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The Nebraska Cornhuskers were lucky to even qualify for a bowl game last season, as a dearth of six-win teams allowed the 5-7 program to earn a berth. The Huskies took advantage of it with a 37-29 win over UCLA in the Foster Farms Bowl and now expectations are high heading into the 2016 season. With many talented returners and each side of the ball, Nebraska’s projected win total has shot up to 8.5, as bettors must determine if the team will finish over or under that total in NCAA football gambling.... 

Miami has been in the ACC since 2004 and despite many believing that the Hurricanes would come to dominate the conference, that has failed to happen. The Hurricanes have yet to crack 10 wins since joining the ACC and also have been unable to even make the conference title game. The Canes dumped Al Golden and brought in Mark Richt this offseason to try to finally remedy that.... 

The Orange have struggled since entering the ACC three seasons ago. Syracuse has managed just seven wins in that timeframe and that poor performance led to the dismissal of Scott Shafer after three years. Now, Dino Babers is the coach calling the shots from the sideline and Syracuse hopes that he can lead them back to respectability.... 

It’s been a magical time at Duke with David Cutcliffe at the helm. Cutcliffe turned the most maligned Power Five football program in the country and brought it some respectability. Duke has now made bowls in four straight seasons after having not made a bowl since 1995 prior to that and Cutcliffe got his first bowl victory at Duke last season against Indiana. The Blue Devils have a lot of work to do if they want to get to a bowl this season however.... 

Last season there was a lot of talk that Louisville was the dark horse to win the ACC. The rationale was easy to understand, Florida State had lost Jameis Winston to the draft and Clemson had questions as well with Deshaun Watson returning from a torn ACL. However, things quickly fell apart after the Cardinals lost three games in a row to start the season and after they fell to Florida State and Clemson, all hopes of a conference title went out the window. The optimism is much more guarded this year following the results of 2015.... 

The Cavaliers scored a coup in the offseason with the hiring of Bronco Mendenhall from BYU. Mendenhall is widely respected and was very successful during his time in Provo and landing a coach of his caliber was much better than many suspected. He has a lot of work ahead of him, but Mendenhall is confident he can take the Cavaliers to their first 10 win season since the 1980s.... 

The Iowa Hawkeyes exceeded expectations a season ago, winning the Big Ten West and coming close to capturing a spot in the College Football Playoff. After a 12-win regular season last year, the projected win total has dropped to 8.5 in 2016. The Hawkeyes will aim to surpass that number once again in NCAA football gambling.... 

The Northwestern football team had a tremendous year in 2015, winning 10 games and easily surpassing expectations. That hasn’t done much to convince the oddsmakers of their ability to keep it up, as the Wildcats’ projected over-under win total for this season is set at 6.5 in NCAA football wagering.... 

The Wisconsin Badgers had the top-ranked defense in college in 2015, giving up only 13.7 points per contest. The unit has suffered some key losses and the offense has some question marks, too. Add in one of the country’s hardest schedules, and the Badgers will have a lot to prove this season. This is still one of the more consistent programs in the country, and it will aim to surpass the projected win total of seven victories in 2016 in NCAA football odds.... 

Clemson was one win away from winning it all last season behind the exquisite play of Deshaun Watson. Unfortunately, the Tigers ran into Alabama in the national title game and couldn’t pull it out, but it was still the best season at Clemson in years. Watson is back and there is hope that this could be the season that Clemson puts it all together and wins its second national title.... 

College Football Betting Online: No team bottomed out like Georgia Tech in 2015. After heading to a New Year’s Six bowl and an 11-3 record in 2014, the Yellow Jackets brought a Top 15 preseason ranking into last season. However, things unraveled quickly and Georgia Tech managed just three wins last season in what was by far Paul Johnson’s worst season.... 

College Football Betting Online: For the first time in five seasons, the Panthers got to eight wins in 2015 and there is a cautious optimism in Pittsburgh. Panthers’ fans have been burned before though, having seen six different coaches since that last eight win season. Pat Narduzzi is back for his second season though and has a shot to take this team to an ACC Coastal Division title.... 

College Football Betting Online: North Carolina State has consistently been a bowl team over the last decade, but that’s not why Dave Doeren was brought to Raleigh. Doeren was brought in to make the Wolfpack an eight or nine win team each season, but that has yet to be a consistent reality as NC State has failed to break the .500 mark in conference in any of the past three years.... 

The TCU Horned Frogs have been so darn close in recent years. They haven't quite gotten over the hump, and it feels as if Gary Patterson and company are going to end up coming up on the short end of the stick in the race for the College Football Playoff again in 2016.... 

Charlie Strong is already under a heck of a lot of pressure to start performing at a high level. The Texas Longhorns have largely underachieved over the course of the last several seasons, and this is the year where things really have to change before the demanding boosters start to get grumpy in search of change.... 

Kliff Kingsbury is known as one of the more player-friendly coaches in America. It's only a matter of time until he makes the Texas Tech Red Raiders a legitimate force in the Big XII, and with an NFL-ready quarterback under center, you never know if this is going to be the year that happens.... 

Dana Holgorsen has gone just 36-28 in his first five years on the job with the West Virginia Mountaineers. Now, he's officially on the hot seat. What's the definition of success in 2016? Certainly, the Mountaineers need to make a bowl game, and we'd bet they have to win at least eight, if not nine games. Just based on the way this roster looks though, that might end up being a bit of a stretch.... 

The Oklahoma Sooners made a little bit of history and qualified for the College Football Playoff last season, becoming the first team from the Big XII to pull off the feat. The Sooners are handicapped by the fact that they don't have a conference title game to play, but they made up for that this year by scheduling two non-conference games against teams which are sure to be in at least the New Year's Six.... 

The time is going to come when Mark Dantonio gets the Michigan State Spartans truly over the hump. Sparty won the Big Ten last season and was in the College Football Playoff for the first time, but it was shutout by Alabama in an embarrassing game. Now that Connor Cook has graduated, the common thought is that this team is set to take a turn for the worse in the coming years.... 

The collection of talent the Ohio State Buckeyes lost to the NFL this past season was unprecedented. They sent a total of 12 players to the senior circuit, all of which were selected in the first 139 picks, including five in the Top 20. That's a heck of a lot of talent which needs to be replaced for sure, but Urban Meyer has always had a history of reloading his programs, not rebuilding them.... 

The offseason was a really tough one for the Baylor Bears. They were rocked with scandals off the field, and that caused the abrupt resignation of Art Briles, the most accomplished coach in the history of the program. Now with Jim Grobe in charge, he'll hope to keep up the tradition of what has become one of the prouder programs in the Big XII in recent years.... 

Of all of the men to take over the Illinois Fighting Illini… Lovie Smith? The excommunicated coach of the NFL's Buccaneers decided to try his hand at the collegiate level at Illinois, and this could end up being a real disaster or a real success. One thing is for sure. At least the Illini are going to be a lot more interesting now than they have been in recent years.... 

There probably isn't a worse football program in major college football than that of the Kansas Jayhawks. They went 0-12 last year in a season which included a loss to South Dakota State, and even though this is only the second year of the David Beaty era, one has to think that he has to show some marked improvement or be shown the door.... 

Bill Snyder is one of these coaches who simply won't step away from the game. And why should he? He's had a tremendous degree of success with the Kansas State Wildcats over the years, and he's got a team which could end up being sneaky in the Big XII in 2016.... 

Most teams who take over underachieving programs end up with a relatively bare cupboard to take over in terms of talent. D.J. Durkin though, is a bit of an exception to that. The Maryland Terrapins have a lot of potential at this point, and they could end up taking some big strides forward in 2016....