Best College Football Value Bets to Throw Down This Summer
Anything is possible before the games begin, right?
Now less than three months until the 2015 college football season gets underway, we're starting to get to that point where the anticipation gets the better of us. Spring practice is over, preseason camp is still weeks away and all there's left to do is wait. And wonder. And maybe search out some juicy bets that could pay off in the long term.
There's no denying that college football is one of the most heavily bet sports out there, as evidenced by the fact there are already point spreads available for Week 1 games and prop bets are available in connection with the Heisman Trophy and national championship contenders. You can even wager on whether a certain FBS team will finish over or under a certain win total.
Most of these early odds are nothing more than a crapshoot, so to speak. The trick is finding bets that have more value than others, ones that either have a reward that far outweighs the risk or ones that are too juicy to pass up.
Using odds provided by Odds Shark and 5Dimes, we've picked out a few potential wagers that might be worth taking a flyer on. That's assuming you happen to be visiting Las Vegas anytime soon, since that's the only place in the U.S. where sports betting is legal.
Everett Golson to Win the Heisman Trophy (20-1)
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For the longest time, the Heisman Trophy was won almost exclusively by juniors and seniors, upperclassmen who had put in their hours and were rewarded for their dedication and development. Then Tim Tebow won as a sophomore in 2007, and in 2012 and 2013 we had a pair of redshirt freshmen (Johnny Manziel and Jameis Winston) take home the trophy, and now all bets are off.
Will we see a true freshman win the Heisman at some point? Probably, especially with the increased prevalence of first-year players getting thrown right into the fire.
But what about a graduate transfer, a player who opts to go elsewhere for his final year of college in hopes of finding a better situation to play in?
If someone is going to start that trend, Everett Golson seems like a perfect candidate. And at 20-1, he's got pretty good value.
Golson began last year with the same odds while at Notre Dame, despite having missed the 2013 season because of an academic suspension, and by midseason he was among the favorites, thanks to leading the Fighting Irish to a 6-0 start. But once the losses began—and the turnovers continued—his chances of winning quickly evaporated.
This spring, Golson realized he wasn't going to beat out Malik Zaire for the starting job at Notre Dame, so he looked elsewhere to play. He's got no guarantee of being Florida State's starter now that he's transferred there for his final year of eligibility, but if he does end up in that role, and he succeeds, he'd be in a prime position to win the Heisman.
Jimbo Fisher's offense has been a godsend for passers, with his last three starters getting drafted in the first round. Winston went from relative unknown to phenom in one game in 2013, and before him, EJ Manuel was getting Heisman hype.
If Golson is able to beat out Sean Maguire and others for the starting job, and FSU is able to remain in the playoff discussion despite losing 11 players to the 2015 NFL draft, look for Golson to shoot up the Heisman charts. And for that 20-to-1 bet placed now to look pretty good.
Purdue/Marshall Over 63 Points (5-6)
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There are a surprising number of power-conference teams that open the season on the road against non-power opponents in 2015, with Baylor opening at SMU, Michigan State traveling to Western Michigan, Mississippi State heading to Southern Mississippi and Oklahoma State visiting Central Michigan among them.
But in all of those cases, the power team is favored, and heavily. According to 5Dimes' opening lines, Michigan State (-23) is the smallest favorite of that quartet.
Then there's Purdue, which opens as a 12.5-point underdog at Marshall. The Boilermakers were 3-9 last year, while Marshall went 13-1, so this isn't that surprising. What is, however, is how few points are projected to be scored.
Marshall was third in the country in scoring in 2014, at 45.6 points per game, according to cfbstats.com. Yes, it does have to replace record-setting quarterback Rakeem Cato, who set the record for consecutive games with a touchdown pass at 45, as well as prolific receiver Heath Shuler.
But the Thundering Herd do bring back a 1,700-yard rusher in Devon Johnson, who gets to open the year against a Purdue team that was 93rd against the run last year, per cftstats.com.
Purdue also allowed nearly 32 points per game last season.
Ohio State to Win the National Title (7-2)
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Sports fans have a love/hate relationship with repeat champions, with quite a few people on the hate side of that equation. Fans of parity would prefer to see a different team win a national title every year, rather than see a dynasty formed that relegates the rest of the field to second-tier status.
This isn't just the case in college football or even just in team sports. Tiger Woods had his fair share of detractors when he was looking like he could win every golf major on the schedule each year, and just recently there were plenty of people who for some reason did not want to see American Pharoah become the first Triple Crown winner in horse racing since 1978.
But despite the haters, the odds usually say otherwise. Pharoah went off as a 3-to-5 favorite, so his winning the Belmont Stakes didn't pay off that richly.
Compare that to the odds that defending FBS champion Ohio State is getting, per Odds Shark, and you'd think the Buckeyes were replacing 20 starters from last year rather than bringing back a nearly intact squad from the one that rolled through the playoffs last winter.
Florida State was among the favorites last year, but doubts about replacing certain players and James Winston's various off-the-field issues began to sour oddsmakers on the Seminoles, even as they continued to win. The same could happen with OSU, especially if its three-headed quarterback situation turns into more of a distraction as the season goes on.
For now, though, take this bet and run with it.
.jpg?w=256 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
Northern Illinois Over 8.5 Wins (6-5)
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Boise State is the darling of the mid-majors in college football, always looked at as a non-power team that has what it takes to play with the big boys. The Broncos proved that again last year by earning the Group of Five's bid into a major bowl game and then beating Arizona in the Fiesta Bowl.
Northern Illinois has been just as successful as Boise over the past five years, at least in the regular season, yet doesn't get nearly as much notoriety. That's continuing here in 2015 as the Huskies are projected to post their lowest win total since 2009 despite returning 14 starters from last year's third Mid-American Conference title in the past four seasons.
"You don't make a lot of money betting against NIU, do you?," SB Nation's Bill Connelly wrote in March when previewing this year's team.
NIU has won its division five straight times, and while that's the MAC's stronger side by far, the schedule it has this season sets up to where only one of the toughest matchups is on the road. That's against Toledo on Nov. 3, a Tuesday, the first of four so-called "MACtion" games on ESPN when the league becomes midweek filler programming prior to the start of college basketball season.
NIU owns those nights, having won all 11 Tuesday or Wednesday night games since 2010.
The key to the Huskies topping 8.5 wins, though, lies in their nonconference schedule. Openers against UNLV and FCS Murray State are no issue, but then come back-to-back road games against power programs. First is a trip to defending national champion Ohio State, which should be considered an automatic loss—unless you know something we don't—and is then followed by a a visit to Boston College.
BC graduated its entire offensive line and a quarterback (Tyler Murphy) who set the ACC record for rushing yards by a passer, so the Eagles are certainly vulnerable. And NIU has a history of winning at power teams, beating Northwestern last season and knocking off Iowa in 2013.
Baylor to Make the College Football Playoff (4-1)
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Baylor coach Art Briles has been one of the Big 12's staunchest opponents having a conference championship game, saying that "if you can go undefeated in our league, you'll be in the College Football Playoffs" (h/t Bill Bender of Sporting News).
That might be the only way the Bears—or any team in that league—will make the national semifinals since their lack of a conference championship game seems to have negatively impacted both Baylor and TCU last season despite each going 11-1.
This is especially true for Baylor in 2015, because once again it has one of the weakest nonconfernece schedules of any power team and therefore can't fall back on any boost an early non-league win could provide to negate a potential league loss.
Nobody on the playoff selection committee is going to be raving about the strength of beating SMU, Lamar and Rice when evaluating Baylor's resume. It's all going to come down to that Big 12 mark and in reality to just one game: the Nov. 27 visit to TCU.
Baylor will have a new quarterback this year, but most of the rest of the lineup is the same from last year, so there's no reason to think it can't win the rest of its conference games. November trips to Kansas State and Oklahoma State could be problematic, but neither are as difficult as last season's trek to West Virginia that came a week after the thrilling comeback win over TCU at home.
If Baylor is able to win at TCU, all that would be left is a home finale against Texas that is set to be played the same day as the ACC, Big Ten, Pac-12 and SEC title games. It won't have the same value as a conference championship, but if the Bears are unbeaten, it will in effect be like a fifth power-league playoff qualifier.
North Carolina State to Win the ACC (16-1)
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Florida State losing so much talent from its recent stellar two-year run has made it vulnerable to losing its ACC crown for the first time in a while. Clemson and Georgia Tech figure to be the top candidates to swoop in and take over residence atop the league mountain, especially since both teams get to host FSU this season.
But don't count out North Carolina State, which made a big jump from its first season under Dave Doeren to the second in 2014 and is on the kind of upward trend that should put it in the ACC title discussion.
NC State pushed FSU to the limit last year, opening up a huge first-half lead on the Seminoles only to falter down the stretch. The Wolfpack have eight offensive starters back from that team, while FSU has four returning. The game is in Tallahassee, but it's not until mid-November, at which point NC State could have enough momentum to win in Doak Campbell Stadium for the first time since 2005.
The Wolfpack get Clemson at home before that, and they avoid Georgia Tech in crossover games, instead facing two inconsistent foes in Virginia Tech (away) and North Carolina (home).
If NC State were in the Coastal Division, it would likely be the favorite to make the ACC title game and therefore have much better odds. Instead, it's a juicy value bet that's worth taking a flier on.
Nebraska Under 8 Wins (11-10)
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"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."—George Santayana
This famous quote from a Spanish-born philosopher has been around for a century and has been applied to countless scenarios since then. It should have been something that Nebraska's athletic department was aware of when it fired Bo Pelini last December and replaced him with Oregon State's Mike Riley, since the Cornhuskers could be in line to repeat a past mistake.
Pelini was let go despite winning at least nine games in all seven of his seasons in Lincoln, succeeded by a coach in Riley who is regarded as one of the nicest guys in the game but who only got to nine victories four times in 14 seasons in Corvallis.
This isn't the first time Nebraska has parted ways with a coach who had won big. Frank Solich went 58-18 in six seasons, winning at least nine games five times, before getting fired at the end of the 2003 season. He was replaced by Bill Callahan, who had led the NFL's Oakland Raiders to a Super Bowl in 2012 but was fired a year later after going 4-12.
Callahan's first Nebraska team went 5-6, the program's first losing record since 1961 and the first of two he'd have in his four-year tenure before getting replaced by Pelini. That 2004 Cornhuskers team only faced one team that ended up winning more than eight games that season.
The 2015 schedule has two—Wisconsin and Michigan State, both at home—but altogether features nine teams that made bowl games last season. There's a tougher-than-normal opener against BYU, a dangerous trip to Miami (Florida) and only three or four guaranteed wins on the slate.
The value in taking the under on Nebraska's win total isn't that significant, but knowing that an 8-4 mark will trigger a push lessens the risk.
Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.
.jpg?w=480 "Ohio State Team Doctor")
