College Football Week 14: Picking the CFP Top 25 Games Against the Spread
As rivalry week approaches, the end of college football season beckons. This is the last full slate of games until September 2015. And we'd better find a way to make it count.
Fortunately, I am coming to you on a hot streak, having just gone 12-4 against the spread with my Week 13 picks. The professional thing to do would be to act like I have been here before. No biggie…I always cash at 80 percent. Just toss the ball back to the referee.
Whatever. Professionalism is overrated.
Seriously, though, I saw the board well last week and think I have a similar read on the rivalry games. Typically, that means it might be time to fade me. Statistically, that means it's definitely time to fade me. Heed this advice at your own, readily assumed risk.
But don't come crying to me if you fade these and end up 4-12.
All spreads courtesy of Odds Shark unless noted otherwise.
No. 5 TCU at Texas
1 of 11
The Line: TCU (-7)
Is TCU a fraudulent playoff contender? No. It has earned its place at No. 5 in the College Football Playoff rankings, lurking just outside the national semifinal. The F/+ ratings at Football Outsiders also deem it the No. 5 team in the country.
But it wouldn't take a fraudulent playoff contender to struggle with Texas in Austin. Not with the way the Longhorns have been playing as of late. Convincing wins over West Virginia and Oklahoma State have earned UT bowl eligibility. A third straight win over TCU would cap the salvation of a year that—at one point—looked disastrous.
"I think [beating TCU] would really set the foundation of this program," receiver John Harris told reporters Monday. "You get a win over a top 25 team, then you get a win over a top 5 team in the month of November you're basically undefeated with a four-game win streak, so I think it would be a huge momentum swing going into next year, and especially going into the bowl game."
Texas sounds like a team that can hang within a touchdown.
(…And maybe even much more than that.)
The Pick: Texas (+7)
Arkansas at No. 17 Missouri
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The Line: Arkansas (-1.5)
Arkansas is favored, on the road, against the leader of the SEC East, just two weeks after snapping a 17-game conference losing streak.
Doesn't that seem like it's just a bit too much?
Missouri took affront to being a 3.5-point underdog at Tennessee last weekend, winning by eight points in Knoxville. The Vols, like the Razorbacks, rode in on a two-game conference winning streak that made them the flavor of the month. But Missouri, in true Gary Pinkel fashion, made winning ugly look like a beautiful thing.
Arkansas became bowl eligible last weekend and has nothing sans pride and momentum to play for. Pride and momentum are important motivating factors, but they pale in comparison to qualifying for the SEC Championship Game.
The Tigers have more to play for, home-field advantage and the best defensive line in college football—no; this point is not up for dispute—to combat an offense that relies on winning in the trenches.
So…why are they favored to lose?
The Pick: Missouri (+1.5)
Stanford at No. 8 UCLA
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The Line: UCLA (-5)
Stanford has won its past six meetings with UCLA, most recently by the count of 24-10 last season. The meeting before that was the second-ever Pac-12 Championship Game, which Stanford won 27-24.
Last week I picked UCLA to cover against USC under the guise of recent history: because Brett Hundley had owned the Trojans the past two seasons. In truth, though, I picked the Bruins because I thought they were the better team. Series history helped, no doubt, but the ultimate deciding factor was "which roster has more talent?"
Stanford has a defense worth fearing, but UCLA has a more well-rounded team from top to bottom. It also has the same benefits as Missouri: home-field advantage and the stakes of clinching its division (and continuing its dark-horse playoff run) with a win.
Sorry, recent history.
This time I think you get bucked.
The Pick UCLA (-5)
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No. 13 Arizona State at No. 11 Arizona
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The Line: PK*
Odds Shark does not have a line for this game, ostensibly because Arizona quarterback Anu Solomon is questionable with a bum ankle.
"Who knows?," Solomon said Monday of his playing status, per Steve Rivera of FoxSports.com. "I dont even know. ... When it's game time and the lights turn on I should be ready."
According to Vegas Insider, the consensus line has dropped to a pick'em after opening Arizona minus-4.5, which is a significant move. Are we sure that's fair, though? USC transfer Jesse Scroggins looked alright in the second half against Utah, and it's not like Solomon was playing great football the past few weeks anyway.
In fact, he'd been pretty darn bad.
The reason to pick Arizona has less to do with its quarterback situation and more to do with its running game and—unthinkably—its defense. The Wildcats have allowed an average of 18.25 points in their last four games, and Arizona State has not looked the same since a clearly-still-hurt Taylor Kelly returned to the starting lineup.
The Pick: Arizona (PK)
Michigan at No. 6 Ohio State
5 of 11
The Line: Ohio State (-21)
Michigan looked like a team that quit on its coach against Maryland last weekend. It looked much the same way against Northwestern one week prior. Sure, it needs this win to make a bowl game. But wouldn't most folks in Ann Arbor rather that this season just end?
Ohio State, meanwhile, has the world to play for Saturday. Its road to the playoff was helped by the Week 14 CFP rankings, which kept it at No. 6 despite a struggle to beat Indiana. It had its mulligan. It survived its mulligan. And now it's time to get back to business.
Michigan lost by 24 points against its other rival, Michigan State, back in Week 9. The Spartans scored a contentious late touchdown to earn that cover, but in truth they deserved to win by even more than they did. Turnovers and missed field goals made that game seem a lot closer than it was. Michigan State pummeled Michigan.
Ohio State proved in vivid fashion that it's even better than Michigan State when it beat Sparty 49-37 in East Lansing. That game, like Michigan State's win over Michigan, was even more lopsided than the final score indicates, kept close by costly turnovers.
If Ohio State holds onto the football, it's at least four touchdowns better than Michigan. Maybe even more.
The Pick: Ohio State (-21)
No. 16 Georgia Tech at No. 9 Georgia
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The Line: Georgia Tech (+13)
It's the last game of the regular season, and it still feels like we have no idea whether Georgia Tech is actually good.
The only ranked team the Yellow Jackets have played is Clemson, but Deshaun Watson left that game with a leg injury in the first quarter. A Cole Stoudt-led team is not a legitimate ranked opponent, as Clemson has proved over and over this season. The Tigers without Watson sort of stink.
Regardless, Paul Johnson's team has been so good against inferior opponents that it ranks No. 14 on the F/+ ratings and leads the country in offensive efficiency. Those numbers are adjusted for strength of competition too, which means they aren't inflated.
Georgia Tech has been scoring on teams at will.
Georgia, meanwhile, allowed 418 rushing yards against Florida the last time it played an overt run-first offense. The Gators, who rank No. 80 in offensive F/+, attempted only six passes in that game.
Ruh-roh.
The Pick: Georgia Tech (+13)
Florida at No. 3 Florida State
7 of 11
The Line: Florida (+7.5)
Florida State has played 11 games this season. It has won all 11 of those games. But, for good stretches of seven of those games—the ones played against Oklahoma State, Clemson, NC State, Notre Dame, Louisville, Miami and Boston College—it looked for sure like it would lose.
"Championship teams are generally defined by their ability to dominate inferior opponents, not their ability to win close games," is one of the self-described basics at Football Outsiders. It is a reference to down-by-down efficiency, which in most cases does a better job reflecting success than something as raw as wins and losses.
That isn't to say that Florida will, or even can, beat the Seminoles. It's only to say that the Seminoles, despite their 11-0 record (and 27-game win streak), have not been a championship team.
Florida can cover 7.5 points against a non-championship team. Especially in Will Muschamp's last hurrah. Say what you will about his coaching proficiency, but Muschamp's players love playing for him.
And they only get to do it one last time.
The Pick: Florida (+7.5)
No. 4 Mississippi State at No. 19 Ole Miss
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The Line: Mississippi State (-2)
Mississippi State broke out of a rut with a 51-0 win at Vanderbilt last weekend. But make no mistake about it: a rut is what the Bulldogs were in. Their previous three SEC games were a loss at Alabama, a close win over Arkansas and a close win over Kentucky.
Fortunately, the rut Dan Mullen's team experienced was nothing compared with that of its in-state rival. Ole Miss moved to No. 3 in the CFP standings after beating Tennessee October 18. Since then, it is 1-3 with a win over Presbyterian.
The Bulldogs and Rebels have split the past 14 Egg Bowls. This game is as much of a toss-up as its less-than-a-field-goal line would have you think. But whom would you rather have leading your offense in a toss-up game: Dak Prescott or Bo Wallace?
Dr. Bo did fumble away last year's edition—did he not?
The Pick: Mississippi State (-2)
No. 18 Minnesota at No. 14 Wisconsin
9 of 11
The Line: Wisconsin (-14.5)
The CFP selection committee is high on Minnesota. The folks in Las Vegas are not. One week after winning a close game at Nebraska, the Gophers are laying more than two touchdowns at Wisconsin.
But it's not as if that line makes no sense. Wisconsin beat Minnesota by 13 points, 20-7, under similar late-season circumstances in 2013. Neither of these teams is demonstrably better or worse than they were last season, only this time the game will (a) be played Madison and (b) decide if the Badgers make the Big Ten title game.
Melvin Gordon lost his single-game FBS rushing record to Samaje Perine last weekend, but in rushing for 200 yards against Iowa, he kept his pace for an even more important FBS rushing record: the single-season mark set by Barry Sanders in 1988.
Sanders rushed for 2,628 yards that season. Gordon has rushed for 2,109 yards through 11 games. If he continues this pace for the rest of the season—provided Wisconsin beats Minnesota, and thus plays three more games—he will finish with 2,684 rushing yards.
And he won't let Minnesota stand in the way of that.
The Pick: Wisconsin (-14.5)
No. 15 Auburn at No. 1 Alabama
10 of 11
The Line: Alabama (-9.5)
Perhaps you remember what happened last year?
If not, here's a quick refresher: Alabama outgained Auburn by 100 yards in Jordan-Hare Stadium but missed four field goals, one of which was returned for the game-winning score as time expired.
The Tigers won the SEC West, then beat Missouri in the conference title game and lost to Florida State in the BCS National Championship. Alabama lost to Oklahoma in the Sugar Bowl.
The story written after last season concerned Nick Saban not being able to stop uptempo offenses. In truth, however, the Tide fared as well as any team in the country against Gus Malzahn's attack. And this year, they beat another team with an uptempo offense, Texas A&M, 59-0 in a game they could have easily won by 80.
Texas A&M, for what it's worth, beat Auburn on the Plains less than a month ago. The transitive property is a bad way to measure two teams, but in this case it at least bears mention. Auburn's defense couldn't wrap up a burrito, which is not a good tactic against an offense that likes to force-feed the ball to Amari Cooper.
The Pick: Alabama (-9.5)
Other Top 25 Games
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Western Kentucky at No. 24 Marshall (-23)
Western Kentucky can score, a lot, which is more than one typically gets from a 23-point underdog. Marshall will get an adrenaline boost from having just cracked the CFP standings, and I don't think it will lose straight up. But this seems like a whole lot of points.
The Pick: Western Kentucky (+23)
South Carolina at No. 21 Clemson (-4.5)
I would prefer not to pick this game. Clemson quarterback Deshaun Watson is questionable with a leg injury, and there's no way the Tigers can cover this line without him. (Cole Stoudt has been that bad.) With Watson, though, my lean would only slightly be toward Clemson. By that logic, I guess South Carolina is the safer pick.
The Pick: South Carolina (+4.5)
Kentucky at No. 22 Louisville (-13)
Louisville is a better team than Kentucky. SEC or not, that's the truth. But Kentucky is better than some of the teams Louisville has struggled to put away—namely, NC State and Wake Forest. The Wolfpack and Demon Deacons both lost by less than 13 points in Papa John's Cardinal Stadium. And in that case, so can the Wildcats.
The Pick: Kentucky (+13)
No. 25 Utah (-9) at Colorado
Colorado returns from a two-game road trip to finish its season in Boulder, where it has strangely kept every game competitive. It led Washington through 40 minutes. It took UCLA to two overtimes. It hung around with Arizona State. This feels like a classic momentum-for-next-season spot for the Buffaloes, who, despite being 2-9, are heading in the right direction under Mike MacIntyre.
The Pick: Colorado (+9)
No. 7 Baylor (-25) at Texas Tech
A commenter called me an idiot for picking Oklahoma State plus-28 last week. I did it for a reason. Winning conference games by four touchdowns is difficult—even for Baylor. Arkansas, West Virginia, Texas and Oklahoma have all beaten Texas Tech in Lubbock this season, but not a single one has won by 25 points.
The Pick: Texas Tech (+25)
No. 10 Michigan State (-13) at Penn State
Penn State finished last season with an upset over Wisconsin. The last time it played a good team, it took Ohio State to double overtime. I want to take the home underdog, but there's a stat here I can't seem to shake. In seven Big Ten games, guess how many times Penn State has scored 20 points in regulation. Did you guess zero? Because it's zero. And that includes games against Rutgers, Northwestern, Indiana and Illinois. Welcome to Christian Hackenberg's darkest timeline.
The Pick: Michigan State (-13)
No. 2 Oregon (-20) at Oregon State
Oregon has played four road games this season. It beat Washington State by seven, UCLA by 12, Cal by 18 and Utah by 24. Notice a pattern? Because those games were listed in chronological order. By my count, that means Oregon by 29 or 30 in Corvallis.
The Pick: Oregon (-20)
Utah State at No. 23 Boise State (-9)
Just like last year, Utah State has overcome the loss of quarterback Chuckie Keeton and slowly eased into a rhythm. This year, it also lost projected first-round draft pick Kyler Fackrell at linebacker. Boise State has more to play for—namely, a spot in one of the New Year's Bowls—but the Aggies are playing too well to get blown out. Their three-point loss at Colorado State speaks well to their viability.
The Pick: Utah State (+9)
Last Week: 12-4-0
For the Season: 35-28-0
Follow Brian Leigh on Twitter: @BLeighDAT
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
