My college football predictions have been profitable in four of the last five weeks, in no small part because there are two clear things in college football this season: The Ohio State Buckeyes are good, and the Alabama Tide are as well — despite the most inexplicable loss of the season coming in the prime-time rain against Florida State.
Those two both prevailed against the spread last week, bringing the last month of bets on them here to 3-0-1 for +3.35 units.
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The Tide are two-score road favorites this week, and I’ll lean on them again as I try to make it five of six weeks in the black.
For more college football picks, check out Andrew Caley’s college football best bets.
College football predictions Week 9
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Pick |
Odds |
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Alabama -11.5 |
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Temple -6 |
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/ Minnesota vs. Iowa Under 39.5 |
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Oklahoma State +38.5 |
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Toledo moneyline |
Alabama -11.5
Alabama has reached near auto-bet status. The Tide are 5-0-1 against the spread since they stumbled in the Tallahassee rain.
More impressively, Alabama has exceeded bookmakers’ expectations by an average of six points per game in four of those ATS wins that came against Power Four opponents, ignoring the 73-0 win as 34-point favorites against UL-Monroe in an effort to be genuine with the trend.
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Start with Alabama’s passing offense, ranking No. 3 in the country in expected points added per dropback, while dropping back at the 10th-highest relative rate in the country. That alone is reason to back the Tide as reasonable favorites at South Carolina.
The Gamecocks have a decent passing defense, but they give up repeated successes while focusing on limiting explosive plays. South Carolina ranks No. 114 in the country in defensive dropback success rate, per CFB-graphs.com.
Alabama will take those repeated successes to mount sustained drives, already ranking No. 8 in the country in quality drive rate, and then those quality drives will yield points, ranking No. 7 in points per quality drive.
Against a struggling South Carolina offense that does not do much of anything particularly well, those kinds of Tide efficiencies should be plenty to cover a modest spread.
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Temple -6
Put some respect on K.C. Keeler’s name. There is no other way to properly applaud how quietly good Temple has been this season. The Owls are only two wins away from bowl eligibility, and one of those should come this weekend.
Note: Temple went 3-9 outright last season and was a ho-hum 6-6 against the spread.
Still looking at last year, Keeler went 10-3 outright at Sam Houston, including 7-6 ATS. As made quite clear by the Bearkats now sitting at 0-7 and 1-6, respectively, Keeler’s accomplishments warranted more respect.
As does Temple going 6-1 ATS thus far this season, exceeding bookmakers’ expectations by an average of 19 points in four games against Group of Five competition.
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Put some respect on K.C. Keeler’s name.
In this exact matchup, Temple’s offense should largely make every decision against Tulsa. The Golden Hurricanes’ defense is actually better than the offense, but that bar is about as high as a nickel in a hallway.
The Owls’ greatest offensive weakness is producing quality drives on only 40.9% of possessions. However, that ranks as a borderline acceptable No. 74 in the country, and the damage from the other 59.1% of possessions is mitigated by Temple scoring 4.55 points per quality drive — the fourth-highest rate in the country.
Temple will not need many quality drives to cover a spread within a touchdown, not when Tulsa’s offense has cleared 24 points against FBS competition exactly once this season: last week’s 27, thanks to a spread-covering yet cowardly field goal with 1:50 left in the game.
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With a spread within a touchdown, such nonsense should be entirely avoided this weekend.
Minnesota vs. Iowa Under 39.5
There may not be a coach more motivated in America right now than Minnesota’s P.J. Fleck. No, his job is not in jeopardy like Mike Norvell’s at Florida State, Hugh Freeze’s at Auburn, Mark Stoops’s at Kentucky, or perhaps even Brian Kelly’s at LSU.
But Fleck wants what those coaches have: A massive buyout. The smallest of those buyouts is Freeze’s at $15.4 million compared to Fleck’s $5.5 million.
As much as Norvell, Freeze, and Stoops may be coaching for their jobs, losing their jobs would be quite profitable. Fleck wants to attain that status.
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With the most chaotic coaching carousel of our lifetimes gaining more and more speed, Fleck must recognize the opportunity ahead of him.
The Golden Gophers are already 5-2 outright with four very winnable games remaining on their schedule. Winning nine games for the third time in five seasons would represent a level of sustained success Minnesota has not achieved since 1933-1941, when it won five national championships under Bernie Bierman.
Bernie Bierman is a name we should better remember.
Anyway, that kind of success at Minnesota would earn Fleck notice, and perhaps he could find one of those jobs with those massive departure bonuses.
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But to do that, he needs to keep the current momentum. The Gophers’ best chance of beating Iowa is the same game plan they used to rout Nebraska last week: Slow the game down, trust an underappreciated defense, and look for an opposing mistake to put sophomore quarterback Drake Lindsey in an advantageous position.
In other words, play Iowa’s game plan.
That may or may not work for Minnesota this week. Fleck is playing with fire in many regards. Regardless, this should be an absolute grind, a game of Big Ten West lore.
Oklahoma State +38.5
Texas Tech could name any score it wants in this game. Oklahoma State will be lucky to score against the No. 2 defense in the country in terms of expected points added (EPA).
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But this spread is just too large.
Why would the Red Raiders show anything but the bare minimum against the worst team in the Power Four? Why would Texas Tech hustle at all? Do you think the Red Raiders have spent more time this week talking about the Cowboys or their next two weeks of opponents: at Kansas State and vs. No. 11 BYU?
A spread this large against an overmatched opponent begs not for a lookahead moment but overall apathy. A vanilla game plan will win this game handily. No risks need to be taken.
As long as this spread is above five touchdowns, relish it. There will not be another moment to bet on Oklahoma State.
Toledo moneyline
Making fun of Toledo head coach Jason Candle is nearly as reliable a joke as making fun of Miami head coach Mario Cristobal.
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Candle has never forgotten how a clock works and cost his team a game in the closing minute, let alone two games, but he does have a habit of losing as a hefty favorite.
The Rockets’ failure at Bowling Green two weeks ago should not be pondered too heavily now. Nor should their loss two games before that at Western Michigan. This is Candling.
More pertinent this weekend, do not forget Toledo went 2-0 ATS to open the season, a 10-point underdog at Kentucky, and then a 7.5-point favorite against Western Kentucky.
This trip to Washington State is more akin to those early-season moments than any disappointment in the last month.
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The Rockets rank No. 24 in the country in early-downs EPA, and staying ahead of the chains should put the Cougars’ defense into increasingly compromised positions — a defense that already ranks No. 110 in early-downs EPA against and then No. 115 in quality drive rate — not to mention No. 116 in points per quality drive.
A focused Toledo should rip off chunk gains on first and second downs, thus setting up too many touchdowns for Washington State to ever ponder keeping up with.
My weekly CFB best bets column is 20-24-1 this season for -3.06 units.
More NCAAF Week 9 predictions from Covers
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