CFB early betting look for Week 13: Pitt may have hit the end of the line

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 this week as we look at an important November phenomenon affecting teams in three different conference races. We'll also tell you which division winner to sell from here on out, and examine the circumstances surrounding a game in which both sides seem to be in a ripe position to fade.
Portfolio checkup

Which teams we're buying and selling, and why.
Sell: Pittsburgh Panthers
It's been a great run to the ACC Coastal crown for Pitt, with six straight covers and the only loss in that span still representing a moral victory at Notre Dame that helped momentum more than it hurt. The Panthers rode a dominant rushing offense all year, and they have played especially inspired ball after the community rallied together following the Squirrel Hill tragedy. The Coastal title probably signals the end of the line, though, and now the "just happy to be here" tour begins.


Up next is a road game at Miami, and following that, a date with Clemson in the school's first-ever conference championship game appearance. Both opponents sport the shutdown rush defenses needed to keep Pitt in check, and both have reason to recall recent losses to the Panthers.


Mark Richt and Miami had won 15 straight games when they walked into Heinz Field last November. They're 3-8 against Power 5 competition since. Clemson coach Dabo Swinney reminded his team before the Syracuse game -- a hard-fought 27-24 win -- that "they know they can beat us," referencing the Tigers' 2017 loss at Syracuse. Pitt knocked off Clemson in 2016, and next week when Swinney gives his players the same message, memories of the tough rematch with the Orange will help make sure they're all listening.

Sell: Maryland Terrapins
Maryland had Ohio State beaten three times over, but the Terps let the Buckeyes off the hook at the end of regulation and missed out on a season-redeeming moment. After everything these players have been through -- first tragedy, then drama, then divisiveness, then more drama -- this would have been a defining win, one where everyone on the team could point to themselves, the fan base, the McNair family and the entire program with feelings of pride, unity and closure and say, "We did it for Jordan."


Maryland players have said all season they would play hard for their fallen teammate, and they certainly have. But they haven't said anything about playing a 13th game for him. If the Terps decide that they really want that, they'll have to shake off what most can probably call the biggest disappointment of their careers and gird for the kind of battle it takes to win a road game against a team your program has beaten just twice in 40 tries.


Fading Penn State -- just like the other bubble-burst teams we wrote about last week -- has been good business thus far. But Terps backers need to ask themselves not only what this team has left in the tank, but also how badly this group of players and a lame-duck coaching staff really wants to spend another month together getting ready for what would probably be a nearby Pinstripe Bowl berth.
Slate standout

A game we'll be studying closely this week, and what we're looking for.

Colorado State Rams at Air Force Falcons (-14)
College sports are largely about getting over what just happened and getting ready for what's about to happen. Two teams for whom that might be tough this week are facing off on Thanksgiving afternoon.


Air Force was 4-6 and needed both a road win at Wyoming and then a Thanksgiving victory over the Rams to go bowling. The Falcons were on the verge of closing out a 27-14 win last week but turned it into a 35-27 loss as Wyoming scored 21 unanswered points. Air Force allowed the Cowboys to convert on a miracle third-and-long, and they went on to score three touchdowns in just over four minutes. Seventh losses are always tough for teams with bowl aspirations, and the way in which this opportunity was blown has to make it especially difficult.


Colorado State took a 24-23 lead -- its first of a tight game against 30-point favorite Utah State -- with 96 seconds remaining but allowed the Aggies to put a touchdown on the board with just 43 seconds left. Still, even though they were trailing 29-24 after stopping a two-point conversion attempt, the Rams managed to get the ball in position for a walk-off Hail Mary. The pass connected on the miracle throw to record one of the season's biggest upsets, the team rushed the end zone, the fans rushed the field and there was general pandemonium over one of the most memorable victories in school history.


Nobody immediately noticed the flag, which at first was just a hat, thrown by the official to mark the spot where would-be hero Preston Williams stepped out of bounds on his way to the end zone. An illegal touching call negated both the touchdown and the pandemonium, and after that it would seem pretty tough for any team to get up for a road finale in a three-win season.


So who has the edge in what will now be the season's final game for both teams? Well, the Falcons are at home, and academy players have to be given credit for above-average discipline and mental toughness. The two sides know each other well, and both have offensive weapons that the other team's defense seems ill-equipped to stop, In the Rams' case, the main offensive weapon, Preston Williams, might play like he wants some redemption.


Alternatively, he might still be in the tank, along with the whole team. It's been a trying season, and a redeeming moment has been taken from the Rams after they'd already begun celebrating it. On the other hand, Air Force is the chalk -- do you really want to lay two touchdowns with a team that just had its season-long goal shattered? The point here is that this is a very tough bounce-back spot for both sides, and it's the kind of game you should pass on without a good read on how both are responding. That's what we'll be shooting for by Thursday, but sometimes in cases like this the week of study doesn't yield much beyond wishing that two good fade candidates were matched up elsewhere.


Handicapper's toolbox

A different concept every Monday, and how to apply it on Saturday.


Dissect conference championship scenarios to find profitable scoreboard-watching spots in November.


Some conference championship game matchups are already set, like Alabama-Georgia in the SEC and Clemson-Pittsburgh in the ACC. Others, like the Big 12, Big Ten, Pac-12, MWC and AAC, have one participant already set and the other hinging on the result of a single Week 13 game.


But when a division might be decided by multiple games, as is the case in the MAC, Sun Belt and C-USA this week, scoreboard watching becomes an important November phenomenon.


In 2016, Penn State trailed Michigan State 12-10 at halftime of the season's final game. But when the Lions got the news that Ohio State had given them the help they needed in the Big Ten East earlier in the day by beating Michigan, they turned on the jets and outscored Sparty 35-0 in the second half for a 45-12 division-clinching win.


Last year, Ohio blew control of the MAC East with a loss to Akron in the season's penultimate week. The following Tuesday, Ohio players sat and watched the Zips clinch the crown versus Kent, a game that could have put Ohio back in command had Kent won. In that case, the Bobcats would have needed to win at Buffalo three days later. When Akron squashed any hope of a second chance, the Bobcats went to Buffalo and dutifully failed to cover, losing outright as a six-point favorite.


Just last week, Arizona's Pac-12 title hopes were dashed when Utah beat Colorado earlier in the day, and the Cats didn't come close to covering a night game at Washington State. Would Arizona have played harder for longer and given their backers a chance had Colorado kept the Wildcats in the hunt? Maybe so, and maybe not -- but the results in these spots over time say it matters a great deal.


This week, the Bobcats are once again scoreboard watching -- first on Tuesday, and then maybe again on Friday. Buffalo can clinch the MAC East with a win at Bowling Green on Friday at noon. If the Bulls can't beat the Falcons, Ohio can take the division with a win in its own noon game versus Akron -- but the Bobcats retain that hope only if Miami (Ohio) falls to Ball State on Tuesday. A Tuesday night Miami win means the RedHawks win the East in the event Buffalo stumbles, and would also mean that you probably don't want any part of laying three touchdowns with Ohio.


Even if Miami loses to keep hope alive, the Bobcats could lose steam during the Akron game if they find out in the second half that the Bulls are beating Bowling Green soundly. On the other hand, a Bowling Green lead could do the same thing for this Ohio team that good news from the front did for Penn State back in 2016.


Louisiana-Lafayette can clinch the Sun Belt West with a win at rival Louisiana-Monroe at 3 p.m. ET Saturday. If Monroe wins, Arkansas State can clinch with a win at Texas State in a 4 p.m. ET kickoff. It's not too hard to envision Arkansas State letting Texas State in the back door to cover if the Wolves find out midgame that Lafayette is wrapping up a win at Monroe.


Conference USA provides the week's strangest scenario -- one where it doesn't even matter whether the team doing the scoreboard watching wins or not. Florida International can clinch the East division with a win over Marshall in Saturday's noon home game. If Marshall wins, Middle Tennessee wins the division. The Blue Raiders host UAB Saturday at 3, and by the time that game gets too far into the action, they will either be out of the hunt or they will have locked up a date to meet UAB again the following week.


This scenario, where a game on the field is so devalued it might strategically be better off thrown (thanks to the foreknowledge that no matter what happens, the teams will meet again for a championship the very next week), should be a very uncomfortable one for the sport's power brokers and schedule makers. So far, most conferences have consistently sent the message that they don't care, by permitting teams from opposite divisions to play in the final week.
Chalk bit

We write about the national championship futures market right before the season each year in ESPN Chalk's betting guide, and one of the things that's usually mentioned is that this market rarely offers much value -- and what little value there is tends to be gone by the time late August rolls around. There's only one winner, and the probabilities often aren't what they might seem. Let's say you loved Washington State as a legit dark horse this season, and not only did you see what few others did, you knew it way back in January and bought the Cougars to win it all at the Westgate's opening price of 200:1.


You'd think that ticket would be worth a lot more today, but it's not. If you walk in off the street today, on Monday, Nov. 18, you'll be quoted the exact same price on the Coogs -- 200:1.


This is not only a cautionary tale of betting the championship futures markets, but also a good reminder that sometimes even knowing something that nobody else knows isn't enough to beat the game.