A best bet for Saturday’s North Carolina-Virginia matchup. The Tar Heels are large road favorites.
Saturday afternoon features a battle between ACC foes when No. 17 North Carolina travels to Charlottesville to take on Virginia.
The Tar Heels boast a 7-1 record (4-0 ACC) and have won four straight games since a home loss to Notre Dame, while the Cavaliers sit at 3-5 (1-4 ACC) and have lost four of their last five games. Virginia fell 14-12 in four overtimes to Miami last week.
North Carolina aims to avoid an upset as a large road favorite in the 127th meeting between these two teams, the third-most in FBS history.
Let’s dive into this game for one of this week’s Forde Four bets. You can also find picks for Texas-Kansas State, James Madison-Louisville and UCF-Memphis.
Spread: North Carolina -7 (-118) | Virginia +7 (-110)
Moneyline: UNC (-333) | UVA (+220)
Total: 60.5 - Over (-110) | Under (-118)
Game Info: Saturday, Nov. 5 | 12 p.m. ET | ACC Network
Bet on North Carolina-Virginia at SI Sportsbook
Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports
My opening week of picks didn’t go too well except for the Tar Heels, who easily covered a surprisingly small three-point spread against Pittsburgh, 42-24. Since Vegas still doesn’t seem too enthusiastic about North Carolina, let’s keep it rolling with the Heels again this week.
The hunch here is that Carolina’s close games on the road — all four this year have been won by three points or fewer — has kept this spread to a touchdown. But let’s be honest, Virginia is a struggling team with a bad offense. The Cavaliers haven’t scored more than 20 points against an FBS opponent this season, and the Drake Maye-powered Heels haven’t scored fewer than 27. Do the math on that and the play is obvious here.
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