Gambling Thread

Oof.
Did San Diego State and Tulsa as an afternoon two-teamer. It did not go well at all. Both teams lost outright. San Diego State got its ass kicked.

Did the three evening games (Tulane, Kentucky and Louisiana-Monroe) as a three-teamer. Tulane and Kentucky squeaked across the finish line, but ULM completely shit the bed against Texas. Getting a healthy 37 points, and they lost 52-10 in large part because of a pick six and a blocked punt that was returned for a touchdown. I really thought they'd cover that line fairly easily. D/ST touchdowns that go against you are the devil, man.

At least my instincts on the three stay-aways were good. Alabama covered the 41 against Utah State by halftime and padded it after that, and won 55-0. Oklahoma was giving 30 against UTEP and won by 32, just like I thought they would. And Southern Miss covered (they lost 29-27 to Liberty) but it went to four overtimes and could have easily wound up as a six- or seven-point game in regulation. Glad I wasn't sweating that out.

On to Hawaii. Let's go Hilltoppers!

 

Speaking of Southern Miss, keep an eye on them as a potentially good totals play. I watched most of their game against Liberty tonight, and they ran the Superback (a.k.a., the Wildcat) offense the entire second half because one quarterback got knocked out of the game and the other one sucked. They were effective enough with it to think they might use it a lot again this season, but not nearly effective enough to where they're going to blow people's doors off.
It's the same strategy they used last year that made them a great Under team. They only had four games last season where the final total was over 50 points, and all four went Over. One of those was against Alabama, which hit the 57.5 Over by itself.

So basically, my advice is to watch their totals. The total tonight was 50.5 against Liberty. They wound up over, but the game was at 34 with two minutes left. The teams traded TDs in the last two minutes to get to 48, then went over in overtime. If Southern Miss' totals are in the 50s or above, going Under is probably a good bet in a lot of cases. Their next three games are at Miami, home vs. Northwestern State, and at Tulane. I can see all three games having favorable totals in that range.

 

Tulsa was the right side the whole game... until they weren't. Wyoming's offense was terrible -- as Wyo scored 14 points on a blocked punt return and a fumble return for TDs. They had no business climbing back into the game at 34-24. But they did.

I was on Arizona ML as I think Fisch is a pretty good coach.

 

D/ST touchdowns suck ass. That game didn't matter, though, since I had Tulsa and San Diego State in a two-teamer. It only hurt my pride.

Arizona looked a hell of a lot better than they've looked in a long time. They said they had 50 new players, and apparently they got them all from the five-star bin — or at least that's how it seemed yesterday. That game finished 38-20 and it wasn't even that close. Arizona looked like they were moving the ball at will. I've already started looking at next week's lines, and the O/U on Arizona-Mississippi State is 61.5. I think I'm pounding the Over on that for a late night special. Based on yesterday, that could hit by the third quarter.

 

Hit a five-team parlay on the biggest games last weekend -- took Georgia, Florida, ND, Florida State and Arkansas. Very happy with the result.

 

How have they still not solved this after last year? I triple checked your post to make sure I wasn’t misreading you talking about 2021 or that I had missed a time stamp. That should have been priority A, B and C in the portal.

 

Bravo!

 

You would think. I guess they had two guys on the roster they wanted to develop from scratch. One got hurt and didn't come back (and might not play this week), and the other underwhelmed in his limited action so they went to the tried-and-true to try and win the game. It pretty much worked, too, except the defense let Liberty hit a couple of big pass plays in the last two minutes.

 

Games I like for Week 2:

• Southern Miss U54.5 at Miami — For the reasons discussed above, although I liked this game a touch more when it was 57. Southern Miss plays some really good defense, can score with it (four pick-sixes in their last five games including one last week) and tries to keep the score down. If they give up a ton, they won't score a ton. And if they don't give up a ton they still won't score a ton. Just gotta hope they don't score just enough to push this to the Over.

• Alabama -20 at Texas — Lock of the week. This Alabama team might be an all-time great, and Texas is nowhere near even great. This is also the kind of game Alabama wins by 40 just to prove a point.

• Mississippi State O59.5 at Arizona — Could be an error of recency bias here, but both teams looked pretty damn good on offense in their openers. This has shootout written all over it, and that 59.5 is like a juicy steak waiting to be bitten into.
Befitting the bizarre times we live in, however, the one caveat is that a hurricane could impact a game in Arizona. Hurricane Kay is forecast to skirt the Baja coast and turn out to sea as of now, but a shift in the track or forward motion could make this a weather game and might slow both teams down.

• Georgia Southern +21.5 at Nebraska — Seriously, at this point, how can you not take a team getting three touchdowns against Nebraska no matter who it is?

• Colorado State -7.5 vs. Middle Tennessee — You can write off Colorado State getting blasted on the road against Michigan. It's a lot harder to do it with Middle Tennessee doing the same at James Madison. With a modest line, give me Colorado State at home, especially if this line dips below 7.

And two games I want to like, but can't quite get there:

• Notre Dame -19 vs. Marshall — I think Notre Dame is a very good team that should win this game easily. For some reason, though, this game scares me. Can't quite put my finger on it.

• Michigan -51.5 vs. Hawaii — Almost no line is too big to bet against Hawaii at this point, but this one is just a little too big. Figure Michigan has to score at least 60 to avoid a garbage time touchdown swinging the game, and there's just too many things that can go wrong. At the same time, I don't trust Hawaii to score the 14 points it'll probably take to cover. It's a regrettable stay-away. We're only going to have 10 more chances to bet against a really shitty Hawaii team this season and letting one go feels wrong on some level.

 

I'm sitting out the real gambling for a bit. Just have had a rough go (relatively, not big-money losses) with a lot of heavy favorites bending me over and such. I'm still interested, but just not ready to add money to the old account at this time.

That said, a couple of lines stick out to me:

* New Mexico +17 at home against Boise State on Friday. Watched a fair chunk of the Boise-Beaver game and came away very underwhelmed by the Broncos. I don't know if the Lobos are any good, but 17 is a lot of points to cover. I'd lean Lobos to keep it within two TDs.

* That Wake line at Vanderbilt is now -13 with Hartman coming back. I think the Deacs crush it and win by at least 21. Vandy is a cute story, but the 'Dores also gave up 31 at home to Elon last week, a team picked to finish mid-pack in the CAA.

* Army +2.5 at home against UTSA. I like the Knights to win outright here.

* Maryland -27 at Charlotte. The Niners may be really bad, having gotten slapped around at home by William & Mary. Maryland was OK last week at home but will want to make a statement here. I see a 52-20 sort of win.

* Iowa State/Iowa U40.5. El Assico will live up to its name again. See a 20-16ish final here.

* UAB -6.5 at Liberty. The Flames have a good home-field advantage but just lost their starting QB for eight weeks. Good chance for the fightin' NCs to pounce.

* USC -9 at Stanford. I think the Trojans have a chance to be really good. Stanford won't be able to score with them.

* Baylor +4 at BYU. This line keeps moving BYU's way, which makes me think the Bears win by a TD or more.

 

It's not a bad idea to wait a few weeks and see who is actually good and bad. I normally muddle along for the first month or so, wind up on the wrong end of one or two bad beats, and then turn a corner in October when it becomes more evident who is underrated and who is overrated.

On your picks, there are a few short underdogs that might be worth a small money line parlay. Army is one. Houston (-3 at Texas Tech) is another. And then throw Baylor (-4 at BYU) and Kentucky (-5.5 at Florida) on there. That's worth a $5 flyer.

I'm not sure I like them this week, but don't sleep on Liberty because of the quarterback injury. I watched a good bit of their game against Southern Miss last week and the third-stringer, Kaidon Salter, looked really good. He made some great plays with his feet and led them down the field for the tying touchdown in the last two minutes of regulation. He was the best of the three QBs they played. They might have something with him.

 

Stay away. I think we’re on opposite ends of nearly every play.

except for Army. So much backing on UTSA but I can’t help but think losing a heartbreaking game to Houston and then having to play triple option on the road is… difficult