Betting stuff: Ole Miss, Duke, and college football's biggest overachievers since 2021
Teams can expect to recover 50% of all fumbles in a game. It’s a 50/50 ball bounce. Clean. Fair. That’s the expectation. Not always reality. Particularly so if you play your home games in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Nebraska led the country in fumbles last season, putting the ball on the deck a whopping 31 times in 12 games. The degree to which Nebraska struggled to hold onto the ball was shocking, but the continued inability to pounce on fumbles wasn’t surprising. NU has recovered only 48% of all fumbles in games it has played since the start of the 2021 season.
Sometimes the ball just bounces the wrong way. In Nebraska’s case, this has been a yearslong issue, and it has been one of several root causes for a team that has consistently underperformed.
No Power 5 team has been worse than expected over the past 3 years than the Huskers, who have won a total of 8 fewer games than Vegas predicted.
- In 2021, the Huskers’ win total was set at 6. NU managed only 3 wins.
- In 2022, the win total was 7.5. NU managed just 4 victories.
- In 2023, the win total was 6.5. NU won just 5 games.
In 2024, sports bettors can get Nebraska for 7.5 at FanDuel.
Until Nebraska can show its voodoo in close games has changed, I’m comfortable with the under (-164).
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But Nebraska’s struggles got me thinking: Which teams have been the best at outperforming expectations over the past 3 years? Michigan overs have cashed in all 3 of its Big Ten title-winning seasons. Ole Miss has been just as good.
Kansas, Duke, and Arizona have been similarly excellent.
In the case of the latter two, coaches have moved on. Was the magic sauce in the program or the guy leading it? Texas A&M and Washington are both heavily invested in the answer to that question.
So, here’s the Power 5 (plus Notre Dame) over the past 3 seasons. Big 12 newcomers BYU, Houston, Cincinnati and Central Florida have been included as well.
You can get Ole Miss at 9.5 right now on FanDuel. There hasn’t been a better team over the last three years than Lane Kiffin’s Rebels when compared to their expectations. Since the start of the 2021 season, Vegas has expected 22 wins and Ole Miss has delivered 28. That plus-6 differential is only matched by Michigan.
The addition of Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC might have folks just defaulting to a mindset that says “tougher schedule, fewer wins.” Ole Miss doesn’t face Texas in the regular season, and it gets Oklahoma at home — where the Rebs are 19-2 over the past 3 years. Georgia comes to Oxford as well. That Nov. 9 date is setting up like an inflection point for the program.
Kiffin has been knocking on the door. And, this offseason, he has gone all in. Do you buy the top-ranked transfer class as the piece that finally pushes the program over the hump?
Sports betting will be live in North Carolina soon! Residents can get in on the action with FanDuel North Carolina.
Penn State is a nice facsimile. The Nittany Lions have beaten up on the rest of their conference but haven’t been able to win the games that have mattered. In 2022 and 2023, Penn State went 21-1 against teams not named Ohio State or Michigan. Against the Buckeyes and the Wolverines, the Nittany Lions were 0-4. James Franklin has never beaten both in the same season, making it difficult to break through in one of the toughest divisions in football.
Sounds awfully similar to what Kiffin had to deal with in the old SEC West. Kiffin is 2-6 against Alabama and LSU, while he’s 32-9 against everyone else. While Ole Miss won’t have to face the Saban-less Crimson Tide in 2024, it does play Georgia.
The Rebels’ season will be made from Oct. 12 through Nov. 9. In a span of 4 games, they face LSU in Baton Rouge, Oklahoma at home, and Georgia at home. It’s possible the matchup with the Tigers is the Rebels’ first ranked-on-ranked game of the season. Whether you feel comfortable taking Ole Miss to win 10 games likely comes down to what you believe the record will be over that 4-game stretch. Three wins there would bode well.
Texas A&M is the other team of interest. Nebraska is the only P5 team that has been worse when compared to preseason expectations. And the Aggies have accomplished that gaffe rather remarkably.
They were the 4th-most talented team last season, according to the 247 Talent Composite. They were 5th in 2022 and 8th in 2021 — an indicator of just how well Jimbo Fisher recruited elite prospects to College Station. Yet they are just 20-17 over that same time frame — an indicator of just how poor Fisher was at developing and utilizing the talent he had.
The Aggies went 6-0 against FBS teams that finished with losing records in 2023. They went 0-6 against teams that finished with winning records. The year prior, they went 2-4 against FBS teams that finished with winning records. That gets a coach fired when the expectations (9.5 wins in 2021, 8.5 in 2022 and 2023) are reasonably high.
Meanwhile, Mike Elko went 6-6 against FBS teams that finished with winning records during his 2-year Duke tenure. He went 9-3 against teams that had losing records. His win percentage at Duke (.640) is the 3rd-best in school history among coaches who lasted multiple seasons.
But Elko also had some wildly disappointing games. Duke lost to a 3-9 Virginia team last season. Going 1-4 against ranked opponents probably won’t cut it in Aggieland either. A 3-point loss to Georgia Tech in 2022 also helped to keep Duke out of the ACC Championship Game.
In 2024, the Aggies have a relatively balanced schedule. The opening salvo features Notre Dame right out of the gates, but also 4 consecutive winnable games (McNeese, Florida, Bowling Green, Arkansas). After that, it alternates. Missouri at home, Mississippi State off a bye. LSU at home, then South Carolina. A quality New Mexico State team at home, then Auburn. The year concludes with Texas coming to Kyle Field.
Four losses (-142 at FanDuel) can be easily found.
