Here are 9 betting takeaways that may (or may not) be useful in making us money moving forward this football season.
College Football
Every 26-point defeat in college football isn’t created equally; some are massive blowouts that get filled with garbage scores. The final score of 47-21 Clemson put on Louisville was actually closer than the game felt for anyone that watched without wearing Cardinals colored glasses. Last year’s Heisman winner, Lamar Jackson stuffed the stat sheet in mop-up time combining for nearly 400 yards in defeat. These Tigers are for real; unfortunately betting value might be gone from their numbers for the immediate future as the market tries to make major corrections for a team that started the year 30-1 to win the title and is now listed as 2nd favorites behind only Alabama.
Oklahoma State has weapons for days and when you have a Heisman hopeful distributing the ball they’re all bound to get work. The Cowboys receiving core accomplished a feat we might not see again this year; 4 receivers all gained 100 yards in the Pokes dominating victory against Pittsburgh. You never like to look too far ahead but Bedlam in early November is shaping up to be one of college football’s best games in 2017.
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There was nothing fluky about Mississippi State’s trouncing of #12 LSU as a touchdown plus underdog. The Bulldogs outgained the Tigers 465-270, out first downed them 25-13, and held the ball for almost 12 minutes longer. That being said, the most impressive stat line was their ground game that cranked out 285 yards at a clip of 5.9 yards per attempt against a normally stout LSU run defense.
San Diego State put a major hurting on their neighbors to the north in a 20-17 upset of the Stanford Cardinal. Rocky Long’s tenacious bunch held the ball for 41:14 while outgaining Stanford by 99 yards in racking up 13 more first downs (20% of Stanford’s offensive output came on 1 Bryce Love touchdown scamper). The Aztecs ran 78 offensive plays to Stanford’s 43 owning both lines of scrimmage en route to the easy cover catching 10. Be careful with SDSU going forward; back-to-back wins over Power 5 opponents is a rarity for a program like this and we expect the market to over value them heading into Mountain West conference play.
Turnovers are the ultimate equalizer in college football. NIU went into Lincoln and beat the Huskers outright, 21-17 as 11.5-point closing underdogs. However, a deep dive of the box score says they were very fortunate to leave victorious. Nebraska outgained the Huskies 384-213, owned time of possession 36:34-23:26, and finished +5 in first downs. The big issue for Husker nation were 3 ill-timed picks (as if there’s ever a good time) with 2 of them turning into Huskie Pick 6’s. Given Nebraska’s ATS struggles early (fortunate to cover vs Oregon), they could actually be undervalued headed into conference play especially with money pouring in on Rutgers for this week’s game.
NFL
All is not doom and gloom for the Chicago Bears yet, but we were reminded why the Buccaneers had no problem’s jettisoning Mike Glennon. The former Tampa signal caller struggled mightily against his old mates trailing 26-0 at the break. However, the yardage was much closer than the final score indicated, instead it was the (stop me if you’ve heard this) the turnovers that did in Chicago as touchdown pups.
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The Seattle Seahawks have a putrid offensive line; this isn’t news to anyone. What is news was the emergence of preseason sensation Chris Carson as the team’s primary running back. Seattle averaged less than 4 yards per play on offense getting dominated in that category by San Francisco (49ers finished at 5.2). The equalizer was the Seahawks ability to dominate time of possession while running 79 plays from scrimmage to the Niners 48. The bloom is off the rose in regards to the Seahawks, so expect them to potentially be a touch undervalued going forward.
New York has a major power outage offensively. You have to go back to November of 2016 to find the last time Big Blue eclipsed 20 points in a game and the Jets are still the J-E-T-S (Just-End-The-Season). Desperation can do funny things for a team; watch the Giants rebound this week in the most improbable of Herculean efforts known to man against the Eagles, while the Jets face their hated NFC east rival Dolphins in their home opener 6-point ‘dogs.
If you aren’t strong in the trenches forget about winning on the road. Green Bay was down 2 of their top offensive linemen for the trip to Atlanta where the Falcons promptly bludgeoned them. The game swung on a questionable call late in the first half negating a big gain by Randall Cobb that would have taken the Pack out of the shadow of their own goalposts. Instead, Aaron Rodgers was intercepted the very next play and the halftime margin snowballed. Green Bay is extremely banged up; be sure to check the injury report before backing them this week against the hopeless Bengals.
