Miami Hurricanes Football: first Over/Under number released|Miami Hot Topics|Team BattleGround|College BattleGround

In the CFB offseason, one of the things we do is look ahead to the upcoming season. On Thursday, South Point, a Las Vegas Sportsbook, released their over/under numbers for all FBS teams.

The O/U number for Miami wasn’t part of the first O/U’s of the year, put out by Golden Nugget. South Point, however, included the Canes in their release. And, the number they have given is:

That number is quite low, but South Point has many teams at that number. Joining Miami at an O/U of 6.5 are Auburn, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech, and others.

The basic translation of a 6.5 O/U is: will this team have a winning season or not?

A quick perusal of the Canes’ schedule gives me the thought that Miami should easily be over the number given. How? Here’s how:

• Games against FAMU and FAU are easy wins. That’s 2
• Appalachian State on the road is tricky, but I’m confident we’ll win that too. That’s 3.
• Heading into the conference season, Miami will be favored to win nearly every game, with the exception of FSU at home and at Notre Dame. That means, Miami will be favored in 7 of the last 9 games of the year. If the Canes win a majority of the games in which they’re favored, that’s 7 wins right there.

If Al Golden were still Miami’s coach, this number would probably make sense. He proved time and time again that Miami wasn’t a top outfit under his direction.

Now that Mark Richt is the coach, it seems that South Point is operating off the Al Golden paradigm for O/U calculation….and you can’t really blame them.

As I’ve written and has been widely discussed, Miami has enough talent to be a winning (read: 8+ wins per year) team right now. But, with a new coach and new staff comes a new way of doing things. A way of doing things that has been seen on another campus, but not at Miami.

For now, it seems reasonable that Sportsbooks put Miami’s O/U at 6.5. Most of us who follow or root for the Hurricanes think this team is going to be better this year than in previous years, but that isn’t for certain.

The only game that Miami has played since the hiring of Mark Richt was the Spring Game. While there were things to glean from that event, that isn’t a great predictor of future success against an opponent who wears a different jersey color.

As of today, I’m fairly confident the first version of Richt’s Hurricanes will be able to hit the Over. But, I don’t blame South Point for putting the number where they did.

Those are my thoughts. What are yours? Vote in the poll and leave a comment below.