Now that the Alabama Crimson Tide have fallen victim to whatever is in the water in college football this season, bettors are really wondering which teams they can trust the rest of the way.
Using the box scores as a guide to find some of those outlier performances or team trends that we can try to use in the next game or next few games might be one of the best weapons we have against this season.
It may make more sense moving forward to bet on things like team totals instead of spreads and game totals with the high degree of variance we’ve seen this season. Keep digging for opportunities and you’ll uncover enough gold to stay comfortably in the game.
Each week brings us some results to analyze. Let’s do that and close the book on Week 6 so that we can head into Week 7 with some angles to consider going forward.
Iowa 23, Penn State 20
One of my few good handicaps for Saturday was the Under in this game, even though it did lose by a couple of points. The teams combined for just 592 yards of offense, as Iowa managed just 4.01 yards per play in the game.
The Hawkeyes were plus-3 in turnover margin once again, though they scored only three points off of those four turnovers. The defense is legitimately solid, but the offense is legitimately bad. The outlier performance against Maryland was also aided by seven takeaways from the defense. Iowa has intercepted 7.1 percent of passes against. The national average is 2.7 percent. If anybody actually takes care of the ball against the Hawkeyes, they’ll cover and maybe even win.
Recommendation: Fade Iowa. The stage is set for the Hawkeyes to go undefeated into the Big Ten Championship game, but this is not a team you want to lay big numbers with because the offense is so limited. They’ll be a double-digit favorite against Purdue this week and will be a road favorite at Wisconsin on Oct. 30. They’ll be favored over Northwestern, Minnesota, Illinois and Nebraska as well. They’ve done well ATS and covered again against Penn State, though Sean Clifford’s injury was a big reason why.
I just don’t believe in this team. Again, the defense is legit, but covering numbers while putting up offensive numbers like they have is hard to do. Furthermore, Iowa has faced a backup quarterback in some fashion in five of its six games. This is a good team that has been turned into a great team with a lot of positive circumstances and outcomes. I’m not sure it continues.
Boise State 26, BYU 17
BYU fell from the ranks of the unbeaten on Saturday with a 26-17 loss to Boise State. The Cougars were minus-4 in turnover margin, as they coughed up three fumbles and Jaren Hall threw a pick on the last drive of the game. Two fumbles led directly to touchdowns, as one came on a kickoff at the BYU 23 and the other came on a running play at the BYU 24. The other was recovered at the Boise 10. BYU settled for a red-zone field goal on the first possession, had all of those fumbles and also turned it over on downs twice.
The Cougars were effectively minus-6 in turnover margin with the turnovers on downs. They out-gained Boise State by 101 yards, even though they ran 10 fewer plays. BYU had 6.45 yards per play to 4.22 for Boise.
Recommendation: Fade Boise State. My takeaway here is less about BYU and more about Boise State. The Cougars are a solid team and we’ve known that all along. The Broncos have looked really impressive only once. That was the win over Utah State. UTEP had six turnovers when Boise State won 54-13 and BYU was held back by turnovers here.
My guess is that a win like this bumps up Boise State’s perception and I don’t think it should. This is a pedestrian team and one with a first-year head coach in Andy Avalos that I’m not keen on going forward in Mountain West play. The Broncos have to deal with the Air Force option next in a potential fade spot, but I’ll really look to fade them against Colorado State and Fresno State on the road in the next two games.