The first week of October brings us a rivalry game that has been circled on the calendar ever since the schedule was announced:

Miami Hurricanes vs Florida State Seminoles

Even to the most staunch FSU fans, the 17th ranked Canes clearly look the part of the better team, and should be handily favored to win this week’s game.

Vegas agrees with that sentiment. The Canes opened as a 12 point favorite against FSU on BetOnline, and 13.5 point favorites on VegasInsider. This is on the heels of Miami being a 2.5 point favorite against the Noles last year, a game that Miami won 24-20 to snap FSU’s 7 game winning streak against the Canes.

On first glance, I know that a 12 to 13.5 point spread seems large. But Miami has rebounded from a season opening loss to LSU by dominating games, while FSU has scuffled throughout the season, and would have lost this past week to Louisville had Cardinals coach Bobby Petrino not made one of the dumbest play calls I’ve ever seen in my life.

I’ll say what I said about this matchup (and betting line) last year and even yesterday on Twitter: If you removed the names from these teams, and put blind stat profiles up against one another, you would pick the Miami-profile team to beat the FSU-profile team by 3 touchdowns. Vegas obviously isn’t THAT bullish on Miami, but my point is the only thing keeping this line even as low as it is is the Florida State brand name.

And I understand it.

I know this will be fodder for chatter between the fans of both teams through the week, but Miami is a big favorite over the Noles as of now.

Time to make that prediction prophetic.

Go Canes