College Football Picks

Georgia Southern was a five-point underdog at Appalachian State to start November. What has justified nearly a two-touchdown swing in this spread? First of all, a neutral site moves this line three points toward the Eagles. November performances also shortened this number by a point. The remaining 8.5 points? Chalk that up to the Mountaineers’ offense suffering significant losses to opt-outs, enough so as to justify this significant swing.

Projected 49.5, two compromised, run-leaning offenses unlikely to generate sustained explosive plays very often.

Illinois could win this game in the regular season with both teams at full strength, but the Illini should be outright favored in a bowl game setting as the Volunteers suffer more opt-outs from what was already a flawed roster.

USC is without most of its top players on both sides of the ball and has little motivation, on the surface at least, to win the Alamo Bowl. 

Miami managed just 10 points against the Aggies, who rank first in third-down conversion rate. The Buckeyes rank second. They're also much better than Texas A&M at limiting points on quality drives.

The Canes won't get many of those to begin with. Remember, this is an Ohio State defense that didn't allow a single opponent to score more than 16 points in a single game. One other team in history has done that.

On the flip side, the Miami defense is fairly strong and will give Ohio State some issues in the trenches. That should prevent the Buckeyes from having a big scoring day of their own.

I don't see this game getting to 40 points, especially not with Carson Beck involved. Take the Under.

The last I checked, Carson Beck is the quarterback of the Miami Hurricanes. And he's too turnover prone and inconsistent for me to back the Canes to keep this game close.

Ohio State has one of the best defenses in college football, and Indiana managed just 13 points. But the Hoosiers have a better defense than the Canes, who allow too many explosive pass plays and rank 132nd in missed tackle rate. 

The Buckeye receivers are beyond elite, and should find success against a defense that gave up 91 throws of 10+ yards this season despite facing some fairly anemic passing attacks. 

Beck will be forced to make tough throws and keep drives alive. He will turn it over multiple times as the offense struggles to score and the Buckeyes win comfortably. 

The Red Raiders limit opponents to 10.9 ppg and just 254.4 total yards on a measly 4.0 yards per play. Oregon checks in at seventh in EPA per play allowed, but public sentiment is experiencing recency bias due to garbage-time production by JMU in the first round.

Oregon is 38-4 across its last 42 games, and the only losses have come to a National Championship runner-up (Washington, twice in 2023), a National Champ (Ohio State last year), and the current No. 1 team in the country (undefeated Indiana this season). Texas Tech, meanwhile, lost to Arizona State this year.

The Under has hit in seven of the last 10 Georgia games and each of the last four. 

Georgia won the previous matchup by 8 points this season and have improved their play since that game.