on the final play of the game winning 32-28 in their first conference game. James Madison had last week off after winning their first 2 games by a combined score of 107-14! They outgained Middle Tennessee State and Norfolk State by a combined almost 700 yards. Their 44-7 win over MTSU looks more impressive after the Blue Raiders went on to win their next 2 games by 15 and 43 points covering those games by a combined 52 points. JMU was one of the top few programs in FCS over the last 5 or so seasons so their success thus far is not surprising. The Dukes have been very balanced offensively with more than 200 yards both passing and rushing in each of their first 2 games. JMU made it to the FCS Final 4 or National Championship game in 5 of the last 6 seasons. Their overall record during that stretch was 70-11. This is a great program that will come more than ready to play in their first ever Sun Belt Conference game vs a team that we would almost guarantee is in for a letdown this week. We think they have a great shot at the outright win and getting a TD is a very nice cushion.

#361/362 ASA PLAY ON 8* Over 63 Points – Duke vs Kansas, Saturday at 12 PM ET - No this isn’t a college hoops match up of top 5 teams but it is a game with 2 solid offenses and 2 bad defense that should keep the scoreboard lighting up. Kansas HC Leipold is an offensive genius and has turned around every program he’s taken over. His UW Whitewater teams (Division 3) won 6 National Championships in his 8 years. He took over a Buffalo program that had a losing record when he came in and in his final year the Bulls had just 1 loss and was averaging 44 PPG. He has this Kansas team playing great offensively as they’ve scored 56, 55, and 48 points in their 3 games. They are coming off back to back road upsets @ West Virginia and @ Houston. They should have a field day vs a Duke defense that has OK overall numbers but they are very deceiving. The Blue Devils shut out Temple 30-0 to pad their defensive stats but the Owls have scored a grand total of 14 points vs their 2 FBS foes this season. In their 31-23 win over Northwestern, they allowed the Wildcats to gain over 500 total yards and the Cats blew numerous scoring opportunities. The Duke offense has looked very good scoring at least 30 points in every game this season. They face a Jayhawk defense that has played 2 FBS foes (WVU & Houston) and they’ve allowed 72 points in those 2 games combined. Both offenses look drastically better than last year’s which both finished outside the top 100 in total offense. Despite that, when these 2 met last year they put up 85 total points and over 1,100 total yards in a 52-33 Duke win. The weather in Lawrence looks perfect for a high scoring game on Saturday with temps around 80 degrees and very light winds. This one should be a shootout.