As a disclaimer, bet at your own risk, I make no guarantees of accuracy or profit, these are simply my picks and my opinion, yada yada yada, legalese.
Well, I had to deactivate my Twitter account again. I was suspended for 7 days for saying that pro-Hamas protesters attacking priceless art with hammers should be shot. Mea culpa. That was not very Christian of me, and I definitely need to hit confession soon, but I’m sure this is not the most egregious thing that has been posted on Twitter. I say it all the time and I’ll say it again—Elon is a fraud. He preaches about free speech and innovation and AI and blah blah blah and there’s never anything tangible to back it up. Don’t agree with me? Where’s your self-driving Cybertruck, nerd? But hey, maybe I am the idiot, because he’s made billions off of bullshit and I’ve barely made anything off of my blatant honesty and integrity.
In fact, there is a good chance that the sports books have conspired with Big Tech and the crooked news media against your boy to make sure no one gets the good picks. That’s just the way it is in this world. Make sure to share this and spread the truth.
We’ve had 3 very good weeks out of the past 4. I’d love to hit one of these many-leg parlays if I can. Right now, my long term bets aren’t looking great. Yeah, Georgia is still undefeated, but we have to make it the rest of the way through this gauntlet. Mizzou was much closer than I expected, and Georgia was prepared this time. This might be the best I’ve seen Georgia play against a good opponent this season. Mizzou’s offensive and defensive lines stepped up against our talented lines, and Georgia’s DBs were playing an elite game against Mizzou’s receiving corps. As a biased fan, I do think we would have covered if not for some lopsided officiating that swung the score around 7 points (bad DPI calls extending drives for Mizzou and missed holding calls on Mizzou and I don’t know about Smael’s chop block on Stack’s interception), but you also can’t count on officiating to win you games. It certainly won’t work against notoriously flag-proof Alabama, whom has all but clinched the West, which also blows my SEC West bets shorting Alabama. Hats off to the Tide, finding a way to beat more complete teams than themselves. If they run the table, they’ll be the least dominant team to win a Natty in the playoff era with, currently, a 14 points-per-game (ppg) point differential (points scored minus points given up). For the record, I don’t think they will.
The only thing keeping the Georgia three-peat odds alive is the question, “Who out there is visibly better than Georgia?” Right now, no more than one or two teams are even close. For the time being, Michigan is the most dominant team in football, with a whopping 34 ppg differential. One-loss Oregon has a 31 ppg differential. Georgia’s differential is 24 ppg. We’ll have to watch how Michigan plays against pretender Penn State to see how they look against a real football team. Ohio State, with their 21 point differential, at #1 is a joke, and I think Michigan crushes them. Again. Oregon needs the Huskies to lose to get in the playoff over them, which could happen as Utah is no slouch. It’s going to be an interesting end to the season.
Anyways, let’s dig into this week’s picks, looks like it will be a fun week. Let’s finally hit a dang five-leg parlay.
UGA -10.5 vs Ole Miss
I’m not sure how many times the lesson needs to be learned not to trash talk Georgia before a game. This goes back to Mizzou’s “old man football” diss during the Richt days, through the Mullen tenure at Florida, the 2021 National Championship Game (after Bryce Young was caught on camera trash talking on the sideline at the SEC Championship), the 2022 Tennessee game, and all the way until the Peach Bowl against Ohio State, whom came the closest to being able to back it up on the field. After Ole Miss skidded by Texas A&M by the skin of their behind, Lane Kiffin himself decided to run his mouth and say that he forgot he was even playing Georgia this week, and that his team has a good defense, too. Okay, Lane. But hey, maybe Lane has a foolproof game plan. South Carolina did. Auburn did. Florida did. Mizzou did. But Lane’s will be the best, right? Lol. To be honest, this is not the kind of game Lane wins. He choked against a Bama team that was worse at the time than it is now. I don’t think Ole Miss is as good as Mizz on the line of scrimmage. Now Ole Miss is playing in Sanford Stadium at night with a bunch of pissed off Georgia fans trying to will their team into the playoffs. Gotta be a 2 TD win, right?
Michigan -4.5 at Penn State
Sure, I wholeheartedly believe that Michigan has played the weakest schedule of any team in the top four so far this season. However, in those games, they have been the most dominant team in college football. There is certainly something to that, and after seeing Penn State go up against a very underwhelming Ohio State team, I do not have much faith in Penn State’s ability to put up a fight. Get this line while you can. You can buy a point if you’d like.
Mizzou (-105) vs Tennessee
I feel like I always regret hyping up a team that plays well against Georgia because “if they played Georgia tough, imagine what they can do to XYZ!” However, we’ve seen enough of Mizzou this season to know they’re a very dangerous football team that was a fumble away from beating LSU and could have very well still been alive in the CFP discussion as a 1-loss at-large team. They match up very well against Tennessee on the line of scrimmage and they’re playing at home in the prime 3:30 pm slot. Assuming they don’t allow a post-Georgia letdown game à la 2022 Tennessee, I like Mizzou to win this one easily.
VT (-120) at Boston College
I know Virginia Tech got creamed this past Saturday at Louisville, but I still like them against anyone in their weight class. As long as Drones is healthy, the team will play with confidence. A bowl game this year would be a dramatic turnaround, and I think they can get there.
Oregon-USC over 73.5
Bo Nix vs. the worst defense in the Power 5 and Caleb Williams trying to get the last of his game film in before entering the draft? Sign me up. Don’t be surprised to see some wacko score that looks like a college basketball score. Oregon might even hit the over on their own.