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Taking a look around this weekend’s college football slate
Your 6-2 Colorado Buffaloes have their last off-week this weekend until bowl season hits this winter, but the college football world refuses stop around them. There will be plenty of action on the gridiron tomorrow and plenty of reason to watch, even if the Buffs aren’t in on it. What better time than to throw a couple of bucks on some games to spice up your bye week?
The folks here at Ralphie Report are here to help you with that. We’ll tell you what we think are the best bets of the week and what we have money on. To start things off we’ve got...
Bet Texas Tech to cover the +13.5-point spread against Iowa State (-110)
As a Colorado fan, this is the game I’ll be tuned into the most this week. The Buffs need Iowa State to lose for a chance at making the Big 12 title game. Coincidentally, it also has one of the best lines of the week.
Texas Tech is an above-average Big 12 team. They do a good job working on the ground with Tahj Brooks and have a defense that’s stout enough to win football games. In a year where the Big 12 is as wide open as ever, the Red Raiders are more than capable of going toe-to-toe with any team in this conference, including Iowa State. The Red Raiders have a pension for playing up (or down) to their competition level, as five of their eight games this season have been decided by one score or less.
Iowa State might be 7-0, but they’ve played a pretty soft schedule to this point in the season. Their hardest game was probably their non-conference matchup with Iowa, which they won on a last-second field goal. Their second hardest game was against UCF at home two weekends ago, where they only won by a field goal. Texas Tech is much better than UCF, so I at least expect this game to be close. That 13.5-point spread is crazy; I’m hammering Texas Tech to cover.
Bet Northwestern to beat Purdue (+105)
Remember where CU was in 2022? That’s Purdue this year. They’re the worst team in the Power 4 with a coach whose seat is flaming hot. This Purdue team isn’t particularly good at anything and is a blatantly bad squad.
Granted, Northwestern isn’t very good either, but they’re at least better than Purdue. The Wildcats blew out Maryland, so they’ve proved they’re capable of blowing out bad Big Ten squads. Betting against Purdue every week is usually free money, so why not take the team that got a favorable moneyline against them? Let’s just hope we don’t see the Purdue team we saw against Illinois...
Bet Baylor to cover the -3 point spread against TCU (-112)
More Big 12 sicko bets incoming. I really like the Bears in this matchup against the Horned Frogs.
Since we stunned Baylor in overtime, they’ve found their footing. QB Sawyer Robertson has some serious juice. The Bears have a good receivers room, an underrated offensive life, and a stout front seven on the defensive side of the ball.
You’ve got to be a good team to even be competitive with Baylor and I don’t think TCU is that. Sonny Dykes’ refusal to pivot from the passing game has been their downfall all season long. Their offense is extremely one-dimensional since they only throw the football and their defense is nothing to write home about. As long as Baylor can contain Savion Williams, they should win by more than 3 points.
Bet Vanderbilt to beat Auburn (+240)
This is the single best bet of the week. For some reason, Vegas has been unable to compute that Vanderbilt is a good football team, so you should profit from that before the odds-makers figure that out.
Vandy hung in with Texas last week and they beat Alabama. What more do you want to see from them Vegas? They’re legit. They play a fun brand of option football and are well-coached, making them very hard to beat.
Auburn is not great either. Head coach Hugh Freeze refused to get a QB in the portal this offseason and he’s been regretting that choice. Payton Thorne has been a turnover machine all season and Auburn is prone to beat themselves, which is something that Vandy will take full advantage of if given the opportunity.
Remember when New Mexico State went into Jordan-Hare last season and bludgeoned Auburn 31-10 last season? Well, essentially that whole NM State team and staff, including head coach Jerry Kill and quarterback Diego Pavia, are on Vandy’s sideline now. Do with that information as you wish...
by RylandScholes
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