Week 4 college football thread: How Sooner is Now?

Texas is No. 1 in college football, and flipping on 11/5.

 

The surgeon general has determined that exposure to millions of dollars worth of political advertising is hazardous to your health.

 

Ordinarily these bowl or rivalry game Halls of Fame are of little news value. But this is kind of cool: Goldberg will be in the Florida-Georgia Hall of Fame.

https://www.jacksonville.com/story/...ame-jacksonville-gators-bulldogs/75267024007/

 

The way both teams are trending, Georgia's winning streak in this series might top Goldberg's WCW winning streak.

 

Games I like this week:
• Mississippi State +5.5 vs. Florida — You don’t normally get dead man walking coaches and teams that have mentally checked out until November. Finding one in September — let alone one that is giving almost a full touchdown on the road — is like finding gold in your pocket.
Give me the team that’s struggling over the one that's in freefall in the Kansas City Southern Trainwreck Bowl, presented by Waste Management.

• California +2.5/ML at Florida State — Cal is a pretty respectable 3-0, and we all know Florida State’s issues by now. The only reason to pick Florida State is the idea that “they’re due” or “they can’t really be this bad, can they?” I think they are not, and yes they can be.

• Oklahoma State -2.5/ML vs. Utah — I picked this game before finding out that Cam Rising might play for Utah. They’re a clearly different team with him vs. without him. Just have to hope Okie State can take care of business at home.

• North Texas -9.5 vs. Wyoming — I know North Texas just got destroyed last week, but Wyoming is not good at all. Like Florida and Florida State, keep fading them until it hurts. I love my spunky underdogs who get a lot of points, but just as glorious are the shitty teams that don't get enough.
With Wyoming, Florida and Florida State, embrace the suck while you can.

• Minnesota ML vs. Iowa — Paired this with Mississippi State and Cal money line bets just to take a shot. Seems like a game that Minnesota can certainly win.

• Ole Miss -36.5 vs. Georgia Southern — Keep rolling with the Rebels until they show otherwise, or play one of the really good SEC teams. Whichever comes first.

And some games I want to like but can’t:
• Penn State -48.5/O55.5 vs. Kent State — As has been noted on this thread, the math is just too weird on this one. Even the odds (-112 instead of the usual -110) are weird. Math is hard. Pass.

• New Mexico +15.5 vs. Fresno State — I like New Mexico, but only when they get 20+. They have a tendency to fade badly in the last quarter and a half, which opens the door to all sorts of nasty backdoor stuff better left suited for a long-exiled poster. I’d hate to lose a bet because someone Boots a meaningless field goal with a minute left.

• Tennessee -7.5 at Oklahoma — This feels like the spot where Tennessee, drunk on its hype, chokes on its own vomit, doesn’t it? An impressive start against shitty teams, getting plenty of hype, and a road game against a decent-not-great ranked opponent everyone expects them to crush ... it feels like we’ve been here before.
That said, Oklahoma looks like a lost freshman wandering the halls of SEC High on the first day of school. Can’t trust them, either.

• LSU -24.5 vs. UCLA — Another game where I just don’t trust either team with that spread. LSU isn’t as bad as they were made out to be after losing to USC, and UCLA is not very good at all. Yet 24.5 points both seems way too high for LSU, and not enough to jump on UCLA. A 31-10 or uncomfortable (from a betting perspective) 35-10 blowout by LSU is very plausible. Let’s skip the stress and just enjoy the game.

 

I don’t usually question your weekly betting tips, Batman … but UCLA got destroyed at home by Indiana and should have lost in Honolulu to an awful Hawaii team. LSU can probably name their score.

Of course I never put my money where my mouth is and actually wager on college football. If I did, I would already have lost taking Oregon in its opener vs. Idaho.

 

LSU hasn't really hit its stride yet, and that number is just a little too big for my liking at this point in time. This is the same LSU team that didn't pull away from Nicholls State until the second half and was down 17-0 to South Carolina the last two weeks. They've scored one touchdown in the first quarter in three games so far. They're obviously a second-half team. A slow start here means they probably don't cover, even if they pull away for a comfortable win.
At the same time, UCLA is terrible like you said, so can you trust them on the road, in that environment, even with a big number?
One of the rules I try to follow is, when you don't trust either team it's probably best to just steer clear. There are 60 or 70 other games on the board.

Plus I hate betting against LSU. It's bad karma. I always have the scene from "Everybody's All-American" playing in my head, when John Goodman's character loses a ton of money betting against LSU. He gets pissed and Ghost asks him what's wrong, realizes what happened, and says in disbelief, "You bet against the Tigers!?"

 

Another way of looking at it is hedging your emotional happiness, at least if you can bet money line. State U crapped the bed? Here’s some money to cushion the blow. And if it goes the other way, well how many times have you said I’d pay anything to pull this game out?

 

I can do it without remorse if they are clearly outmatched and the outcome is so obvious that betting against them is the only way to get some satisfaction out of it. It's happened a few times.

Like if LSU was in the situation Florida is in now, where the obvious likelihood is a 2-10 season, I'd have no problems with it. If they're going to suck anyway, the bastards might as well make some money for me.
The same philosophy applies to Alabama. They're winning 11 or 12 games no matter how much I hate them, so let's put them to work.

 

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