Bowl Season and the CFP are coming…
#9 Vanderbilt @ #20 Texas
OK, we know it’s the third straight week that we’re talking about Vanderbilt. But they keep stepping up their game week after week, and now they’re in the top 10 in the entire country.
A couple of years back, most college football fans wouldn’t have dreamed of a Texas-Vanderbilt game that has a one-point spread. Texas was a perennial top 5 team while the Commodores were unranked.
Now? The Longhorns are getting the edge because of the home-field advantage and that’s it. Otherwise, Vandy is on a roll and they keep knocking down ranked teams. Coming off a win over LSU, the Commodores just took down #15 Missouri and will need to keep up the intensity and momentum for another week.
Vanderbilt QB Diego Pavia is gunning for the Heisman Trophy, but he’s facing the strongest defense he’ll see all season. Texas is 8th in the country in points allowed, and 3rd against runs per carry. He’ll be forced to air it out more often, which can lead to some picks in the chaos of a noisy Texas Memorial Stadium.
Watch the injury reports. Texas QB Arch Manning is up in the air, status-wise, with a concussion. That came after he had already racked up 340+ yards against Mississippi State last week, finally coming into form as the top quarterback he was assumed to be. But it was Matthew Caldwell who stepped in and calmly took the team to the win in OT.
That small edge in the moneyline and the spread leans Texas for another reason beyond their defense. It’ll be their first home game in over a month. And there’s no way they can afford a third L on their record this season.
Check the latest odds at Lucky Rebel.
#18 Oklahoma @ #14 Tennessee
Two elite QB’s square off in this game with huge SEC implications. Both teams have two losses on the NCAA football season, both to other SEC teams each time.
Oklahoma vs. Tennessee should be full of fireworks, and the oddsmakers expect the same with the O/U set at 56.5.
Joey Aguilar, Tennessee’s ace, has been delivering all year. The Volunteers have scored fewer than 30 points just once this season, and they even put up 41 points against #5 Georgia in a loss earlier in the year. And there’s this: 100% of Tennessee’s games this season have gone over 56 points.
Still, the Vols have dropped two games to SEC teams this year. They are prone to losing focus just long enough to give other teams an in.
And Sooners’ QB John Mateer might only need a small window. Even though he’s tailed off stats-wise after coming back from an injury, Mateer can still get it done and he’s getting back into game shape. With a vulnerable Vols secondary, he could find just enough big plays to have the 3.5-point underdog Sooners beat the spread.
#12 Notre Dame @ Boston College
This Notre Dame-Boston College rivalry is known as the “Holy War”, but the spread of 28.5 points shows that BC doesn’t really have a prayer.
The Fighting Irish are on the rise. They’re coming off a bye, two weeks removed from keeping USC to their lowest point total of the season.
On the other side of the ball, this Boston College team is 1-7 and a shell of the team that used to make this matchup such a rivalry. They also have the 99th-ranked run defense in the country. Bad, bad news when Irish RBs Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price roll onto campus. They lit up the Trojans for 315 yards on the ground two weeks ago. It’s not a stretch to think they rack up close to 400 against the Eagles.
The X-factor is the Notre Dame pass defense, which BC could exploit to score a garbage-time TD and keep this game to within 4 TDs. It’s also possible that the Irish will sit back and rest some players ahead of next week’s tough matchup against Navy.
But no amount of sitting back will stop the Eagles from getting rolled. They’re 124th in the country in points allowed, and Notre Dame is gunning for a spot in the CFP. With two losses on their record, they need to run the table (and convincingly) for the rest of the season.
#5 Georgia @ Florida
The first game after head coach Billy Napier will be a test for the Florida Gators.
Florida might get a boost from that new coach energy that hits teams in NCAAF as much as it does in the pros. They’ll need it.
The Florida-Georgia line has the Bulldogs at -305 with a 7.5 spread.
The Bulldogs have no coaching drama. They could just be peaking at the right time as they aim for a spot in the CFP. They just took down Ole Miss 43-35 and have won three straight. But they’re vulnerable on defense, with rankings in or near the 100’s in areas like third-down conversions allowed, sack, and tackles for loss.
That’s the edge right there. Plus Florida has a new coach, a proud program, and The Swamp. Georgia might still win out, but the Gators should play it close.
Penn State @ #1 Ohio State
Saquon. Tyler. Micah. Abdul.
Yeah, those glory days are gone for Penn State. This year at least.
The Nittany Lions enter the Penn State-Ohio State game with their largest underdog spread since 2013. A 3-TD spread for an unbeaten OSU against a 3-4 squad makes sense on paper, even though NCAAF betting fans probably want to give Penn State the nod just based on brand name and recent history. But the Nittany Lions are spiralling since coming into the year in everyone’s top 5.
Plus, some teams just have your number. Ohio State has won 12 of the last 13 games between the two teams.
We’d stay away from that enticing +800 moneyline for Penn State. But the 20.5-point spread could have some value. The spiral has to stop at some point, right?
We’ll see if that same new coach energy for Florida is valid up North too. James Franklin is out, and sometimes that can rile up players to get started fresh (or at least finish strong).
Dig deeper into PSU’s current 4-game losing streak and you’ll see that none of those losses were by more than 6 points, and the past two games were 1-point losses. The talent is still there.
At the same time, OSU is the worst team to be facing if a team is looking for a silver lining to their season. They’re a monster on defense, first in the entire country, allowing just 5.9 points per game.
Count on Penn State to get up for this game, with millions of eyeballs on it as a marquee college football matchup. Just don’t count out how good Ohio State is right now.