The craziness of the betting market throughout bowl season so far is counterbalanced by the stability of the pair of College Football Playoff semifinal games.
While point spreads in many of the preliminary games have often shifted a touchdown or more leading up to kickoff, the lines on Michigan vs. Alabama and Washington vs. Texas have hardly budged.
The Wolverines opened a 2-point favorite over the Crimson Tide in the Rose Bowl, and that’s still the number at several sports books worldwide with others at Michigan -1.5. Texas opened mostly at -4.5 over Washington, and current prices range from 4 to 4.5 on the Longhorns.
The lack of movement isn’t guaranteed to stick. Limits will be raising leading up to kickoff, when the largest-betting gamblers figure to be firing away and potentially shaking up the status quo.
But at the very least, this year’s College Football Playoff seems to be staging two tightly-matched games with opinions split enough to keep betting boards calm for weeks leading up to kickoff.
Read below for picks on the two national semifinals and the final collection of bowl games. Picks are labeled with one of three confidence categories. Lines are the best currently available in Las Vegas on the chosen side. The record picking every bowl through the first three editions of this annual series at publication time is 15-12-2 (7-4-1 on plays, 4-5 on leans and 4-3-1 on guesses).
Peach Bowl at 9 a.m. Saturday in Atlanta: Ole Miss +4.5 vs. Penn State, over/under: 51. This number seemed to open with the expectation that most, if not all, of Penn State’s handful of NFL prospects would opt out and prepare for the draft. That hasn’t happened as edge rusher Chop Robinson is the only key player not with the team, and the market hasn’t adjusted accordingly. Penn State’s offense struggled against better teams this season, but none of those teams had a defense as susceptible as Mississippi’s. Play: Penn State -4.5
Music City Bowl at 11 a.m. Saturday in Nashville: Auburn -6 vs. Maryland, over/under: 48. Trusting an erratic Auburn side only two games removed from getting blown out at home by New Mexico State isn’t advisable, but neither is backing a Maryland team with a thinned-out roster. The Terrapins have to deal with a cluster exit in the defensive backfield and the departure of longtime quarterback Taulia Tagovailoa, and the adjustment without all of them should be steep. Guess: Auburn -6.
Orange Bowl at 1 p.m. Saturday in Miami: Georgia -19.5 vs. Florida State, over/under: 44. This feels like a “choose your score” classic for the Bulldogs but the betting market realizes it as the spread has shot up a touchdown. Georgia hasn’t seen all that many defections, and at full strength, it’s still likely favored over any team in the nation. Florida State has hardly anyone left after all the opt-outs and transfer-portal entries, and would be an underdog to any top-30 team in its current state. Lean: Georgia -19.5.
Arizona Bowl at 1:30 p.m. Saturday in Tucson, Ariz.: Toledo +3 vs. Wyoming, over/under: 44. Wyoming’s strong-arming style will take some getting used to for Toledo, which might be undermanned in the trenches. The Rockets’ explosiveness has also taken a massive hit with the transfer of do-everything quarterback DeQuan Finn to Baylor. Play: Wyoming -3.
ReliaQuest Bowl at 9 a.m. Monday in Tampa, Fla.: Wisconsin +10 vs. LSU, over/under: 56. This number implies a somewhat big fall-off from the LSU offense without Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Jayden Daniels, but that’s no guarantee. In fact, coming into the season, many Tigers’ fans thought successor Garrett Nussmeier was the better option. Nussmeier should at least be able to lead a comfortable win against Wisconsin, which could never get its offense on track this season despite having one of the best running backs in the nation in since-departed Braelon Allen. Lean: LSU -10.
Citrus Bowl at 10 a.m. Monday in Orlando, Fla.: Iowa +6.5 vs. Tennessee, over/under: 35.5. This should be an ugly, plodding game because every time Iowa takes the field it’s an ugly, plodding game. Taking points become far more valuable in games with those conditions. The Hawkeyes never do much on offense but at least they have an experienced quarterback in Deacon Hill while Tennessee is breaking in much-ballyhooed freshman Nico Iamaleava. Lean: Iowa +6.5.
Fiesta Bowl at 10 a.m. Monday in Glendale, Ariz.: Liberty +16.5 vs. Oregon, over/under: 67.5. Continually laying the price with all of these big favorites is making me uncomfortable, but the market might be under-adjusting to the gulf that rests between sides in some of these matchups. This isn’t the early bowl season when the underdogs largely had a fighting chance and seized on it with a string of outright upsets. The Ducks have showed best-team-in-the-nation upside when they’ve clicked this year, and their roster is almost entirely intact. Liberty sits undefeated but the best team it played all year was New Mexico State, whom the Flames beat twice but didn’t pull away in the last game until the Aggies lost their starting quarterback. Play: Oregon -16.5.
College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif.: Alabama +1.5 vs. Michigan, over/under: 45. What would the line in this matchup have been going into both teams’ conference championship games, when Alabama had just completed a prayer 4th-and-31 pass to beat Auburn and Michigan defeated Ohio State? At least Michigan -6. What would it have been midseason when the Wolverines were flattening everything in their way and the Crimson Tide were toying around with the likes of the Arkansas Razorbacks and South Florida Bulls? Perhaps Michigan even pushing a double-digit favorite.
Where the spread is now screams of recency bias, an overreaction to Alabama topping Georgia 27-24 as 6-point underdogs in the SEC Championship Game. Yes, Alabama has gotten better as the season has progressed but have they gotten this much better? The Crimson Tide are still highly erratic, looking like the best team in the nation one week and a slightly above-average SEC side the next. Michigan has established a steadier baseline. The Wolverines are going to pound the ball and control the line of scrimmage, a route that could be successful against a Crimson Tide defense not as stacked up front as usual.
Alabama is just 59th in the nation in expected points added per play against the run, for instance. Michigan is far from guaranteed to win, but it’s been the better team on the year and a virtual pick’em represents a discount price. Play: Michigan -1.5.
College Football Playoff Semifinal at the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans: Texas -4.5 vs. Washington, over/under: 63.5. It’s going to come down to Texas’ power vs. Washington’s speed. There’s a strong case to be made for each side being able to use their respective strength to get past the other.
Washington has been relatively outmatched on the line of scrimmage all year, and Texas is in the conversation for having the best set of linemen in the nation — especially on defense. The Longhorns conversely are somewhat unreliable in the secondary, and Huskies quarterback Michael Penix’s trio of big-play receivers in Rome Odunze, Ja’Lynn Polk and Jalen McMillan have dizzied even high-level cornerbacks and safeties.
The setup wasn’t all that different going into last year’s Alamo Bowl when Washington slid past Texas 27-20 in a game that wasn’t as close as the score indicated. Texas scored twice in the fourth quarter to make it a more respectable final. The Longhorns are certainly better now, but so are the Huskies. Texas was a 3.5-point favorite in that game, and this matchup kind of feels like history repeating on a grander scale. Washington’s Kalen DeBoer is a game-planning wizard, college football’s most profitable coach to bet on in the last four years since he got his first head-coaching job at Fresno State, and can outwit anyone if given time to prepare. That wipes away some of the personnel edge in the Longhorns’ favor. Play: Washington +4.5.
Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or
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