While we’re hopefully back on the winning track in the NFL at Tuley’s Takes home office, we’re still trying to get there in college football. We had our second straight 1-3 ATS week in a row on Saturday, with losses to Ole Miss +3.5 at Florida, Texas A&M +8.5 at LSU, and South Carolina +12.5 at Alabama. Fortunately, we won with Stanford +3.5 vs. Georgia Tech in a 34-27 home upset in a final West Coast game, avoiding a complete disaster and ending on a winning note.
We always “go to school” with our results each week to see what we did right and hopefully also try to learn from where we went wrong. I guess the obvious lessons is to try to find more live home underdogs as our lone dog was the only victory, plus maybe avoid the SEC (whose first three losses were the same), because it seems the rich keep getting richer in this era of transfer portals and NILs.
Let’s see if we can apply any of that to the CFB Week 5 Saturday card with our “dog or pass” plays.
Avoiding the SEC (at least for this week), we find ourselves with our lone CFB Week 4 winner, Stanford, who picked up its first ACC victory over Georgia Tech and now travels to Wake Forest. We have a good QB matchup here with Wake’s Gio Lopez, but Stanford’s Davis Warren threw for 396 yards in the comeback win over Tech and faces a Demon Deacon defense that allows opposing QBs to complete 80% of their passes. Along with the Cardinal ground game, that will help us stay within two TDs.
Best College Football Bet: Stanford +14
We had to find a dog at home, and this one jumped from the bet. The Golden Gophers let me down three weeks ago as the home dogs vs. Mississippi State, but they bounced back to beat Akron of the MAC as expected, then pulled off an unexpected upset in Washington as 12.5-point underdogs to get back to 3-1. That’s Michigan’s record, too, though they got there a little unconventionally, as we all know, with a controversial Second Hail Mary to beat Western Michigan of the MAC and then losing on the last play of the game to Iowa last week. They could (and some say should) be 2-2. Minnesota’s defense is just as good as Michigan’s (which has also been terrible at defending the Red Zone and committing too many penalties), and neither offense is particularly explosive, so this should be a close, relatively low-scoring game (Over/Unders is just 43.5 points). This line opened up to Michigan -8.5, which I wish I could have held, but I still believe we’re on the right side of anything more than a FG.
Best College Football Bet: Minnesota +6
Staying in the Big Ten (which still pains me to write with these two recent additions, longtime Pac-12 members and Rose Bowl rivals in the Big Ten), Washington visits Southern Cal. The Huskies started the season ranked No. 17 but fell into the Top 25 after 24-10 wins over Washington State and 16-14 over Utah State of the Mountain West. They beat Eastern Washington 48-16 but then lost the aforementioned 27-24 game to Minnesota as a 12.5-point chalk. But I like the Huskies to bounce back here in the underdog role against USC, coming off its first win of the season, 41-27, at Oregon. I think it took some of the swagger away from the previously undefeated Trojans. I’m also undermining USC’s defense here, which allowed 289 passing yards and four touchdowns in a loss to Oregon, and that’s AFTER knocking out star starting QB Dante Moore. Washington holds up all the way, and I’ll take a little over +300 on the money line.
Best College Football Bet: Washington +9.5
Looking for another home underdog, I found the Aztecs, as this line was Texas State -4.5 in this Pac-12 matchup (yes, this is your new Pac-12), but up to -8 on Thursday. The opening line makes sense, as Texas State (2-2) turned its season around after an 0-2 start (understandable losses to Texas and UTSA) with expected wins over North Texas and Incarnate Word, while San Diego State (1-3) has lost three straight to UCLA, James Madison and Toledo, and also lost its top two running backs. But the line move was due to a mumps outbreak in the Aztecs’ locker room. SDSU has mostly kept mum (sorry) on the details, citing HIPAA and privacy concerns, as we often see with the lack of college injury reports. I’ve seen similar cases over the years where the market overreacts to news like this and healthy starters and reserves usually step up to play for their fallen teammates. Of course, if we hear that the Aztecs can’t field a competitive team, we won’t continue the bet on Saturday night, but we’ll more than likely get some bonus points here.
Best College Football Bet: San Diego State +8
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