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Utah at Cincinnati, College Football Week 8 – Last week, Cincinnati pulled off a monster upset over Texas Tech at home, winning by 13 points as an 11 point underdog. However, the two teams were about equal in the underlying metrics; for example, Cincinnati had a 45.6% success rate compared to 43.4% for Texas Tech.
Utah QB Devon Dampier, an elite dual threat quarterback, leads an offense ranked 9th in success rate after my adjustments for opposing defenses. The defense was always solid when Morgan Scalley served as coordinator, and nothing has changed in his first year as Utah’s head coach (6th in adjusted success rate).
My member numbers have Utah by 9.5 points on the road at Cincinnati. Members of The Power Rank got Utah -6.5 earlier this week, as it seemed like the markets overreached to one good game by Cincinnati.
The market has moved but I would still lean Utah -7.
NFL player prop – While data driven models form the basis of most of my bets, it’s also important to look for other edges.
For example, Dr. Deepak Chona said on The Late-Round podcast that players returning from a high ankle sprain do not perform up to their full abilities at first. For example, WR AJ Brown has 6 catches for 75 yards in two games since returning to New England.
Baltimore QB Lamar Jackson returns this week from a high ankle sprain, and this most likely limits his rushing. Jackson’s rushing has been down the past two seasons as he has averaged 29.0 yards per game. This suggests value in Lamar Jackson under 25.5 rushing yards, -114 available at FanDuel.
Betting trends coming back from Europe – Pittsburgh beat New Orleans in Paris last week and face Cleveland this week without the benefit of a bye. Over the past two seasons, NFL teams in this situation are 0-8 against the spread and have lost by 8.4 points on average. This implies value in Cleveland +3.5, right?
Professional sports bettor Rob Pizzola disagrees, as he notes that teams in a similar situation from 2016-24 went 9-8 ATS and beat the spread by 1.1 points on average. The lesson: always use the largest appropriate sample size.
How luck plays a role in sports – In the second half against Ole Miss last week, Texas QB Arch Manning fumbled for a defensive touchdown and threw an awful pick into triple coverage. A 24-3 lead evaporated into a tie game, and it seemed very likely Manning would get benched by this week at the latest.
Then a funny thing happened. The Texas ground game sprung to life, as running backs gained 118 yards on the next two drives. Texas scored 10 points on these drives to close out the win. After his pick, Manning threw one pass the remainder of the game but will remain the starter for Texas because of the win.
A resurgence in the run game never helped Michigan QB Bryce Underwood. After he got benched at half time against Penn State two weeks ago, Michigan broke a 43 yard touchdown run on the next drive.
NFL humor – Miss the details of the Colts fire sale this week? Brandon Carney will catch you up in a hilarious, not safe for Colts fans, :28 video.
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