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Posted at 2:45 PM EST. 

South Dakota St +130 over COLORADO ST

Friday, September 3rd, 2021 – 9:00 PM EST

Sonny Lubrick Field at Canvas Stadium – Fort Collins, CO

Streaming Subscribers - Fox Sports 1 (FS1) in the FOX/NBC Sports Networks Group

9:00 PM EST. If there was a pecking order of market presence/bias for college football it would go as follows:

Elite Power Five / Notre Dame

Power Five / BYU / Army

Group of Five and Independents (Excepting BYU, Army, and the Irish)

FCS

While this is not a one-size fits all rubric, in many instances the above framework can help find value, as it will be noted that a Group of Five FBS team will generally be given more clout against a FCS foe, regardless of when one takes a look under the hood. The lines for FBS vs. its FCS little brother, generally do not appear until the day before the two sides meet. However, sometimes an earlier line is put out as a projection. In this contest in particular, FCS team South Dakota State initially was priced as a -3½-point favorite on the road at a notorious favorite-conducive figure to a FBS host. We would be remiss to highlight the rarity of such an occurrence.

Though South Dakota State is an underdog here, they opened as the favorite (-2½) and we point that out because on a Friday night, this game is not getting lost in the shuffle. No matter how you slice it, the authors of this line have the Rabbits pegged in their crosshairs. In other words, oddsmakers put out a massive “proverbial carrot” here and the efficient market has bitten.

South Dakota State was seconds away from capturing the 2020 FCS National Championship, until a late Sam Houston State touchdown separated the Jackrabbits from glory. A great way to get back on track and set the course for the season, would be winning a game against a FBS foe in its own barn. There is no reason to suspect why South Dakota State can’t do that.

You are likely to hear time and time again about Colorado State’s Head Coach Steve Addazio and how he will turn the Rams into a Mountain West contender. While there was only a small sample size to make inferences from in a COVID-shortened 2020 season, there is nothing to marvel in, as CSU went 1-3. The truncated season did not allow the Rams to really ever get in sync offensively and when we combine this with the fact that their opponent played a 10-game slate and was last in action just under four months ago, the Jackrabbits will have far less kinks to work out compared to their counterparts. In summation, Colorado State is still figuring itself out while South Dakota State (the #3 team in the FCS Rankings) knows where it wants to go and has a blueprint that it knows works. The Rams would be lucky to make a bowl in 2021 while the Jackrabbits could very well go back to the playoffs and win the whole enchilada. This is a case of an inflated price in our favor and thus, we're playing it on the money line.

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