NCAAF Week 11 Best Bets
Another week of college football, and another week of drama and talking heads saying how terrible the current college football playoff situation is. Then arguing about why one team is better than another rather than making a boatload of money on a tournament, this is the route they’ve chosen. Football isn’t convenient for a tournament, but I think you could get away with a 16-team tournament over January… you can still call them all bowl games and have sponsors. Anyway, we need to focus on week 11.
New Mexico State at Alabama
This will be a blowout. How much of a blowout? That’s the question. The Crimson Tide are consistently considered a top four team in the country almost every single year. This year, despite being ranked as a top team all year, they haven’t always looked great. New Mexico State is a bad football team. They’ve had one win on the year. They give up an average of 38 points per game, and that’s slightly less than Alabama’s average. I don’t expect the Aggies to score as many points as normal against a good Alabama defense. I just think the line is a bit too high in this one, so I’ll take the points, a whopping 51.5 at -115.
Duke at Virginia Tech
Here’s the thing, neither one of these teams is very good at stopping their opponents offensive gameplan. Duke is worse at it than Virginia Tech, but it isn’t such a huge gap like our first matchup we discussed. Duke is struggling with their passing game, and Virginia Tech is better against the pass than against the run. Neither of these teams have much left to play for other than pride. Most of Duke’s games have already been hovering at or over the posted total. I’m going play the over 51.5 at -110.
Rutgers at Indiana
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again… betting was made to make games like this matter to people who aren’t associated with the school in any way. Neither one of these teams has anything positive going for their season. As it winds down, they both are looking for one more win to wrap up the campaign. Rutgers can get to .500 with a victory, and Indiana can pick up a conference win. The total on this game is 41.5. I don’t see either of these teams as a threat to score, even against each other. Tomorrow is expected to be cold and cloudy in Indianapolis. The running game will be in full force, but that might mean defenses can sell out to stop it. I’ll cautiously play the under on this one.
Georgia at Tennessee
This is about as slim as slim gets, but I’m going to take my chances that Tennessee is the one to disrupt the rankings even further. I think they beat Georgia this weekend. Call it a hunch, call it whatever, but I think at home, they have a shot to take out the vaunted Georgia defense. Maybe it’s a stupid play against a team that is allowing less than a touchdown against them every game this year, but I like the value. I’m going to play Tennessee at +730 knowing that the likelihood of hitting this is similar to a four or five-leg spread parlay – low. Maybe this isn't a "best bet" but sometimes the value makes things worthwile.