Oh, you’re still here? Cool. Cool. Definitely cool. Guess we have to do this again, with the picks and everything.
College Football
Matt: College football? I like it. I’m excited when the lines come out each week. I always want to make picks on a bunch of games and it’s challenging to narrow it down to just one.
For instance, Stanford’s a home dog against UCLA. I think UCLA is getting too much credit for beating LSU at home and I think Stanford is being penalized too harshly for dropping its opener against Kansas State. KSU’s played good football this year and losing an early-season game to them at a “neutral” site like AT&T Stadium near Dallas is no cause for shame. The Cardinal proceeded to pants USC at the Coliseum and then won its nerd bowl matchup at Vandy with ease. UCLA’s win against LSU is, I think, going to look quite unimpressive by the season’s end – I don’t think LSU has solved the issues that bewitched it last season. And UCLA falling to Fresno State at home last week certainly wasn’t a great look. Stanford’s at home and getting 4.5? Yeah, I like that line. But it isn’t the pick.
Kansas State is an underdog by almost a touchdown (+6) on the road at Oklahoma State. K-State’s previously mentioned win against Stanford is better than anything on OKST’s resume to date, plus the Wildcats notched a 21-point win over a decent Nevada team last week. In contrast, the Cowboys have looked very wobbly in close wins against Tulsa (bad) and at Boise State (mediocre). I assume the oddsmakers are paying deference to OKST’s more highly-rated talent, but the results on the field so far suggest K-State has been the better team. But this isn’t the pick either.
Houston is laying 20 at home against Navy. I normally hate taking on this many points when two non-Power 5 teams play, but Navy is wow-bad and Houston’s offense should be good for 30 to 40 points here. I’d be surprised if Navy scores 10. So is this the pick? Nope!
Wait, did I… did I really just weigh in on the spread for Navy at Houston?
Uh, anyway, here comes the actual pick. Memphis continues to be underrated. By setting this line at Memphis laying 3 – three points being the standard advantage traditionally assigned to a home team when determining spreads – the oddsmakers are saying that Memphis and UTSA are equally matched. That’s not what I see here at all. Last week I characterized Memphis’s showdown with Mississippi State as a prove-it moment and they answered the bell. That victory over the Fightin’ Mike Leaches is head-and-shoulders above anything UTSA’s done this season (a 7-point win over Illinois? Puh-lease). Memphis also simply has more talent from top to bottom than UTSA. I expect Memphis to find itself in the Top 25 sometime soon, but they have to dispose of UTSA first. I think they will, comfortably.
Matt’s Saturday pick: MEMPHIS (-3) over UTSA
Andy: Basketball fans in Chapel Hill opened the school year with a nice treat: a football team they could pretend to care about until November, when Hubert Davis gets to begin a season due to be as promising as his Knicks career.
But then, the Tarheels and Sam Howell, their QB projected to go in the top 10 of next year’s NFL draft, got off to a dismal start, losing in Blacksburg to an unranked Virginia Tech team. Howell threw three picks and the 5.5 point favorites lost on the road. Since then, UNC has done what you want them to do, putting up 59 points in consecutive weeks, most recently against fellow basketball school UVA, with Howell chucking 5 TDs. This week they get a Georgia Tech team that’s already lost to Northern Illinois, but is coming off good-looking loss against Clemson that put up only 14 points against them. But Clemson hasn’t been able to score in either of its games against real programs, and I’m betting that UNC’s offense has found itself and we’ll look back on that week 1 performance as the outlier. UNC is gonna drop 35. I’m fine laying the points.
Andy’s Saturday pick: North Carolina (-12.5) over GA TECH
NFL
Matt: A number of you wrote in to ask me about the Jets and none of you were nice about it, but I appreciate a good trolling so I’ll give you what you want. You might see Denver favored by 10.5 and think that the Broncos are not good enough to be favored by that many points against any NFL team, not even the Jets. But this is folly. There is no good reason to bet on the Jets. The Jets are bad in multiple senses of the word. I don’t abide by many rules, but one of them is that I never, ever bet on the Jets. There—happy now?
Alright, let’s move on. Team A, at home this week, is 2-0 averaging 29.5 points a game with each of its wins coming against serious playoff contenders. Team B is 1-1 averaging 8.5 points a game, having won an ugly, low-scoring affair by a point to open the season only to get absolutely poleaxed at home the next week, losing by 5 (!) touchdowns. Where would you set the line? I’d make Team A the favorite by at least 6.5 or 7 points.
Somehow, this line actually opened at 3.5; it has climbed just a touch to 4 since Tua Tagovailoa was ruled out, but give me the Raiders laying the points against the Dolphins at the Death Star nonetheless. Derek Carr has looked better than ever! The defense has been remarkably adequate! They’ve beaten the Ravens and the Steelers! They’re at home! Why was this line so tight to begin with, anyway?
Well, the sportsbooks (I used to just say “Vegas” to refer to them, but we can’t do that anymore, can we?) think highly of Miami’s defense, and they probably believe the Dolphins’ blitz-happy scheme – which was so effective against the pass in 2020, especially on third down – matches up well with the Raiders’ passing attack. Miami’s had trouble stopping the run, but LV’s ability to capitalize if Josh Jacobs doesn’t play (and he might not) is highly questionable.
Okay, fine, that’s all good and well, but sometimes you have to ask yourself simple questions, like: Can the Fins actually score points? The answer is murky at best, especially with Jacoby Brissett under center, so we’re rolling with Vegas because, generally speaking, the team that scores the most points wins.
Matt’s Sunday pick: RAIDERS (-4) over Dolphins
Andy: The Pittsburgh Steelers, I acknowledge, have not looked especially good to start the year. They beat the Bills in week 1, but after gaining just three first downs before halftime. And then they lost, at home, to the Raiders in week 2, evening their record. Ben Roethlisberger, a human I dislike, has looked much like he did down the stretch last season. His throws have traveled in the air an average of just 3.8 yards, near the bottom of the league among starters.
But do we really think they’re even with the Bengals, as reflected in the Steelers giving just three points at home? For one, the Bills were considered Super Bowl contenders three weeks ago, and the Steelers beat them before they turned around and waxed the Dolphins. And as Matt laid out above, the Raiders seem good! They didn’t just beat the Steelers, they beat the Ravens, too!
Meanwhile, the Bengals lost to the Bears, who we all agree stink. And they beat the Vikings, in overtime, after blowing a 10-point fourth quarter lead. Along the way, Joe Burrow has not looked healthy. He took five sacks in week 1, then threw three picks and took another five sacks in week 2, while the offense didn’t crack 250 total yards.
I don’t get it.
Andy’s Sunday pick: STEELERS (-3) over Bengals
Keeping score:
Matt: 1-1
Andy: 1-1
What do you think of the picks? Leave a comment.
Remarkably adequate!