College football Week 8: Last week's lessons are this week's winners
This past week was pretty tame when it came to on field results. Sure it looked like Syracuse, not Clemson, might still be undefeated in the ACC, but in the end, there was not that much drama across the board.
The Pac-12 got very interesting with Oregon dominating in a visit from UCLA. They were expected to win, but the game was never close and now there is a bit of a mini-tournament going to see if the Ducks, Bruins, Utes, or Trojans can do enough to be playoff worthy. If any of them can break through the stranglehold of the SEC and Big Ten.
We might not have learned a ton this week with programs like Michigan and USC not in action but there is always something to glean. Here are the things that caught my eye.
Week 8 What We Learned
TCU is the Best Team in Texas
Coming into this season it looked like Texas A&M was going to be the top team in the state. At the halfway point, that is definitely not the case with the Aggies sitting at 3-4 after a bad loss to South Carolina. Houston has been a disappointment too and Texas and Baylor have been inconsistent. TCU was expected to be fourth or maybe fifth in the great state of Texas but now they are the clear winner. At this point of the season, teams are what they are, no excuses.
Betting takeaway: Feel free to fade that group of teams that was supposed to be good.
How Good is the SEC?
Is that sacrilege? They probably are still the best conference in the nation but Ole Miss really fell flat against LSU and Mississippi State hardly competed against Alabama. With Kentucky and Florida up and down all season are we sure this is an elite league this season? There have just been too many spots where teams are not really showing up to compete. That shouldn't happen right.
Betting takeaway: Don't be afraid of the numbers, even the bigger ones because other than Alabama-Tennessee we are not getting a lot of great games.
Good Luck Figuring Out the MAC
Not a single favorite covered the spread last weekend in the MAC, with five outright upsets over six conference games. Of course, upsets happen every week but not to the scale of what we saw last week in the MAC (no I did not check the database there). I think I may have written this in the past but the MAC is wild and figuring it out is tough. That means the bookmakers don't know what is going on either.
Betting takeaway: Best of Luck!! This might be the league to go in-game wagering with.
ACC Takes More Hits
Clemson was supposed to roll over Syracuse and prove to the rest of the College Football universe that they were worthy of a playoff berth. Instead, they need a spark from their backup quarterback to get a home win on Saturday. Oh and Duke won at Miami. That is never supposed to happen, right? Clemson is probably a very good team but I am not sure we will ever be sure based on who they are going to be playing.
Betting takeaway: This is the one conference I have been steering clear of, except for Wake and their ability to score points.
You Gotta Score Man
There are 13 teams averaging at least 40 ppg so far this season, and every one of them is at least .500 ATS. Does that mean you should blindly bet on the high-scoring teams, of course not, but with the game-changing, almost every top program is finding ways to get more points on the board. When you look at the 20 teams averaging less than 20 ppg, only a few having winning ATS records, by comparison.
Betting takeaway: Lean to the scoring teams. They might seem to be more volatile but they are never out of a game and that helps.
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