Last week, the College Football Playoff released it’s initial rankings for the 2021 season. I won’t spend a lot of time talking about the rankings in this blog until the very end of the year. The reasoning is two-fold. For starters, the rankings are utterly meaningless for 95% of college football. As someone who looks forward to games across the spectrum, from Alabama/Texas A&M to UConn/UMass, the rankings tend to focus too much on an extremely small subset of the overall sport. Secondly, the rankings are meaningless and completely made-up. At the end of the day, the playoff committee is going to pick the teams it wants to regardless of the results on the field. At least in the BCS-era, we could just blame the computers. Now, we have to listen to an athletic director lie through his teeth in an attempt to justify an absurd ranking. I don’t think that was the solution people were looking for when the playoff was proposed. With all of that in mind, I will probably just avoid the rankings in favor of talking about the actual games being played. Let’s get to the football.
Naturally, the one week I don’t post picks and am unable to bet on games is the week I do the best. I will include my Week 10 results in my total for now, but I will probably remove it at the end of the season for a more complete record of picks I actually published. Week 9 was pretty lackluster from a results perspective overall, although I did decently well on totals. Week 10 was far better. My model hit at a nice 60% clip. Apparently, the best way for me to have positive betting results is to just use my numbers and not watch any of the games. Not sure how I feel about that. You can see my Week 10 game picks below.
Moving ahead to Week 11, I’m excited to get my first glimpse of MACtion for this season. Last week’s games were great so I’m hoping that continues this Tuesday and Wednesday. We also have a potential ACC shootout on Thursday before getting into a solid Saturday slate. Some games I am looking forward to:
North Carolina @ Pitt, Thursday 6:30 PM CT
Oklahoma @ Baylor, Saturday 11:00 AM CT
Michigan @ Penn State, Saturday 11:00 AM CT
Purdue @ Ohio State, Saturday 2:30 PM CT
UAB @ Marshall, Saturday 2:30 PM CT
Hawaii @ UNLV, Saturday 3:00 PM CT
Texas A&M @ Ole Miss, Saturday 6:00 PM CT
Notre Dame @ Virginia. Saturday 6:30 PM CT
The Futures Report
Checking in on how some of my pre-season predictions are faring after Week 10:
Feeling Better
Illinois o3.5/Purdue o5 - Illinois probably won’t make a bowl this year unless they find a way to beat Iowa in two weeks. Although, given how the Illinois season has gone this year, that’s not out of the question. The Illini have losses to UTSA and Rutgers and wins over Penn State and Minnesota. Purdue is already bowl eligible with the potential for a really special season. After recording wins over top-3 ranked Iowa and Michigan State, the Boilermakers will have another shot at a top team when they take on Ohio State next week. Purdue can’t do it again, can they? Regardless of how the rest of the season goes, both Illinois and Purdue move into the winners column for me.
Iowa State u9.5/Texas u8 - It looks like I had the Big 12 pretty well pegged before the season began. In addition to unders for Iowa State and Texas, I also took overs on Baylor, Kansas State, and Oklahoma State. All five are already winners on the season. I still think Iowa State is a good team, but it’s tough to deny how bad that loss to West Virginia was. For Texas, the loss to Iowa State last weekend marked four straight for the Longhorns. At least they didn’t blow a double-digit lead this time. Now, instead of competing for a conference title, Texas will be competing for bowl eligibility. Not a great start for Steve Sarkisian.
Cincinnati o10/UNLV o1.5 - While I don’t think Cincinnati is a playoff-caliber team, remaining undefeated is impressive regardless of your competition level. Cincinnati has not looked very good in recent weeks, but they continue to win and are one win away from double-digits. On the other end of the spectrum, UNLV finally got a win! Next week against Hawaii is the best chance for UNLV to get their second win of the season and hit this over. Hopefully, this victory will give the Rebels some momentum.
California u6/Florida State u5.5 - UNLV wasn’t the only team to get their first win. Arizona managed to secure a 10-3 victory over the Golden Bears last weekend which eliminates any margin for error if Cal wants to go bowling. With games against USC and UCLA on the schedule, that will be a tough task. Florida State also has no margin for error after losses to Clemson and NC State. Miami has been playing much better football lately while Florida will still be a tough opponent regardless of how bad things get in Gainesville.
Feeling Worse
Florida o9/South Carolina u4 - The aforementioned Gators are in trouble. Florida has now dropped three straight including losses to LSU and South Carolina. In response, Dan Mullen has made some changes to his staff to try and keep his job for another season. The loss to South Carolina gives the Gamecocks their fifth win of the season and a shot at bowl eligibility. If they play like they did on Saturday, South Carolina should be able to pick up a win next weekend against Missouri.
TCU o7.5/UMass o1.5 - A sure-fire way to end up on this list is to fire your head coach mid-season. Despite a surprising upset of Baylor, TCU already has five losses and will be replacing Gary Patterson after the season ends. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, this could be a landing spot for UTSA’s Jeff Traylor. UMass went ahead and fired Walt Bell after dropping a game to FCS Rhode Island. UMass can still get to two wins with a victory over FCS Maine next week, but clearly it is not a given for the Minutemen.
Tennessee u6/ODU u3.5 - It hasn’t necessarily shown up in the win column, but Tennessee is a much improved football team this year. I don’t give the Volunteers much of a chance in next week’s game against Georgia, but the season closes out with South Alabama and Vanderbilt. That will be enough to get to 7 wins and provide some positive momentum heading into 2022. Another team that has improved this season is Old Dominion. Granted, the bar was set really low for the Monarchs entering 2021. Still, Old Dominion is on a two game win-streak with three winnable games to close out the year. If ODU decides to win one more game and bust my under pick, I will be rooting for them to win all three and go bowling.
Week 11 Mid-Week Preview
We get another fun Sun Belt game to get the week started on Wednesday before a full Thursday slate. In general, I like taking the points and taking unders in mid-week MAC games. As we saw last week, a lot of these games end up being close contests. Here are my picks for the Tuesday and Wednesday games:
Akron @ Western Michigan, 6:00 PM CT
Pick: Akron +26, Under 62
Don’t confuse taking the points in this game with Akron being good. They’re not. However, 26 points is a really big number. I don’t like laying big numbers in general, but that is especially true in mid-week games in November. I also like the under here. Akron doesn’t have a good offense. Unless you think WMU is scoring close to 50 points, it’s going to be hard to get over 60.
Buffalo @ Miami-OH, 6:00 PM CT
Pick: Buffalo +7.5, Under 57.5
Last week’s loss to Bowling Green was just the latest reminder that Buffalo has taken a massive step back as a program since losing Lance Leipold as head coach. Still, it’s not like Miami-OH has been a great team this year. We are just one week removed from the Redhawks losing to Ohio. I probably wouldn’t play this game at +7 but the hook is too much to pass up. I’m taking Buffalo here to keep it within one score.
Ohio @ Eastern Michigan, 7:00 PM CT
Pick: EMU -6, Over 60
EMU is already bowl eligible, but we’ve seen MAC teams get passed up before with only six wins. The Eagles need to continue winning to secure a spot in the post-season. Ohio hasn’t had nearly as much success with 7 losses already, but the Bobcats are still playing hard as evidenced by the win over Miami-OH last week. However, this week the EMU offense is going to be too much for the Bobcats to handle. I would lay the points with EMU up to a TD. I also like the over in this game for the same reason. I would play the over up to the key number of 62.
Ball State @ Northern Illinois, 6:00 PM CT
Pick: NIU +2.5, Under 63
I can’t decide whether I’ve been more impressed with NIU this year or more unimpressed with Ball State. Either way, the result is the same. I think the wrong team is favored in this game. Not a heavy favorite but a favorite nonetheless. At home, I’m taking the Huskies as a short dog. I also don’t see how this game has a total in the 60s. Neither of these offenses has proven themselves to be particularly explosive this season. Similar to the game above, I will take the under down to the key number of 62.
Toledo @ Bowling Green, 6:00 PM CT
Pick: Toledo -10.5, Under 50.5
This is my least confident MAC pick this week. Toledo has been up and down all season which makes it hard to trust them laying over 10 points. In addition, Bowling Green has been great against the spread this year. I’ve leaned heavily on the Falcons and they have rewarded me with close games. However, Toledo is still one of the most talented teams in the conference and Bowling Green is definitely not. On a Tuesday night, there is always the chance that things go sideways, but I’m taking a chance and rolling with Toledo.
Kent State @ Central Michigan, 7:00 PM CT
Pick: CMU -2.5, Under 75
Since entering conference play, Kent State has really turned its season around. The Golden Flashes sit atop the MAC East with just one conference loss. However, that loss was a 33-point drubbing at the hands of Western Michigan. While the transitive property doesn’t mean much in college football, CMU is coming off a 12-point win over that same WMU team. If Kent State continues to roll, this pick won’t age well, but I will take the short favorite at home with CMU. The better play in this game is the under 75. While Kent State can put up points in a hurry, they are also prone to periods of ineffectiveness which makes this total too high.
Keep an eye out on Twitter for updates to my mid-week picks if anything changes over the next few days. My full Week 11 preview will be up on Thursday afternoon. Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think on Twitter @CFB_Connor. Good luck!