Week 6 CFB Lookahead Lines (Ep 211)

in early or wait until closer to kickoff. Thor, how are you doing today?

up forty nine to nothing at halftime. Anyone holding a Syracuse ticket was feeling pretty good after two quarters, and then Dino Babers agreed with the Wagner coaching staff to shorten the third quarter in the fourth quarter to a ten minute thing, which people out there, just to explain to you some of how the sports book. Sports book works.

You don't have to complete a full sixty minute game for a game to be graded, but you do have to get over the fifty five minute threshold, and so that game, it clocked in at fifty minutes, which nullified all tickets purchase on that game. So, even though Syracuse ended up winning fifty nine to nothing, covering all tickets so it would have been purchased on them, nobody got paid out for a Syracuse bet because the game did not go over the books limit for what a game needs to to get graded.

I didn't bet it. My numbers were screaming at me to bet on TCU, and they were on the final cut of my my chopping block. And I talked to some of my TCU sources and they were a little bit more pessimistic about TCU covering that game. But it speaks to some of these programs that have jumped way up over the offseason. Kansas is a much more precipitous example of this, but it's you almost I mean, not only do you have to get ahead of the marketplace, you have to get ahead of what your own head

is thinking. And even like that, the people that are are more familiar with those programs because the historical president of what we've seen in the recent history, it has such an effect on the way that you perceive these teams. When we have seen Kansas is clearly a better team than anything close to what anyone's wildest dreams could have expected to this point. It's almost the same way with TCU. TCU is a I mean but on a higher end of the of the spectrum. TCU is a legitimate Big

twelve championship contender. They absolutely are. And you know, and I talked about this over the summer where last year's team they had these two major weaknesses that caused the entire Gary Patterson regime to come down to creater. It was the passing offense. That rushing offense happened to be really really good last year it is again, but it was the passing offense brought the whole offense down and then the defense overall, which was weird with a Patterson team.

This team, now moving to twenty twenty two, they brought back all of this different experience on defense. They had nine or ten starters back. On offense. They brought back a bunch of guys too, and then they hired Sonny Dykes, the air raid guru, who directly addressed the passing attack thing this team. There is no dearth of talent on TCU. Gary Patterson's last team that was getting its head pushed in in some of these games. That was a talented

team as well. It's just that things win a scance that again, the specific on field things that caused that to happen, those things have been directly addressed. TCU has jumped so far up. Kansas has of course as well, but this is a great measuring stick for both teams. My line on this game is TCU minus six point

four points. It opened I think at five or five and a half, and then you've seen some early money come in on Kansas, which is not necessarily surprised going to the other side, because not only is Kansas five and oh straight up, they were also five and oh against the spread and they pulled off I believe three outright upsets to this point. Believe they've they've been an underdog in three of those games, so I can see

why the marketplace is starting to trust them. But don't throw out the baby with the bathwater with regards to TCU, because it's the same kind of a story. It's just again at a higher level of that spectrum.

from my alma mater for so long. I'm out there talking to my volleyball and Peyton on a face, you know, talking about the Mark man Gino days, and now all of a sudden, manna from heaven. It's like we've been, you know, rescued from the island. But where Kansas is now. I talked about before the you know, beyond your wildest expectations before Kansas already this season is way beyond the wildest expectations of even the biggest Kansas homer. And there

doesn't get bigger Kansas football homers than me. I think there was about twenty of us that watch every snap over the last decade at Kansas football to get to this point. So yeah, I mean, it's it tickles us all pink, but I mean, beyond that, it is probably the story of college football to this point of the season, just because it was so wildly unpredictable. We have seen some things that are unpredictable this season, Kansas starting out

with that record and winning some legitimate games. They've beaten three Power five teams, they have beaten three ball teams from last year. They have won two road games against legitimate opponents, both them were ball teams last year. There is nothing flukey about what Kansas is doing. There hasn't been one game where they were suddenly outplayed and they luck box it at the end. They have controlled all of these games so far. But again, TCU is a

different sort of opponent for them. TCU is a team people watched them last year, you know, and they might be surprised on a different level with them. But again, that TCU team had all the talent in the world and now they're making use of it. So it's it's a different sort of a thing, but again, a great

measuring stick game. I do think that line is a little bit objectively low, because I don't think people are giving TCU enough credit, and I think at this point now the market has swung a little bit on Kansas, where now everybody wants to believe in Kansas. If that line comes down, certainly I'm not going to bet against

my alma mater. But if if that thing comes down anymore and it's at you know, four, but especially three and a half, for especially three, if that number gets down there, for me, that would be a by signal on TCU that the market has gone too far on the Kansas side. And by the way, I will say as far as an in game specific thing, Max Dugan, the TCU quarterback, he it was a guy who was an incumbent starter for them. It started multiple years for them. Max Dugan is a kid who has very good mobility

and he's got a strong arm. His bugaboo has always been accuracy, and so when Sunny Dykes got hired as the TCU coach, everybody expected TCU to turn the job over to Chad Morris's kid, Chandler Morris. He's small, he's shorter the Max Dugan. He weighs less than Max Dugan. He does not have Max Dugan's arm, and he does not have Max Dugan's and letticism either. But he's more accurate, and he understood that the spread system, that the whole a raate thing, et cetera. He was a better fit

for it. But he comes out in the opener against Colorado. The one half that Morris played, the TCU offense was not moving against against one of the worst teams in the FBS. Colorado just fired its coach earlier today, as we're coming to you on Sunday. They fired Carl Durell. But anyway, what once Chandler Morris got injured, they bring

in Max Dugan. They were scoring touchdown, touchdown, touchdown throughout that you know, the second half, and then the next game they played an FCS team, but Dugan played awesome in that game. That wasn't you know, a measuring stick or anything like that. But then now last week they play Oklahoma and Dugan looked awesome. So it's like, what a big key for this game is how is Max

Dugan gonna do through the air against Kansas. Kansas the secondary's played way better than we were anticipating so far this season, and they've been particularly good at making plays on the ball. So if Max Dugan throws a couple up where they're errant or he makes the wrong decision, you could see the field getting flipped really quick. But if Max Dugan keeps playing the way that he's been playing, TCU has the talent of advantage across the formation. Their

best receiver. They don't even throw it to him. They haven't thrown into him a ton yet. But Quinton Johnson, I think he's a legitimate top fifty NFL draft prospect. He's started like a poor man's Julio Jones in terms of his frame, in terms as boss scales, in terms of running after the catch with the ball. Super talented kid. And then they got two or three other receivers as well. Kansas, I don't know, can go cornerback for you, cornerback for

receiver across the formation. But again, that's all gonna come down to do get because I think the TCU receivers are gonna win that matchup. Ken Dugan be accurate enough to take advantage of that. On the one side. I also think Jalen Daniel's going to the other side. I think he's gonna be able to take advantage of some of the TCU defensive stuff as well. Even though that TCU defense is up Jalen Dale has just been playing so well so far, between the rushing and between the passing. Again,

it's gonna be a very interesting game. But objectively, trying to put down my Crimson and blue glasses for just a second, I probably would lean to tcut with where the line is right now, and again, especially if that thing toggles into the threes, I probably betting on TCU.

the market does not have its finger on USC. Yet whatsoever the sharp betters don't, the public does, nobody does at this point. But USC has continued to win some of these games in sort of inauspicious circumstances or sort of through things that the stats would point to you as potentially fluky, for instance, like dominating the and over margin in their first four games, something that is not sustainable, especially knowing how many new starters they had on that defense.

But the offense is gonna get better and better and better. We've already started to see some of that. You know, I'm they're offensive talent. You put it up against dang or any team in the nation. So for me, this line is short. I also think the market trust Washington State, so I think it's a little bit of residual doubt on the USC side, a little bit of doubt or I'm sorry, a little bit of debt for USC, but being more confident in Washington State with some of these

performances that they put up. I'm showing almost three points a line value on USC with where the line opened.

to figure it out. But next game up, it's definitely a little more close to home because I cannot stand the fact that Clemson took down NC State this weekend because we were gonna get college game Day again, the Syracuse NC State game, but instead Clemson comes out victorious and now they head to Boston College as twenty and a half point favorites.

those circumstances was pretty crazy. Like Brian Brese was ruled out right before the game, Tyler Davis was out, they had one of those stud edge rushers was out, They lost one of the safeties to a targeting ejection. I believe in the second quarter of that game. There their linebacker that makes all the line calls. He was out with an injury, I believe in the first quarter with regards to this handicap. So again, very impressive that they did what they did two NC State. They controlled that

entire game with essentially their B team defense. So for me, that is super impressive. Yes, they're not the National championship Clemson teams, you know, whether it's the Laurence seam or the WATS team whatever. But like I mean, again, in Lewis circumstances this game, what you need to pay attention to this week is the reports coming out of Clemson about the front seven, the health of those guys. You know, again Brise was out. You have the injury questions with Davis,

a couple of the edge rudgers, rushers are compromise. Have to see about that linebacker, what what his ailment is it and if he could be back as well. But the reason that awesome Clemson, you know, objectively awesome Clemson front seven is so important in this matchup is Boston College has one of the worst offensive lines, not just in the Power five, in the entire FBS. It has been stunning to watch how far the Boston College offensive line fell off from what we knew of it in

recent seasons. They I mean, like you go back the last five years, they have sent numerous offensive linemen into the NFL. But it went from that to a dumpster fire overnight in one season. And I can tell you Zay Flowers, the receiver from Boston College who was willing to listen to nil offers over the off season and ended up deciding to come back to Boston College. And he made a big deal of it if I turned down all these other offers where I was going to

get more money, et cetera. I don't think he's puffing his chest out about that anymore. I think Jay Flowers would wish he could rewind the clock to the offseason and lead boss in college, Phil Jerkovic, might be thinking the same and or I wish I'd gone to the NFL. But he was in a tough spot because he had most of his previous season had been wiped out with an injury, and when he was playing. He was compromised with that injury. But those guys are being hamstrung by

that offensive line. Now they got this one game of you know, it's like every dog has its day, and that was Boston College yesterday against Louisville. They took advantage of this Louisville team that has been chas essentially chasing tail all season. Nobody can seem to figure out exactly what Louisville's identity is, what kind of team do they want to be, what exactly is Scott Saderfield's long term vision.

It's like Scott Saderfield got on the hot sege he expected things to go different, but then all of a sudden he foun himself on the hot seat. And then this offseason he just spent going yolo in the transfer portal and he did win some derbies for like some of these high profile guys, and so you were wondering, like, well, maybe maybe he's onto something, you know, being aggressive, and

he was like Lane was aggressive. Obviously Lincoln Riley was the most aggressive, but like maybe you know, sort of along that line of continuum and maybe he shored up the deficiencies, the very obvious ones that we had seen with the Louisville team the season previous, that the two years previous or whatever. But one of the main guys got injured, Jermaine Lowell, the guy that they brought him from Arizona State. Some of the other ones are not

playing as well as they had thought. So it's it's not only strategically short I mean game in and game out short term that you're sort of scratching your head or long term of what exactly is Sadderfield doing here. You also have the thing of the things that the roster moves that they were making to try to shore up some of these deficiencies, either or not working out

or the plan got foiled through injury or whatever. For as far as Boston College goes, if Clemson's front seven is as depreciated by injuries and attrition as it was in the previous game against NZ State, that would be the only scenario where someone should consider betting on Boston College.

But even in this game, because that the discrepancy between Clemson's front seven and Boston College's offensive line is that precipitous where it doesn't really even matter what the point spread is, because if the one train starts rolling Boston College is gonna have a real problem, Like Djerkovic is going to be seeing multiple guys in his face immediately

after getting every snap. If that's the case, But it I think it's very dependent on that because if Clemson does still have all those guys out, they're coming off of a big win. If they're still playing all the second stringers in the front seven, and then the third stringers become the rotational guys because Dabo does like to rotate guys in Venables did too when he was there.

If that's still the case, and maybe they Clemson withholds people because they know the Boston College stings year, that would be the thing that I'd be monitoring for this game. Otherwise I don't have any interest in it, but you need to know about Clemson's front seven down if all the Clemson guys are back on Saturday, I actually might bet on Clemson just because they will overwhelm Boston College's offensive line like a tidal wave.

that one. And then last week we were hoping for him too, and it was the same sort of a thing where they were listening him on the depth chart, he warmed up before the game, you know, all that sort of he was at practice stuff like that, but did not end up playing in that one, which, you know, in one sense, it's like, well, for two weeks they've sort of indicated that he very well maybe back for that game, but he hasn't played, So maybe we should

be more pessimistic about Queen Yours's status for this game. But on the other hand, I remember two weeks ago when there was the report of like quin Ewers could actually play this weekend, and and like I called someone and I was like, is this bs, cause it was way ahead of what the timeline initially that they the texts had given us for Queen Yours potential recovery. So

I was pretty stunned two weeks ago. And and then you know, it was like, is he that far ahead of the schedule of his you know, recovery timeline whatever, And and you know, of course then again he didn't end up playing. He also did not end up playing yesterday against West Virginia. But the important thing to know is the Oklahoma game was always circled. It's not just circled on the team calendar for Texas once quinn Ewers

was injured. If you go back and you google the stories from the day after quinn Youwrs' injury and the Austin Beat reporters writing up that game, almost every single one of them was like, the target date for quinn Youwrs' return is the Red Red River rivalry game against Oklahoma. This is the game that they were getting them ready for. I would expect quinn Ewers to play because of the indication we got in the last two weeks, because this was the game that was on the timeline. You know,

it wasn't like a pie in the sky thing. This was the correct timeline for quinn Ewers to return. So I think you know, between that, we'll see about Xavier worthies how they you know, he one hundred percent, but if you got one hundred, you know, ninety percent quin yours, let's say, and then you got close to one hundred

percent Xavier Worthy. John Robinson and all those guys going up against his Oklahoma team that we have seen now mightily struggle against Kansas State and TCU, two teams that were not being talked about as big Big twelve title contenders coming into the season. This Texas offense could give them real problems. And we saw what Texas's defense did to a full strength Alabama offense in Week two. The Texas defense is up this year so and it bears

mentioning Dylan Gabriel status. Dylan Gabriel suffered a one of those injuries yesterday where it was like you sort of hold your breath, you know, and then they went to the commercial and they carted him off the field. He

took a really nasty shot to his head. We'll see, you know, we never know what that especially because in college they don't have to do the injury report, and in fact, the coaches not only did they not have to give the injury report, they can also hide behind essentially hide behind the hippolas where I don't need to give you guys any information because I'm protect the kid, the college kid, the college student, YadA YadA. So we don't get a lot of accurate injury information for those reasons.

But that's something where you're gonna need to monitor the situation this week and then read in between the lines, because these things are very important as far as this handicap goes. If Dylan gabriel is not playing, Oklahoma is up up Poops Creek in this game. Oklahoma has not been impressive all season. We saw Texas man handle West

Virginia last week with Hudson Cards starting. If they're at full strength going against an Oklahoma team without Dylan Gabrielle, Texas might be back for one weekend.

The Indiana Hoosiers are the singular most lucky team in college football all season in terms of what their expected wins would be based on their performance on the field against what their wins actually are in the standings. They're a fraudulent team. Michigan is anything but a fraudulent team. Indiana's stuff. They pulled multiple wins out out of their you know what at the very end in games where

they were soundly outplayed. This season, the fourth quarter, late fourth quarter heroics are not going to be there against Michigan. I would expect Michigan to absolutely wipe the floor with Indiana.

last season. And then Auburn absolutely should have lost that game. They were outplayed by Missouri during it. Even at the end of the game it required flukey start stands to get into overtime. It also required flukey circumstances for Auburn to prevail on overtime. They shouldn't have won that game at multiple different junctures, whether it was in regulation or

whether it was in overtime, but they managed to. So then Harrison held on for another week, and then this past week against LSU, it was the opposite Auburn and I say this with a tear in my eye to quote Rick Flair, but Auburn, like because I was on LSU minus eight or whatever, and Auburn, I have to acknowledge, actually outplayed LSU on the field for the vast majority of that game. LSU was able to pull it out, I believe by four at the end. Unfortunately for me,

it wasn't enough to cover my ticket. But Auburn probably deserved to win that game, and they didn't. But they played well enough, and in conjunction with the what was a flukey win the week before, Harson's going to be hanging on for one more week. This does not seem like a good proposition, Harson. This week, you got the best performance from your team of the season last week, right, the best effort that you have gotten from them back against the Wall game, and you came up just short.

Probably shouldn't have, but that's that's the way it went down. You took a loss in a game that you could have won. And now you got to turn around the next week after being deflated like that. You need to head into Athens, Georgia to face this Georgia team that has gone from this goliath the nation, the defending national champions. Then in week one they wiped the floor with Oregon.

Everyone's toasting their champagne glasses to the Georgia Bulldogs. But over the last two weeks now they're starting to get mocked by the same people that were praising them before and they are well aware of it. Between essentially no showing the Kent State game, you know, they just thought that they were gonna roll the ball out and they were gonna play around with them like a cat with a mouse, and Kent State actually showed up for that

game and was game with them. And then last yesterday on Saturday, against Missouri, it was it was stunning how poorly Georgia was playing in that game and allowing Missouri to I shouldn't even say allowing them to hang around, because Missouri led for long portions of that game, and Georgia was it wasn't even like the Kent stake in that the effort was very clearly lacking. Like from the start it was like okay, boys, like the game started,

you know, like stuff like that. The Missouri game was weird because there was these several different spots where like Georgia just did something incredibly stupid or inopportune that gifted Missouri, whether it's field position or a situation or whatever, and then they got behind the eight ball and then had to come back to the very end. But either way, now Auburn has to go into essentially what is a

pissed off horness nest. I don't know if I can say pissed off on the pod, but Georgia is they have not been locked in at all the last two weeks, but they're going to be reading about that and how now they've dropped in the polls all this different stuff, people aren't trusting them anymore. YadA, YadA, YadA. Not a great situational spot for Auburn. A locked in Georgia is going to wipe the floor with this Auburn team. And

I've been waiting for Auburn to quit on Harson. It's going to happen when the chips are down at some point, this might be the opportunity for it, and then they just get boat race and then that's the end of Harson. Even though my systems showing a couple of points of theoretical line value on Georgia, it's not baking. In the context of the ancillary details of this thing, I definitely would not bet on Auburn in that game.

how that one worked out. It has been a struggle for people who do what I do to try to catch up to how far Michigan State has fallen, because it goes beyond even what would sort of the band of outcomes of what data would suggest is theoretically probable, like Michigan State is, they're falling beneath the band of outcomes Like this is actually bad for mel Tucker. It's not bad for him in terms of his job status.

They can't fire him because he's got ninety five million dollars left on his deal, but it doesn't show very well for him and his dedication is after getting that big deal. We're gonna have to see what goes on at Michigan State because now you have this marriage long term, neither side can get out of it. Mel Tucker is going to need to get that motivation back that this team might The point I'm trying to make is this

team might have arrived into this season dead on arrival. Essentially, it doesn't seem like Tucker made as many alterations in additions through the transfer portal as he could have one player leaving a team. Kenneth Walker in this case shouldn't especially a running back in the game of football should not cause you to go from a consensus top ten team to a team that now might be out of

the consensus top fifty. Like it just shouldn't have. I mean, Michigan State brought back a decent amount of places, and yes, they have had inactives, you know, maybe more than the average team so far. You know, Jayden Reid missed one of those lobsided losses, They've had multiple injuries to key guys, et cetera. But even so, that far of a drop off.

I tried. It's funny, Thomas. I went on a VSI in show on Friday and they asked me about that Michigan State Maryland game, and I just sort of chuckled, and I said, like, I have to do it because my system is yelling at me one more time that Michigan there's value on Michigan State. So I said, I said, I'm gonna bet them, but I said, I promise you

guys this. If Michigan State does not cover this game and they're not particularly like it wasn't a fluky reason that they didn't cover it, I said, that is the last time I will try to stick my hand in the cookie jar of Michigan State under the auspice of the idea that I'm getting value by buying low. I'm done with that. I will not put any more of my heart earned money behind mel Tucker, at least in

the short term. So even though again my numbers are showing I got Ohio State minus twenty point six in that game, so my numbers are showing around four points of line value on Michigan State. But it's we can't we can't manually adjust Michigan State down far enough to recognize what the Vegas lines are on it. I just got to stay away from their games and or bet

on the other team. But this one probably with where this line started, this game being in east Land saying it's probably gonna be a stay away informational game for me.

or whatever. This game was one where I you know, when you're looking at the card before you run the numbers, it's one where you're sort of hoping that you're gonna get a value on a specific side, and then it didn't happen for me. I came in like and preferring Ken State because coming into the year, like, I like

Sean Lewis going back years and years and years. He was Deno Babers' longtime offensive coordinator when Dino like like had all the explosive offenses and stuff like that, like bowling Green specifically or whatever, and he has done all that stuff with Ken State and typically you get a lot of value with Ken State in early October during the Lewis era. The reason why is because Ken State notoriously, for their four non conference games, notoriously takes three enormous

checks from the blue Bloods. This year it was Georgia because I was the one that they getting close in Washington, and I'm gonna blame on the third one. But anyway, that's what they do every year, and then they play one FCS team so that like one of the four they'll take the win. But they usually lay down in those games. It's not just a talent discrepancy. It's that Ken State wants. They want to set themselves up as well as they can for the MAC schedule in the

short term. That's what the coaching staff wants, and then of course the athletic program wants to set the rest of their sporting programs up well long term. It's the reason why they're putting the football team in a bad

situation with the three payoff games. But that's the way it manifests is usually they get annihilated in all those games, and then once you get into October and they're playing these MAC teams, it's like a one in three Kent State team that you've seen lose by fifty points three times. Now they're facing a different team that you know, maybe as a better record because they don't play nearly as hard of a schedule, whatever, and then you can get value on Kent State. So that's what I was sitting

dead right on coming into it. Then I ran my numbers, and my numbers were to quote league or so said, not so fast, my friend on this or that. The rest of the market was thinking exactly what I was thinking, and that that sort of pulled the line the other way. But right now we got a line up kent State minus three and a half at Miami of Ohio, whereas my line on this game is Miami of Ohio minus

one point seven. Miami Ohio a team that just got upset at home by Buffalo Buffalo, a team that it was on the Miami was at at Buffalo, but they did lose that game. Buffalo is a team that the market had liked before and had missed on it, missed on and missed on it, and then finally Buffalo got right playing this Miami of Ohio team the week before,

though Miami Ohio had beaten Northwestern. You can certainly nippick Northwestern as a team as far as being a Big ten Big ten team, but like for Miami, Miami of Ohio, that was a big win. And then the other games they played was Kentucky and Cincinnati and then an FCS team, So it's hard to get information about Miami beyond that.

Kenn State is stuck in everybody's head because they played Georgia so well, right, and then last week we might have gotten more value on the other like for pushing it towards ken State or yeah, ken State getting the value so so so the line getting pushed more towards Miami and Ohio. Had Ken State not held on for an overtime win against Ohio last week, Ohio was able to keep that one close. And then you know, of course in overtime that that's where Ken State ended up

winning by a touchdown. In terms of the overall talent UH and and again the schematics, and and who I trust in it? I trust Sean Lewis a little bit more he did. Ken State did lose some guys over the They lost their starting quarterback, a kid that actually got to look from the NFL went to the combine. Stuff like that, they have a new quarterback, they have some new new guys in important UH spots on their team,

skill positions, et cetera. But with where my numbers are telling me, instead of this game being a Sunday bet on Ken State, it became a I need to sit back and I need to handicap this game during the week and decide if my preconceived notions or you know, disposition heading into it of preferring Ken State provisionally, if that is what I actually believe after I dig into the numbers, the matchups of the one team's you know, rushing efficiency against the other team's run defense efficiency, the

explosion on both all that sort of stuff. The end game stuff is, you know, should I ride with what I initially felt or should I ride with what my sort of tree top numbers are telling me. It's going to be a handicap for me this week, and it's gonna be one of the games that I dig deepest into, I think.

But then Buffalo misfired in both of those spots, and there were some people with some deep pockets that lost money in both those games. What's really interesting over the past two weeks that has not been as much of the case that the market has not been as hot after Buffalo as they were the last two weeks are the ones that Buffalo won. So it seems like the Buffalo team that the Sharps wanted to see week two

and three they finally showed up week four. And as far as Bowling Green, they have one of the more prototypical mac starts of their season as a as in contrast to what I was talking about with ken State, where Ken State plays that you know, like the the Golias or whatever, Bowling Green to this point they've gotten the thing of where they've gotten the They played two poor opponents one and another G five opponent, and then then they took their medicine on the two road games

to the you know, the blue Bloods or whatever. But like they they lost their their games very similar scores to UCLA and Missippi State on the road. They also had lost at home to Eastern Kentucky, which is the embarrassing loss for Bowling Green so far. But they did catch Marshall sort of with their pants down that week that Marshall was coming off the big upset win against Notre Dame, Bowling Green ambushed them the next week won by a field goal. Then this past week they go

to Akron and Bowling Green was a Jews favorite. They only win by three points in that game against this Acron team that has been been very bad. It's hard for me to get my finger on Bowling Green right now, a team whose performance has gone it's been, uh, you know, going up and down by this much week to week, where you can lose at home to a mediocre FCS team, and then you can beat a team that just beat

Notre Dame, you know, et cetera. And then when you play down against a team like Akron that shouldn't be beating any even average MAC opponent right now, or even slightly below average MAC upon it, which I feel like bull and Green. That's what they were expecting to be this year. That's what they've sort of been building towards. So I it's it's a hard one of trying to figure out, like where your finger is on both these teams, because they have been so hard to get your your

finger on. But I do think that I'm I would be on Buffalo in in this game. Again, it seems like they have finally turned the corner to being what the sharps in the marketplace, what they had wanted them to be previously, whereas Bull and Green they're just so up and down, up and down. The thing with Bull and Green is they can catch the sunlight in like we've seen this the past couple of years. The Marshall game, of course, was not the first September ambush we've seen

in the past. They did that to Minnesota as well. That one was on the road, But it's like in the other games where there's not as big as the lights, that's where they play sort of the expectations. For me, I prefer Buffalo right now, with where that number is, I think Buffalo should be favored. My line on it is Buffalo minus three point two and.

in it. Maybe that upgraded the quarterback from Brown to Knicks. Now you had the Georgia defensive coordinator that the architect of that defense, Dan Lanning, now he's going against his former team, and Georgia wiped the floirt with Oregon. But ever since, we all we just totally dropped our expectations of Oregon. Yeah, this is like a classic life. But it's like then, they've sort of turned into what we

thought they were going to be initially. They've won the four games since then, and they've looked pretty good and doing it. I mean, they slapped around BYU when BYU came into that game as a top fifteen team in terms of the polls. They won that Washington State game, which maybe they didn't play as well as like you would have liked heading in, but Washington State. Again, going back to what we were talking about before, they're a better team than we thought they were going to be.

And also you have to give Oregon credit for prevailing in the circumstances of what became one of the wildest fourth quarters of any game played this season. So I mean, you at least have to tip your cap to Oregon for that, for coming out on the right side of that. And then they whip Stanford last week, which they absolutely should out. But it's a good mark, you know, it's

a mark of a good team. To conform to expectations in a game like that, in a match up like that, because of course, Stanford has a couple of players that give them a puncher's chance in a game against a superior opponent that's overlooking them, and Oregon clearly wasn't last time. So I'm starting to trust Oregon a bit more. My numbers certainly are in this game, my numbers. This is one of my biggest discrepancies between what my opening line is and the market's opening line. My line on this

game is Oregon minus sixteen and a half. The market opened it at ten and a half. Oregon minus ten and a half. I think the market even though seems like the market had gotten higher and higher and higher.

On Arizona, you know the fighting jed Fishers through the first four weeks of the season, and justifiably so, right like, they had upset San Diego State by double digits in the first game, they had beaten North Dakota State, who, Yeah, it's an FCS team, but a goliath of an FCS team, a team where if they were in the FBS over the last decade, a lot of those seasons they would have like, I'm not going out on a limb here, they would have finished qualitatively as a top half of

the FBS team. That's where the debate begins. Like me living in Minneapolis, a lot of my buddies are NDSU fans, so like they'll argue with you till you're blue, until they're blue in the face. That NDY issue could like hang in the Big ten, maybe not compete certainly, but like that that they would still be making balls there. Or you know, if they went to the MAC what you know what what they just absolutely wiped the floor

of people. I think they that they would. But Arizona had put together a pretty good resume up until last week when there was some sharps out there that felt that they were going to go onto Cow and upset them. And the game did not go as well for Arizona as some of those initial ones had, where they were,

you know, sort of going above expectations. And in this one, this is going to provide an even stiffer test for them because of the athletes that Oregon has jud Fish labored over the offseason in attacking with aggression, the transfer portal trying and and and also I will say that his high school class because he signed a top twenty five high school class, but he was looking for projectable athletic type guys to fit into the formation with a

nod to matchups like this. He has brought the talent level Jetfish of Arizona way up in relativity to what we usually expect from a year to year basis, but he is still now he's trying to build up to at least not be embarrassed in that regard against a team like Oregon where you're putting athletes in on islands and you just can't trust them whatever. Arizona is not

quite there yet. And I again, I'm surprised that the market is still not that it's not that I think the market should be out on Arizona for losing that one game, because I actually think Cal's better this year than they've been, like, you know, like that's you know whatever, but that the market did not toggle Arizona down a bit more than they did. It seems like we're still

getting that bullishness. And meanwhile, we're still getting a little bit of doubt towards Oregon, where at least me personally, I feel like Oregon has addressed that doubt since and who knows I mean maybe for some people, not only are they the sort of not acknowledging what Oregon has done since that Georgia loss, but they are now sort of compounding it with Oh, Georgia struggled against Kent State and Missouri the last two weeks, and so you know,

this Oregon team that I already didn't want to trust, that was the team that they got whipped by, and they're clearly not ires. You know, like, however you would justify that to yourself. I don't buy into that line of thinking though, Like I qualitatively, Oregon has several steps ahead of Arizona. I think they're going to provide him with some matchup problems as well. This is a line that I would expect to be closer to fourteen come

kickoff time. I'm surprised that it opened up where it did, but I do expect the market to correct that and to bring that line closer to what my ad Justice line is. I don't think it's get all the way up to what my number is by the time kickof is sixteen and a half. So there could be value for Oregon better throughout the week.

That's something that for the first time people in Minneapolis got furious about yesterday because mo Ibraheim, the Minnesota superstar running back who nobody nationally or locally had reported anything was wrong with. Mo Ibraheim was ruled out from the Purdue game like fifteen minutes before a kickoff. And so you know, in that column, we can't get college football, unfortunately, to change and to allow us to put out the

injury apart. We talked about this before with the hip with regards to the hippolas and stuff like that, but in my column, I try to go as deep as I can, as far as finding updated injury information of unexpected scratches, what are the statuses of those guys? Is that going to affect the line coming up? Injuries that occurred on Saturday or Friday or Thursday if it was a game then and how that could affect the line, the prognost to those guys and stuff like that, and

then of course the coaching changes. And then also games that I'm looking at where I think you can get line value early in the week by betting them because they're games that I expect the lines to move during the week.

do it for us today. Be sure to check back next week and let's cash some tickets.