It started on Friday night with a pivotal matchup in the AAC, with South Florida reminding the college football world that their wins over Boise State and Florida weren’t a fluke, as they handed a good North Texas team 63 points on their home field. The robust slate continued all the way through midnight Eastern on Saturday when BYU outlasted Arizona to stay undefeated and a healthier-looking Utah pummeled not-so-healthy Arizona State to send a warning shot back to the Big 12.
You’d think with so many high-leverage matchups last week, that there’d be fewer this week. Nope, as “it just means more” doesn’t just act as a marketing slogan for the SEC, with at least a dozen more big games on the horizon.
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Let’s take a look at some movers and shakers this week, along with my thoughts on some of the biggest Week 8 college football games.
Movers
The Hoosiers have been talking for a while now, and with due respect for emasculating Illinois, Indiana’s finally walked the walk in a meaningful way. Oregon had the nation’s longest active home winning streak, but Curt Cignetti took that from the Ducks – and now suddenly has a paved road to the Big Ten title game and a return to the College Football Playoff, with no currently-ranked teams left on Indiana’s schedule.
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In the other Big Ten showdown, USC took apart Michigan, but while their market rating should increase as they rejoin the AP rankings, they’re still as long as 40-1 at some sportsbooks to win the Big Ten.
Across Los Angeles, UCLA will need a few more wins to get ranked themselves, but they’ve already gone from “shaker” to “mover”, and verifying an upset of Penn State with one at Michigan State will create the biggest actual move in the betting market, as I expect them to be rated higher than they were before the season – which is wild, considering where they were two weeks ago.
Shake-ups don’t just happen at the top of the national picture; it doesn’t take much to send things spinning out of control in the MAC. Long-time league powerhouse Toledo took a 21-0 lead at Bowling Green, but the Falcons stormed back for an unlikely win, and now the Rockets are 1-2, putting one of the favorites in that league at a point where even a comfy remaining schedule might not be enough to save them.
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Betting the big games for Week 8
No. 10 LSU at No. 17 Vanderbilt (-2.5, 49.5)
LSU held off South Carolina on Saturday, winning another game where it felt like the Tigers didn’t score any points. They have topped-out at 20 against Power-Four schools, and they mustered just 23 against Louisiana Tech.
LSU is in the bottom-half of the SEC in offensive success rate, and, more troubling, the Tigers dead-last in line yards, which means there isn’t a team in the conference whose defense should be all that worried about matching up physically in the trenches. The defense has carried LSU, but Vanderbilt’s metrics aren’t far behind, as they’re better in line yards than Alabama, with a better success rate allowed than Tennessee and South Carolina.
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The element that makes Vanderbilt the valuable bet (beyond our projection of Commodores -5.9 over at The Window) is that the betting market might be underrating an offense that stands alone in most charts. If this offense was coming from a more blue-blood program, like USC — who Vanderbilt’s metrics mirror — they’d be over a field goal favorite at home, and they still might be by kickoff.
Pick: Vanderbilt -2.5
UNLV at Boise State (-11.5, 63.5)
The Sun Belt East battle of Old Dominion-James Madison could have been in this space, but they blew it. The Monarchs lost to Marshall, and, frankly, the Dukes weren’t very good against Louisiana. So, the Mountain West gets our focus among the Group of Five, because, somehow, UNLV is still undefeated.
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The market hasn’t been thrilled with the Rebels, as their strength of schedule has been poor — especially when factoring in that they got the bad version of UCLA — but winning is still the whole point, so downgrading them from their preseason status of an 8.5-win team seems harsh.
Boise State was rated a win-and-a-half better than UNLV, but the Broncos have already clinched the under on their win total of 10.5 with losses to South Florida and Notre Dame. This means they play the role of the favorite in every other game, and whether they cover the big numbers they’re asked to comes down to whether or not their opponent can keep up offensively.
Averaging 191 yards per game on the ground, and 442 overall, UNLV’s offense is right alongside Boise and Air Force atop the conference. The Rebels were in a shootout this past Saturday with the Falcons — a game very similar to Air Force’s trip to the blue turf, where each team had 500 yards.
Boise broke a late run to cover a big number in Week 3, and it’s possible they do that again, but UNLV’s offense has shown that the backdoor should be open in case the Broncos get a lead.
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Pick: UNLV +11.5
No. 5 Ole Miss at No. 9 Georgia (-7, 54.5)
No one knew what happened, but both teams thought they scored.
Georgia was getting dominated by Auburn last week, until Jackson Arnold had the ball punched out an inch from the goal line, turning a potential 17-0 game into an eventual 10-3 score at halftime. From there, it was all Bulldogs, but the concern is that Georgia’s yet to play an earnest 60 minutes this season, which cost the Dawgs in their lone loss to Alabama.
That was a rare defeat between the hedges, and after taking shots to the collective mouth in the first halves at Tennessee and Auburn, Georgia is at least battle-tested on the road.
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Ole Miss has traveled away from The Grove once all season, and found itself in a battle with Kentucky whose starting quarterback that day hasn’t played since.
At No. 5 in the AP Poll, Ole Miss is likely overrated, but the betting market doesn’t have them that high. However, with very little proven yet by the Rebels, we’re not surprised the line has quickly moved from -6.5 to -7, as The Window’s projection of -7.1 comes even with a small downgrade for the Bulldogs’ close calls. Expecting UGA to be able to dominate on the ground, given Ole Miss is worst in the SEC in defensive line yards, we’ll side with Georgia before the line gets north of a touchdown.
Pick: Georgia -7
No. 20 USC at No. 13 Notre Dame (-9.5, 61.5)
Notre Dame is a fascinating case study.
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To increase your rating in the betting market, you must consistently cover point spreads.
To impress College Football Playoff Committee members, Notre Dame needs to prove dominance in their wins, having lost to Miami and Texas A&M — two of the best teams in the country.
As the Irish run up scores, their rating rises. But, what happens when they play a comparable opponent?
Notre Dame crushed lifeless Arkansas from the kickoff, but in their four games since starting 0-2, they have outscored opponents 75-7 in the second half.
Keeping the foot on the gas against inferior opponents to leave no doubt that you’re much better than them works fine against Boise State, Purdue and NC State (all teams that hung around in the first half), but a more level weight-class matchup didn’t go well against the Hurricanes and Aggies.
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USC stood in there with a tough Michigan team at home last week, and maybe they don’t have it to win in South Bend, but they’re not getting enough credit in the market compared to Notre Dame, whose cosmetic scores appear to be giving them that — and then some.
Pick: USC +9.5 (wait to see if +10 pops)
No. 11 Tennessee at No. 6 Alabama (-8.5, 58.5)
Timing is everything in college football, as when you play a team can be as important as which team you play.
Tennessee hosted Arkansas last week, with the Razorbacks coming in with the manufactured energy after having fired head coach Sam Pittman. Coming out of their bye week potentially a little sluggish, the Vols held off the Hogs’ best effort, two weeks after winning in Starkville when Mississippi State’s optimism was at its peak. In both cases, the market recognized the “spot” against Tennessee and bettors took the underdog.
We’ll see if the same thing happens here, because the “spot” favors the underdog again, this time to the Vols’ advantage.
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Alabama has won between the hedges, struck revenge over Vandy and outlasted Missouri over the last three weeks, going 3-0 in high-leverage games against three very different offenses. Now they have to play a fourth — the speed-racer offense of Josh Heupel and Tennessee, and the Tide are being asked to win by two scores as well.
Alabama would gladly take a win this week and next, before a chance to exhale with a bye preceding a matchup with LSU, so let’s back the Vols on the idea that any win would do — if Bama can even secure that, against another top-flight SEC squad.
Pick: Tennessee +8.5
No. 23 Utah (-3.5, 47.5) at No. 15 BYU
The “Holy War” is loaded with its usual intrigue on and off the field, as BYU’s still undefeated but isn’t favored at home, while Utah — left for dead after losing to Texas Tech — might be healthy and ready to push for a rematch with the Red Raiders.
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From an eye-test perspective, BYU wasn’t all that impressive at Arizona, repeatedly avoiding pending-disaster and a game-clinching play from the Wildcats, before winning in double-overtime in Tucson.
Getting the hook here should be tempting enough to see a line move down to -3, but after a two-year hiatus in this rivalry, the Utes weren’t themselves when they lost to BYU at home last year. Now healthy, the Utah is the better team, and you can bet that Kyle Whittingham has had this game circled to get the most from his team. We will, too, but with patience to get the best number possible.
Pick: Utah (wait to see if -3 becomes available)
You can find more on college football’s biggest games and best bets each week from Yahoo Sports betting contributor, Matt Russell, at THE WINDOW.
