posted June 23, 2008 at 17:31 in NCAA F Betting Trends

Like a few teams in the WAC, Nevada is an all-offense, no-defense squad. But they seem to be on the right track for football betting faithful as they appeared in a bowl game for the third consecutive year last season.

The story for Nevada will be the same: the offense is solid and if the defense doesn’t lag behind too much, they’ll head to another bowl game. Now if the defense can really step it up for online sports betting enthusiasts, Nevada has potential to compete for the top spot in the WAC.

Offense

The Wolfpack are having a heated battle at quarterback, which stems around the age-old question: should you lose your job because of an injury?

Nick Graziano won the job last year but injured his foot mid-season. Colin Kaepernick stepped in and was absolutely phenomenal, which is why there is a competition now. Kaepernick passed for 19 touchdowns versus only three interceptions, and rushed for six more scores and nearly 600 yards. Either way, this isn’t a competition between two raw freshmen. The quarterback position looks to in good hands one way or the other.

The offensive line returns four starters so the front lines should be secure. And while there is some uncertainty of who take the majority of the snaps at quarterback, there are no similar questions at running back.

Senior running back Luke Lippincott led the WAC in rushing last year and is without a doubt one of the best runners in the conference.

It’s a fairly well-rounded offense without any noticeable vacancies, which is why Nevada can match points with a lot of teams. But it’s the defense that raises question.

Defense

The Wolfpack have a lot of work to do on this side of the ball. The secondary has been revamped completely but there isn’t any evidence of progress.

There are eight newcomers in the secondary and a lack of consistency may not be a bad thing. Last year’s group was torn apart regularly. But with so many faces, it is hard to tell if there are any impact players, role players or serviceable players. And chemistry might be an issue as well.

There is no body of work to analyze.

Also, their defensive coordinator was demoted, which adds another change to deal with.

The linebacking corps has to replace two starting linebackers but returns one pretty good one. Josh Mauga missed five games last year but still wrapped up 82 tackles. He’s going to be relied up to be the man in the middle.

The two linebackers losses shouldn’t be so bad since the defense is switching from a 3-4 to a 4-3, which means one less starting linebacker will be on the field.

Outlook

As bad as the Wolfpack’s defense was last year, they still qualified for a bowl game (albeit with some help). But factor in that Nevada lost to Boise State, Hawaii and Fresno State by a combined 12 points and you’ll see that Nevada isn’t that far from the pack.

If Hawaii takes a step back, maybe it’s Nevada who can move up and replace them as contenders.

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