Takes on College Football: Against the Spread, Week Three

Let’s be clear: we are not experts. If you go by these, you could lose a lot of money or you could win some major cheese! You never know! Each week, two not-so-esteemed writers at The Alabama Take give their best guess at the best bets with the lowest stress. It’s our college football picks of the week!

2018 ATS Record
Blaine Duncan: 4-1 (Week Two: 3-0)
T.D. Wood: 3-3 (Week Two: 2-1)

Blaine Duncan
How about last week? That’s the kind of juice I like to think I have every time I make these picks! (But I make no guarantees.) I’ll admit this much: I had a hard time picking three games that I truly liked this week because I liked and hated almost all games to some degree, so we’ll see. How about the rest of y’all? How’s the season going? Just to note for this weekend, I’m avoiding any games on the East Coast due to Hurricane Florence. Best wishes to you all in the Carolinas and beyond. Okay, here’s where I’m laying my cash this time around:

Troy at Nebraska (-9.5): Just because Nebraska lost last weekend in a shootout to Colorado, they can’t beat Troy by 10 points at home? Is that a real line? What am I missing? I’ll take Nebraska. They have some aggression to take out on someone, and the Troy Trojans just happen to be in the bullseye.

Missouri at Purdue (+5.5): A common, simplistic rule of betting is to find a good home dog. Here is a good home dog, and one that’s eager for a win. The Boilermakers are a surprising 0-2. It’s a night game, and Purdue will fight tooth and nail for your money because they’re sick of losing. They won’t drop this one at home. Sorry, Mizzou.

Georgia Tech at Pitt (+3.5): In a recurring theme this year, I like home dogs and I like teams that want to bounce back. Georgia Tech is just the team for Pitt to get a home win after being demolished by Penn State last week. I also like the Under a lot in this game at 55.5, but I’ll stick with the Panthers getting the outright victory instead.

T.D. Wood
That’s more like it, 2-1 (and if I had trusted my gut about SC getting too much love I would’ve had the sweep) and ready to tackle a good slate of Week 3 games. I’m gonna take on the three matchups between Top-25 teams.

Boise State (+2) at Oklahoma State: I mentioned Boise St. as a Group-of-5 team to watch in our season preview, and I’m sticking to my guns here. The Broncos have looked mighty impressive in their first two games, and while the Cowboys are nothing to scoff at, Brett Rypien is the real deal at QB, and I think he’ll lead the Broncos to a big road win.

LSU (+10.5) @ Auburn: This is always a fun matchup to watch, regardless of how the teams are performing. Both squads have looked good early on — each has a big win over a ranked opponent, and a blowout win over a FCS team — but I’m not really sold that LSU is “back” or that Auburn is a National Title contender. This game should answer a lot of questions, and though I think the Tigers from West Georgia East Alabama will win it, this should be a close one until the end.

Ohio State @ TCU (+13): 13 points?! Seriously? No respect for the Horned Frogs or Gary Patterson or the home field (sort of) advantage? I will take those points all day long, thank you very much, and while I’m here I’ll even say TCU wins the game outright.

Note: All games are Against the Spread. Odds are taken from the Westgate Las Vegas Superbook.