A couple of ranked teams face tough road tests on Thursday
and Friday before the big Saturday College Football slate. #11 Clemson is a
six-point favorite at Louisville while #9 Florida State is a 7.5-point road
favorite at Boston College. Laying the points with both favorites looks
appealing, with Louisville already 0-2 this year while BC has yet to face an
FBS foe and should be unprepared for this level of competition.
The real fun happens on Saturday with a number of marquee
matchups. The SEC took a big hit last weekend with three teams dropping out of the Top 25
and another team, Auburn, needing overtime to get past FCS Jacksonville State
at home.
Auburn dropped all the way down to #18 in the AP Poll and
has an incredible hard game this Saturday as they travel to #13 LSU. Despite
little separation in the polls, the online sportsbook (()) list LSU as a
sizeable 6.5-point home favorite. Auburn was a similarly-priced 6.5-point home
favorite last year in this meeting, and crushed LSU by a blowout 41-7 winning
margin.
Another big SEC matchup this week according to most college football betting website, pits second-ranked Alabama
at home against #15 Mississippi. This is a big revenge spot for the Crimson
Tide, as Ole’ Miss was the only team to beat Alabama in the regular season last
year. Bama is a seven-point home choice with the added benefit of playing this
game at night, which usually results in an even bigger home crowd advantage.
While those ranked teams face stiff competition, other
highly-ranked teams have it pretty easy this week. In the Big Ten, #1 Ohio
State and #24 Wisconsin are both favored by 34.5 points. Michigan State moved
up to #4 in the rankings ((and even received two first place votes)
after a big win vs. Oregon last Saturday night, and are 26.5-point favorites
against triple-option Air Force.
As big as those CFB betting lines are, that’s not even close
to the Oregon Ducks, who are a massive 45.5-point favorite against Georgia
State. The next biggest line has TCU favored by 37.5 points against SMU, and
they may cover that number as they look to beat the 35-point winning margin
Baylor laid on the Mustangs two weeks ago.
Perhaps the most intriguing game of the weekend sees #14
Georgia Tech as a three-point road favorite at South Bend against the #8-ranked
Fighting Irish. Notre Dame lost their starting quarterback for the seasonlast week,
and if that wasn’t troubling enough they face what is widely considered as the
best triple-option offense in all of college football.
We’ll be back next week to look at the high
profile games for Week 4 of the College Football season.
