Auburn and Central Florida are the only ranked teams that have gone 3-0 against the spread this season. The No. 2 Alabama, No. 10 Utah and No. 11 Michigan all have lost their last two games against the spread. So, let us take a closer look at these against-the-spread streaks for our Week 4 college football picks.
What is the Database Telling Us?
I’ve developed thousands of sports algorithms and machine learning tools over my 25-year career. Put simply, the end results are predictive metrics that look several weeks forward, but with a stronger attention to the current week. So, let’s look at what the summaries are telling us:
MORE: Get the latest college football odds at Sportsbook Review
No. 8 Auburn vs. No. 17 Texas A&M
Opening line: Texas A&M -4
The result of this game will have a massive impact on the SEC’s West division standings and should be telling of which team has the best chance to knock off No. 2 Alabama. Six SEC teams are ranked in this week’s AP Top 25, and four of them are in the West Division. including No. 4 LSU. So, I’m certain many of you laughed when the talking-head experts predicted the SEC was on the decline this season.
Auburn has strong winning momentum coming into this game with a 3-0 record straight up and against the spread. The ground game is one of the most powerful in the nation, averaging 282 rushing yards per game. Redshirt-sophomore JaTarvious Whitlow has 64 of Auburn’s 150 rushing attempts (43 percent) and has gained a team-high 341 rushing yards (40.4 percent of the team’s total). He’s averaging 5.3 yards-per-rush and has three touchdowns.
The ground attack more than offsets the inexperience of true freshman quarterback Bo Nix, who has completed just 52.4 percent of his 84 pass attempts for 545 passing yards. He has improved in each game and seems to relish the bright lights and big stages.
In his last game, Nix completed 75 percent of his passes for 177 yards and logged two total touchdowns. He has thrown a touchdown in each of his three starts, and isn’t being pressed to put the team on his shoulders. Auburn coach Gus Malzahn has the experience to increase his playmaking opportunities as the season rolls on. Nix is going to be a superstar in the SEC and could end up one of the best quarterbacks in Auburn history, even ahead of his father, Pat Nix, who ranks seventh on the Tigers’ All-time passing list.
Auburn will score a minimum of 28 points, will rush for more than 200 yards, and will enjoy a five-minute advantage in time-of-possession against the Aggies. So, the Tigers will control the ball for 32.5 minutes, to the Aggies’ 27.5 minutes.
Since 2006, the Tigers are 19-3 straight up (winning the game by an average of 25 points) and 17-3-2 against the spread (covering the spread by an average 9.3 points) in games where they have scored 28 or more points and had a 5-minute advantage in time of possession. In that same span of time, the Tigers are 19-2 straight (winning the games by an average of 28.1 points) and 17-2-2 against the spread for 90 percent winning bets and covering the spread by an average of 9.8 points.
The bet: Auburn gets the 4.5 points. Expect the STRAIGHT-UP, UPSET win.
Michigan State vs. Northwestern
Opening Line: Michigan State -9.5 O/U: 39.5
Since the start of the 2014 season there have been 25 games in the Power 5 conferences that have had posted totals of fewer than 40 points. The Big Ten has 10 of these defense-dominant games. The Spartans have one of the best defenses in the nation and it will be running on full throttle after losing last week at home to Pac-12 opponent Arizona State, who was a 10.5-point underdog.
College football odds for this matchup opened with the Spartans as a 6.5-point favorite, and it has steadily risen. The Spartans are currently favored by 9.5 points, with a few sprinklings of 10-point odds. To move the line that much requires a significant amount of money being placed on the Spartans — but only 35 percent of the total number of bets are being placed on Michigan State.
The only way this can happen is for the average amount bet on the Spartans to be three to four times larger than the bets being placed on Northwestern. This phenomenon is a bullish trend, and is one of the many reasons I see the Spartans winning this game by 24 points.
The bet: Michigan State as a 9.5-point favorite.
Pittsburgh vs. No.15 UCF
Opening Line: UCF -12.5 O/U:58
UCF is 3-0 straight up and against the spread this season, and will make its final Playoff statement against a Power 5 team this week. It’s not the Knights’ fault they don’t play tougher schedules of Power 5 teams, but they’re just not able to compete against the top teams in the nation week in and week out. But in a one-game situation last season (albeit against a severely disappointed LSU team), the Knights showed they can hang with supposedly superior talent, losing 40-32 in the Fiesta Bowl.
Pittsburgh is coming off a loss at Penn State and is 1-2 SU on the season. The public betting looks at the flash stats like win-loss record, for starters, and incorrectly presumes Pitt is a bad team. Not the case, my friends: I strongly believe this is going to be a close game, with Pitt having the potential to upset the Knights late. Such an event would eliminate the constant media attention on whether the Playoff committee discriminates against the Knights. That void could then be filled with the soap-opera drama of Antonio Brown, the Miami Dolphins ownership and the never-ending misery of the New York Jets.
Seriously, though, there are strong reasons to support the upset bid by the Panthers.
Let’s start with my highly intelligent machine revealing a situation the Panthers find themselves in for this home game (in which they have earned an incredible 37-6 straight-up record for 86 percent winning bets on the money line over the last five seasons). The situation is to bet on home teams that have gone UNDER the TOTAL by 28 or more points over their last three games in a nonconference matchup.
The bet: Upset-minded Pittsburgh Panthers gets 12 points.