Ready or not, here we go.
College football’s FBS season kicks off this week with five games on the board stretching from Thursday to Monday to whet the appetite of fans and bettors who’ve been waiting since January.
The impact of the coronavirus is clearly evident as several conferences have opted out of playing in the fall. And those conferences that chose to play are dealing with isolated COVID-19 outbreaks on some of their members’ campuses, which complicate matters further.
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Still, those that decided to play are preparing with the various protocols in place to help mitigate outbreaks within their teams. Two of the three service academies will kick off their 2020 seasons this week as Army plays host to Middle Tennessee Saturday while Navy hosts Brigham Young in a nationally televised game Monday on ESPN. The Black Knights are 3.5-point favorites at Circa Sports while the Midshipmen are slight 1-point favorites over BYU.
The most lopsided lines are on Saturday where SMU is a 22-point road favorite over Texas State and Memphis is a 19-point choice at home against Arkansas State. On Thursday, Southern Miss is -15.5 against South Alabama.
It’s a nice appetizer for the main course a week from now when the SEC, Big 12 and ACC kick off their seasons. It won’t be the full complement that we’re used to, but at least it’s something.