Last week looked like a total dud on paper, but it ended up being a banger. CU/CSU went to 2ot, Georgia, Florida State, Alabama, Michigan, Texas and Penn State all looked weaker than expected, and the second tier teams Washington, Oregon, LSU, ND, Oklahoma, UNC, Duke, UCLA, Wazzu, Iowa all dominated, meaning the title race got even more interesting.

Plus Mizzou winning on a walk-off 61 yarder and Tennessee losing to UF.


Now THIS WEEK promises to be incredible, with an absolute banger of a schedule:



Sep 21 Thu 2023
7:30 PM
Georgia State +6½
Coastal Carolina -6½
Do yourself a favor and tune in to some sun belt games this year. Like half the teams in the league have a legit shot of winning it.


Sep 22 Fri 2023
7:00 PM
Wisconsin -5½
Purdue +5½
Wisconsin started incredibly slow against woeful buffalo and gsu before grinding them down and pulling away late. Purdue is bad. I suppose every game in the B1g west will be competitive? Never too early to start rooting for the six way tie

7:30 PM
NC State -10
Virginia 10

10:30 PM
Boise State -7
San Diego State 7

10:30 PM
Air Force -3½
San Jose State +3½
Two solid MWC games between contenders (boise and AFA) and dark horses on Friday night. The league really took a beating from the Pac-12 this year, but should be an interesting race



Sep 23 Sat 2023
12:00 PM
Army +13½
Syracuse -13½

12:00 PM
Virginia Tech +5½
Marshall -5½
Virginia tech is bad. Still, kind of interesting. You don't see a P5 team on the road against a G5 team that often, much less dogged when they do so. Marshall's 2-0, and like I said, sun belt is gonna be the fun belt this year

12:00 PM
Florida State -1½
Clemson +1½
Somehow the pollsters have OVERREACTED to Clemson's bizarre loss at Duke to open the season. This is still probably one of the 25 best teams in the country, brimming with talent. A real do or die for them, while FSU can technically afford a mulligan but really doesn't want to take a step back after barely beating BC last week.

12:00 PM
Rutgers +24½
Michigan -24½
Just another week of total ****ing clownshow schedule from Michigan. What a joke.

12:00 PM
Oklahoma -14
Cincinnati 14
Cincy's first b12 game, at home, against one of the departing traitors. Oklahoma has looked every bit the 5-star packed title contender that they might be this year, blowing the doors off inferior competition and then earning a solid victory over SMU. Cincy beat Pitt, but then promptly lost to Miami-OH, so who knows what's going on there?

12:00 PM
SMU +6½
TCU -6½
SMU is a contender in the AAC and hung with OU for four quarters. TCU might not actually be that bad? They beat Houston last week solidly in a game that nobody watched.

12:00 PM
Tulsa +3½
Northern Illinois -3½

12:00 PM
Western Kentucky +3½
Troy -3½

12:00 PM
Auburn +8½
Texas A&M -8½
SEC opener for both these teams. If ATM loses here, their fan base is just going to explode.

1:30 PM
Western Michigan +20½
Toledo -20½

2:00 PM
Georgia Southern -6½
Ball State +6½

3:30 PM
Miami Florida -24½
Temple +24½
No, Temple is not good. But it's a contender on the road against a G5 team, those are always fun, and we should commend teams for doing that.

3:30 PM
Texas Tech -5½
West Virginia +5½
Texas Tech came in to the season as a B12 dark horse, and then lost two close games at Wyoming and then at home against Oregon. WVU got smashed by Penn State, but recovered and won the Backyard Brawl. Brown is still on the hot seat though. Pivotal game for both programs.

3:30 PM
New Mexico 3
Massachusetts -3

3:30 PM
Boston College 14
Louisville -14

3:30 PM
Duke -21½
Connecticut +21½

3:30 PM
BYU 10
Kansas -10
No clue what happened to Kansas barely edging by Nevada, but hey they're 3-0 with a solid win over Illinois. BYU is also 3-0 with a win AT Arkansas. One team will be ranked and 1-0 in the B12 after this game.

3:30 PM
Florida Atlantic 14
Illinois -14

3:30 PM
UCLA +4½
Utah -4½
UCLA has started hot under new freshman QB Dante Moore. Utah has two solid P5 wins over UF and Baylor bolstering their resume. Not sure if Cam Rising will be back yet. The Pac-12 race seems to be the big 3 (Washington, Oregon and USC) followed by the almost as big four (Utah, Oregon State, UCLA and Wazzu), the wild card (Colorado), the "not good, but still solid enough to probably beat somebody they shouldn't in classic P12 style two (Cal and Arizona), and the terrible two (ASU and Stanford).

3:30 PM
Colorado 21
Oregon -21
Every Prime game gets an underline until proven otherwise. Haters and bandwagoners unite.

3:30 PM
Ohio -12
Bowling Green 12

3:30 PM
Maryland -7
Michigan State 7

3:30 PM
Louisiana Tech 20
Nebraska -20

3:30 PM
Mississippi 7
Alabama -7
If Alabama loses again, the entire state might implode (and again, let's reflect on how insane it is that Alabama has been this good for this long). If they win, all of a sudden they've got a clear path to the title game again. Can the LANE TRAIN finally break through?

4:00 PM
UTSA +20½
Tennessee -20½
Some of the luster came off this game when Frank Harris was out last week and UTSA lost to Army, but if he's back, weird stuff could happen.

4:00 PM
Rice -2½
South Florida +2½
USF is dogged AT HOME to RICE. lol jesus ***** christ Alabama

4:00 PM
Oklahoma State +3½
Iowa State -3½
DAVID versus DAVID matchup here between the likely two worst B12 teams

5:00 PM
Central Michigan +15½
South Alabama -15½

5:00 PM
Eastern Michigan +6½
Jacksonville State -6½

6:30 PM
Georgia Tech +3½
Wake Forest -3½

6:30 PM
Liberty -10
Florida International 10

7:00 PM
Southern Miss -5½
Arkansas State +5½

7:00 PM
Arizona -12½
Stanford +12½

7:00 PM
Oregon State -2½
Washington State +2½
Get ready for lots of 2PAC CHAMPIONSHIP GAME jokes. But seriously, these are two good football teams. Oregon State has played three teams that aren't world beaters but definitely have a pulse, and beaten them a trillion to zero. Wazzu is 2-0 with wins over Wisconsin and Colorado State, who just took CU to the wire. These are some good ass football teams.

7:00 PM
Nevada 17
Texas State -17

7:00 PM
Arkansas 17
LSU -17

7:00 PM
Charlotte 28
Florida -28

7:00 PM
Appalachian State +2½
Wyoming -2½

7:00 PM
Colorado State +2½
Middle Tennessee State -2½

7:00 PM
Sam Houston St +12½
Houston -12½

7:30 PM
UAB +41½
Georgia -41½
The Trent Dilfer experiment seems to be going... not well

7:30 PM
Mississippi State +6½
South Carolina -6½

7:30 PM
Akron 17
Indiana -17

7:30 PM
Minnesota -11½
Northwestern +11½

7:30 PM
Memphis 7
Missouri -7
Mizzou is coming off of an upset of K State and is still undefeated, but still only a TD dog at home to Memphis. The American looks like a likely four team race (Tulane, SMU, Memphis and UTSA)

7:30 PM
Texas -14½
Baylor +14½
This is exactly the sort of game that unseasoned title contenders lose. On the road, tough environment, talented team with a bad record, no credit for winning, easy to overlook, but competent enough to beat you.

7:30 PM
Buffalo +9½
UL Lafayette -9½

7:30 PM
Ohio State -3½
Notre Dame +3½
Both teams are 3-0 without any close games. We know that both of these teams can probably afford one loss and still make the playoffs, so the loser is still alive, but the winner will have the inside track.

7:30 PM
Iowa +14½
Penn State -14½
PSU's toughest divisional crossover game. They actually didn't look great against Illinois last week. The OSU/PSU/Michigan 1-1 three way tie looms large as a very real possibility, so every one of these games against mediocre B1G teams is actually pretty important.

8:00 PM
North Carolina -7½
Pittsburgh +7½
Jumped on this one at -5, Jurkovic is BAD. Pitt is BAD. Not sure what's going on there. ACC race should be fun, with FSU currently having the inside lane, and UNC, Miami and Clemson looking to catch up (and Louisville lingering due to their lucky schedule), with Duke staring through the window and saying "what about me!"

8:00 PM
James Madison -5½
Utah State +5½

8:00 PM
Central Florida +6½
Kansas State -6½
Remember UCF? They're 3-0 with a road win at Boise. K State looks to rebound from their upset at Mizzou, while UCF sees a wide open B12 where they could easily sneak into the title game.

9:00 PM
UNLV -2½
UTEP +2½

10:30 PM
USC -34
Arizona State 34

10:30 PM
California 21
Washington -21

10:30 PM
Kent State 28
Fresno State -28
There is one team in the country with two road wins at P5 schools, and it's not a P5 team. Can Tedford's boys make a dark horse run at the playoffs? (Note they went to OT against a 1-aa team in week 2)


Sep 24 Sun 2023
11:59 PM
Kentucky -14
Vanderbilt 14

11:59 PM
New Mexico State +2½
Hawaii -2½

Ugh! Was it due to that cheap shot early in the game?
eta: Apparently it was. Speculation is a laceration to his liver.

I probably jinxed him on Sept 2 itt. Sorry, Travis.

Looks like he jinxed himself

Whew!
I'm in the clear!
Those kids need to leave the yapping to Deion, but kids gonna kid.

Thanks as always Bears.

ESPN makes setting up ESPN+ to watch the Sunbelt strangely difficult (and even argumentative every week) but once you get it working for $5 a month for the season it's pretty sweet. Except on Roku which doesn't have multiview.

Sounds like they're hoping to have Harris back in 3 weeks when they open conference play after a bye.

Apparently they are playing in St. Louis which has a leftover NFL stadium and wants to throw money at something.

Corn being favored by 20 over anything seems to be the easiest of EZ money. But WTF do I know. They'll probably win by 40.

Glad I got myself out of that! Looks like death threats are being bandied about.

College football is serious bidness.

nah GB. just a "bang-bang play". don't read more into it

smh

That did not seem like a bang-bang play. It looked dirty but I don’t think the coach instructed his players to do that.

CSU coach has to be second thinking himself. So many spots where that game could have been won had they been just a little more aggressive and made one more play.

bang bang play seems an unfortunate choice of words

I actually think Corn is probably quite underrated at this point. Their O has been average, but D is surprisingly in the top 10 in YPP so far. They were extremely unlucky in the first game and even the Colorado game wasn't as bad as the score suggests. Don't know much about La Tech, but they're in the 120s in Massey so are probably terrible and Corn will be motivated to get a big win and get back to .500.

look out big sky, fresno state is relocating to work remotely
moneyline fsu all season, wouldn't touch the spreads

looks to me like the spread is -5


see above
and don't discount the NIL money from big cereal and syrup

I just plain don’t like your new offense. It’s like they’re trying to turn KJ into a mediocre quarterback with mediocre receivers and a poor pass-blocking line, meanwhile the multiple awesome running backs are getting the ball like 30% of the time and I don’t even think they’re calling any designed runs for KJ, all dropbacks where he has to scramble.

On the bright side for some reason LSU has decided to mostly use Perkins in coverage and not to rush the qb. I’ll admit he made one eye-popping pass breakup but mostly the strategy just seems to be taking him out of the play.

Coach Prime moving the needle

Oklahoma and Oregon St seem like solid value

No hundy on UNC? They beat App State, who were “out for blood”.

I might even throw some action on that

UNC has value. They've got a fairly reasonable path to the playoffs and Maye's capable of going god mode which raises their ceiling much higher than a similarly priced team like Iowa's. Plus they survived that Appy State gauntlet.

alas, the Heels' FPI SOS is #61

The thing about some of these teams with good paths is they still have to win two games against superior teams when they get there.

I am maxed out on OU at 80-1 (which, to be fair is small, bc books be bitches with futures). At 40-1 I think that's about right, maybe some upside

Not sure OSUw at 70-1 has much value, the pac-12 is just too good and too deep, and they play 9 conf games instead of 8

At current ratings, I have them at 0.7% to finish undefeated and 5.6% to finish with 1 loss. If we generously assume they make it even if they lose the p12cg if undefeated, then that's 0.7% + 5.6% * 40% (again, somewhat generous imo) = 3% to playoff, which means they'd have to win half the time they make the playoffs to break even, which they obviously don't


The best futures bets are ones where teams' ratings are currently X, but there's a decent chance they're actually 4-5 points better (eg Miami, Oklahoma) while OSU is the opposite. They're good bc of returning production and high performing three star talent and coaching, so the stdev on their rating is much lower. They're less likely to be Actually Bad than somebody like Miami, but also less likely to be secretly elite

hedging for the win... no?

Good point

UAB is in that "sneaky" spot this week, I see. It could happen.