The 4 best college football bets this week

After another 1-1 week, my record for the year sits at an unsatisfactory 7-9. With four more SEC teams on bye this week, we’re switching up the format of this picks article: four picks across all FBS games. Though, as it happens, three are still from SEC games.

With a broader scope and more picks comes an opportunity to get back above .500, or further sully my reputation.

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Below, find my four plays for Week 9, with odds from Caesars Sportsbook Louisiana.

Pick #1: Syracuse -2.5 (-110) vs Notre Dame

The Week 9 NCAAF odds opened at Syracuse -1.5 and that immediately stood out to me as inaccurate. I’m honestly surprised it’s only moved a point.

Standard practice among handicappers is to add three points to the home team for home-field advantage. If you think Notre Dame (4-3, 1-1 road) is a better team than Syracuse (6-1, 5-0 home) this season, you haven’t watched been watching.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Cuse wins this game by double-digits.

Syracuse didn’t deserve to win at Clemson last week – they were outgained 450 yards to 291 – but they were leading 21-10 entering the fourth quarter … on the road … against the #5 team in the country. That’s impressive, even if Clemson would be a 4-4 SEC team.

Syracuse’s 6-1 record isn’t padded with cupcake wins. The Orange own Ws over Louisville (31-7), Purdue (32-29), and NC State (24-9).

Notre Dame has a couple quality wins on its resume (28-20 vs BYU and 45-32 at UNC) but the Irish have also lost to Marshall (26-21 at home) and Stanford (16-14 also at home). For the record, Marshall has since lost to Bowling Green, Troy, and Louisiana.

Notre Dame at its best makes this game competitive – maybe even notches the upset if Syracuse isn’t ready to play – but there’s far too much variation under first-year coach Marcus Freeman to bet the Irish.

Syracuse QB Garrett Schrader and RB Sean Tucker are both on the Heisman odds board. They’re longshots, yes, but that’s more than you can say for any player on the Irish at this point of the season.

I’ll take the surprisingly-consistent Orange to right the ship after last week’s heartbreaker at Clemson.

Pick #2: Florida +22.5 (-110) vs Georgia

The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is not expected to be much of a game. Number-one Georgia heads into its annual meeting with Florida as 22.5-point favorites.

The Gators are just 4-3 on the season and 1-3 in SEC play. But let’s take a look at those losses: 26-16 vs Kentucky, 38-33 at Tennessee, and 45-35 vs LSU.

They were competitive across the board. Florida has a ton of holes and makes a lot of mistakes. But they also have the horses to stay within striking distance of better teams, along with the will to pull off backdoor covers (see the Tennessee game).

After a couple lackluster wins over Kent State (39-22) and Missouri (26-22), UGA has responded with vigor, routing Auburn (42-10) and Vanderbilt (55-0). The Gators are a considerably better team than Auburn, and in a completely different category than the Dores.

They won’t put a scare into the Bulldogs the way South Carolina did, but they won’t get embarrassed in arguably their biggest game of the season.

Pick #3: Missouri at South Carolina 1H Under 24.0 (-110)

One of the more reliable units in the country this season is turning out to be the Missouri defense. The Tigers are averaging just 23.1 points against per game. They held UGA to 26, Florida to 24, and Auburn to 14. Meanwhile, Mizzou’s offense, to the consternation of their fans, has been almost as stingy, averaging just 24.0 PPG.

The Tigers are coming off a discomforting 17-14 win over Vanderbilt. Read that again. They only managed 17 points against Vandy. The Dores had surrendered 50-plus in three straight games and had given up at least 45 to every other Power 5 team they had played this season.

Both sides of this Missouri team scream under.

Obviously there will be another team on the field. South Carolina’s games are averaging considerably more points (58.0), but I expect this matchup with Missouri to resemble SC’s 24-14 win over Kentucky in Week 7. The Gamecocks went run-heavy against a solid defense (42 rushing attempts to just 19 pass attempts) and shutdown an anemic offense that was missing its starting QB.

Pick #4: Ole Miss -2.5 (-110) vs Texas A&M

I was all over LSU’s blowout win over Ole Miss last week and now I’m reversing course, backing the Rebels to rebound on the road in College Station.

I was extremely tempted to take the Aggies here. While they have lost three in a row, all three were on the road and they were competitive in the two most-recent. In Week 7, they lost by four to Alabama at Bryant-Denny Stadium as 24.5-point underdogs. Last week, they outgained South Carolina by over 100 yards in a 30-24 road loss. There are signs that this team is better than its 3-4 record.

Now the Aggies return home where they already own wins over Arkansas (23-21) and Miami (17-9). But that return comes complete with several suspensions and key offensive-line injuries. Even at full health, A&M also lost at home to App State.

On the other side of the coin is an Ole Miss team that failed its first real test outside of Oxford. Last week at LSU, the Rebels were boat-raced 45-20 and were on the receiving end of a 28-0 second-half scoreline. The defense struggled in all facets and the once-vaunted ground game was held to just 3.2 YPC.

But they showed enough in road wins over Georgia Tech (42-0) and Vanderbilt (52-28), plus the first half against LSU (20-17 lead), that I’m not put off by the location of this game.

I don’t expect Ole Miss to blow the doors off the Aggies, but there’s no doubt in my mind which is the better team.

Recap:

Syracuse (-2.5 vs Notre Dame)
Florida (+22.5 vs Georgia)
1H Under 24.0 Missouri vs South Carolina
Ole Miss (-2.5 vs Texas A&M)