Early CFB betting look for Week 4: Buy Washington State
Will Harris
ESPN PLUS ($ MATERIAL)
College football lookahead is the essential grab bag of numbers, trends, reads and concepts each Monday throughout the season. Join us inside as we champion the virtues of the moral victory, uncover a deja vu letdown spot and make the case for investment in a pair of fast-rising, high-scoring teams with new stars at the defensive coordinator position but questions on the offensive line.
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In portfolio checkup, we explore which teams we're buying and selling, and why.
BUY: Washington State Cougars
Ohio State seducing Washington State defensive coordinator Alex Grinch to Columbus to work under Greg Schiano is another classic example of the permanent advantage that college football's ruling class enjoys over the have-nots, but Mike Leach recovered quickly in naming Tracy Claeys as Grinch's successor. We've always thought Claeys was among the better defensive coaches around as he rose through the coaching ranks as Jerry Kill's right-hand man, and he likely made an impression on Leach when his Minnesota team held Washington State to season lows of 12 points and 279 yards in the 2016 Holiday Bowl. Claeys has made a difference in Pullman, and a defense that lost a rare All-American in Hercules Mata'afa may already be better than last year's unit, which was the best of Leach's tenure by a whopping 83 yards per game.
Also making a difference for the Coogs is swashbuckling transfer quarterback in Gardner Minshew. His accuracy, production and infectious mojo have this offense humming out of the gate, which hasn't been standard practice for typically slow-starting Mike Leach offenses. The Cougars are defying Leach's career trends by nabbing covers in two spots that have typically brought failure. Leach had dropped three games in his six years on the road versus Mountain West teams, but won convincingly at Wyoming in the opener.
September home favorite spots have been a disaster for Leach, who is just 5-10 in the role at Wazzu -- a mark that includes two straight up losses to FCS teams. But the Cougars followed up the Wyoming win by covering numbers of 30 and 20 in home tilts with San Jose State and Eastern Washington. This could be a different Wazzu team, maybe even Leach's best if the offensive line holds up. The next two weeks against USC and Utah will be big tests for that unit specifically and the team as a whole, but win or lose those, we're expecting the Coogs to make noise in the Pac-12.
BUY: Oklahoma State Cowboys
Another defensive coordinator who already looks like an impact hire is Oklahoma State's Jim Knowles. Plucked from Duke, where he oversaw the defense for David Cutcliffe since Mike MacIntyre's departure to the head-coaching ranks in 2010, Knowles's aggressive man coverage-oriented 4-2-5 was on full display in an impressive rout of Boise State. He could be the missing link for the Cowboys, who have blocked more kicks than any program since 2013 and who seem to have found a good plug-and-play system on offense with new starter Taylor Cornelius under center. "Corn Dog" has as good a group of skill players around him as Gundy's Pokes have fielded, and right now the offensive line looks like the lone remaining question mark on the entire team.
Oklahoma State was laying low in the preseason after losing what might be the most accomplished senior class in school history, but running Boise out of Boone Pickens Stadium was impressive, and we're adding this bunch to the list of legit Big 12 contenders.
Slate Standout
Slate standout provides games that we'll be studying closely this week and what we're looking for out of the contest.
South Carolina Gamecocks (-2.5) at Vanderbilt Commodores
Not all close, hard-fought losses are created equal, and the ones that serve as confidence and morale-boosting "moral victories" against upper-crust competition are often the best kind for the following week's performance. Vanderbilt's second-half surge in South Bend has all the hallmarks of a loss that leaves a team hungry, confident, and ready to go to work to build on the many positives. The Commodores were impressive, as they came back strong in the second half, held up physically in the trenches against a brawny Irish squad, looked like a veteran offense with senior Kyle Shurmur in command of the passing game and flashed the Derek Mason era's deepest group of skill players.
Feeling good about itself after outgaining Notre Dame on the road, but maybe not quite as cocky as they were in the aftermath of beating Kansas State last September, Vandy could be primed to play its best game this week against South Carolina in a series that's provided fair fights recently but no Vandy wins.
What about the Gamecocks? Will they be fresh after a week off, or rusty? Champing at the bit to get back to practice or still a bit mentally drained and distracted from worry about everything that Hurricane Florence brought? We'll be dialed into both camps this week to see which way the wind's blowing, but the early thinking is that Vanderbilt is looking pretty sporty and has a lot of positive momentum, while Will Muschamp is unlikely to produce his team's A-game the week after having to guide it through a curveball open date.
Handicapper's Toolbox
Handicapper's toolbox will provide a different concept every Monday, along with how to apply it on Saturday.
It's the oldest trap in the book, but the "sandwich game" still has bite.
Perhaps the most classic, basic handicapping spot is the ol' sandwich game. The no-name opponent on the schedule between two big games. The letdown and the lookahead rolled into one. And it remains a common cause of C-game, because there are so many ways to go wrong. The first big game can be taxing, thrilling, deflating or any other thing that big games often are, the second one can be anticipated in several different distracting ways, and then there's the meat of the sandwich itself: never feared, perpetually overlooked, disrespected and written off. We mention this old standard this week because there's such an archetype on the board. Showdowns past and future with TCU and Penn State are the bread, Tulane catching five touchdowns is the filler, and Ohio State is the team on C-game alert.
Chalk Bits
Chalk bits will provide observations, issues, clues and questions from around each week's slate.
- After his team blew out Louisiana, an on-field reporter asked Mississippi State quarterback Nick Fitzgerald what he liked about playing for new head coach Joe Moorhead. Bettors should take heed of his answer. Fitzgerald said that Moorhead is the "kind of guy who believes that the other team should have to stop us, that we shouldn't have to stop ourselves. He believes in scoring as many points as possible." You can bet we put that in Joe Moorhead's dossier under the section "ATS profile." The evidence stacks up so far; Moorhead's Bulldogs have wins by 57 points as a 47-point favorite, by 21 as a touchdown chalk, and now by 46 as a 34-point choice. State now lays 10 to a Kentucky team against whom the Dogs are 8-1 straight up and 6-3 ATS.
- We're not at all in line with the pollsters that LSU is the sixth-best team in the country, but even if you're selling that notion too, be cautious about this week's spot as they host Louisiana Tech. The obvious letdown factor is mitigated by LSU's performance in its Week 2 matchup with Southeastern Louisiana, a 31-0 failure as 40-point favorites. The Tigers were sloppy and hung over from celebrating a big win over Miami and this week is an easy parallel for the coaches to draw on as they try to coax a better effort out of the team after another big win. It's a classic second-chance spot, so don't count on LSU handing the cover to Louisiana Tech the way they did Southeastern.
- Dabo Swinney became an ACC head coach in 2008, the same year as Paul Johnson, and Georgia Tech is a permanent crossover opponent for Clemson. The two also faced off in the 2009 ACC championship game, and in the first five meetings Johnson's Jackets bested Swinney's Tigers four times, piling up an average of 293 rushing yards. Then Swinney took command of the series by hiring Brent Venables.
- Since Venables became Clemson's defensive coordinator, it's the Tigers who have won five of six, with the Jackets' rushing average cut to 200 yards. And as Venables has gradually figured it out, the Clemson defense has shown better and better against Johnson's unique option offense. In chronological order, the total yards allowed by Venables' unit in six games versus Tech are: 483-440-353-230-124-230. As Swinney said about the Tech offense last year, "They don't freak us out anymore."
- Second-year Florida International boss Butch Davis was the head coach at Miami from 1995-2000, and he showed during his time at North Carolina from 2007-10 that playing the Hurricanes brings out his best. Davis authored three outright upsets of Miami in four tries as Tar Heels coach. Playing Miami was meaningful for him then, and it certainly is now that he's leading the crosstown Panthers. FIU is 3-0 ATS this year and is coming off an impressive 63-point showing against Massachusetts. Count on Davis
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Early College Football Betting Look For Week 4
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Originally Posted by veriableodds
