Circa Friday Football Invitational | September 11, 2026 | Hour 2

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

25-point handicappers, $30,000 on the line. This is the Circa Friday Football Invitational, presented by Omaha Steaks on VSiN, the sports betting network. Here's your host, Matt Youmans.

Matt Youmans (0:17)

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All right, the Iceman, Chuck Edel, Las Vegas Pro Better, Chicago native on the show tonight. Let's go out to the progressive guest line. He is the 2024 Circuit Friday Football Invitational Champ, the runner-up in this contest in 2022

It's great to have Chuck Edel on the show tonight. Chuck, how do you feel about week one of the NFL and week two of the college football? Do you like the cards this week?

Chuck Edel (1:08)

Yeah, I like the card. I always like week one of the NFL, even though I didn't really use any plays in the contest, but always looking for those overreactions to how teams played in the preseason and so forth, maybe getting a little edge here and then also we get some games under our belt to look at some stuff here for the first week of college football and some overreactions on those as well, I'm hoping for, so we'll see if it pans out, but I definitely took some teams that might have looked ugly week one and hoping they bounce back.

Matt Youmans (1:41)

Chuck Edel and I were on the panel with Jim Feist on Wednesday at noon at Dom DeMarco's Pizza Ream Bar on West Charleston, and Jim Feist is going to have that show every Wednesday afternoon. Ken Thompson was out there, the owner, Al Scaliot, great crowd out there on Wednesdays. And Chuck, I was a little bit surprised when I looked at your card. You just mentioned it. I thought you liked a few NFL games on the card this week, but you went with seven college plays in the contest tonight. Was there anything in the NFL that got close to making your card here on Friday night?

Chuck Edel (2:13)

Yeah, I generally tend to navigate towards the college, but I gave Cleveland a look, the Cleveland Browns in that game a little bit of a look. I thought that might be too many points. That line continues to go up, as well as, you know, I was trying to make a case for the New York Giants to pull up the upset on Sunday night, but not enough to fire it in on the contest there. I'll see how week one goes, NFL.

Matt Youmans (2:44)

Follow him on Twitter at Chuck Edel, E-D-E-L. And Chuck, let's start with your best bet here, because you're going with the total, and you're going to play it over.

Southern Miss Auburn over 57 Why is this your top play?

Chuck Edel (2:57)

Yeah, you know, the coach, Alex Golis, Chuck or Auburn, you know, he came over from South Florida. He had that offense working great last year. They averaged over 40 points a game. He also runs a little faster.

They average about 70 plays a game. And he brought his quarterback, Brown, who didn't look too good last week, I will say that. And a few of their wide receivers, he brought some offensive weapons with him, who transferred from South Florida. I expect an improve after week one. Obviously, they played Baylor.

It was a lower scoring game.

Now they're going to play Southern Miss, who's on pretty much a rebuild year. And they lost their coach to Memphis. Blake Anderson, who takes over, he's an offensive minded coach. Last week, they ran 84 plays in a game against Elkhart State. They were playing super fast. And I think this game, if they want to play fast with Auburn, I think this is going to be a high-paced game, totally different from the Auburn-Baylor game. And I do like it to go over the total.

Matt Youmans (3:57)

All right, let's talk about a higher-profile college game you got on your card here. And I've heard a lot of handicappers touts this week who like Kentucky as a dog against Alabama. And you're going to take the 10 with the Cats in Lexington. Why do you like Kentucky against Alabama?

Chuck Edel (4:13)

Yeah, I think this Kentucky team can play competitive. You know, Alabama obviously started out of the gates good, but a little bit weaker competition. They're starting a quarterback who's very highly touted, but with Keelon Russell. But this is going to be his first SEC game, first game on the road. Wasn't all that impressive last week. He was 18 for 30 Throw in the ball, he did run the ball for 86 yards. I think it'll be a little tougher to do that against Kentucky. Kentucky's defense getting a little healthy in this game.