I am HUGE (5-6 YTD ATS 45%) Week 4 picks and analysis

Baylor -17.5 Kansas


No disrespect to any endomorphs, but the last time Kansas had a winning record was when Mark Mangino was the head coach. Now Charlie Weis was an endomorph also, but he had the band surgery to try to lose weight so in his mind he wanted to not be fat, and they still lost football games. Now their coach is Les Miles and he’s going to bed every night saying, “what the hell was I thinking??”. Kansas was 3-9 last year and 1-8 in the Big 12. They started off this season getting mopped up by FBS pretender Coastal Carolina, down 28-3 at the half. Their starting QB has a 27.6 rating against a defense that won’t be as good as Baylor’s. We still don’t know how good Baylor is yet, since they haven’t played. We already know that Kansas sucks.

Last year, the Baylor Mike Bears were 11-3 and a couple of plays away from beating Oklahoma for the Big 12 championship and making the CFB playoff. Baylor lost their head coach from last year, but went out and hired Dave Aranda who was the Associate Head Coach of the championship LSU team. The guy’s a winner. Baylor’s QB, Charlie Brewer is a straight up stud. All he does is take massive hits, get up and throw touchdowns. Last season he threw for 3,161 yards and 21 touchdowns while completing 64.5 percent of his passes. He also likes to tuck it and run to get first downs. Baylor also has John Lovett coming back at RB, who is looking at a 1000 yard season. Baylor returns 4 out of 5 starters from the O-line. The skill players have mastered their super high tempo offense which Aranda plans to continue. Houston’s defense is their weakness, having given up 34 points per game last year. Baylor is going to score and score and score, stressing the Kansas defense until they capitulate. Last year Baylor beat Kansas 61-6.


Baylor is ready to play. “I think that we’ve got a lot of guys coming back with a lot of experience,” Brewer said. “We’ve got guys on defense like Terrel (Bernard), who’s such a great leader and will get those guys ready. The coaching staff that came in…they’re awesome. They’ve had a lot of success elsewhere so I don’t think it’ll change coming here.”

If you believe that Baylor is still up there with Oklahoma and Texas, then it’s really hard not to like them in this game. Even if Kansas is better than they were last year, (which remains to be seen) it would be hard to like them enough to see them close the gap down from 61-6. Giving up 38 points to Coast Carolina signals to me that Baylor is going to put up at least 48 points. I don’t see Kansas scoring 30 points with the QB play they showed in week 1. Baylor has a non-concussed Charlie Brewer at QB and his arm is well rested. I’ll lay the wood and go with the Bears -17.5.

Great writeup and I laughed hard at the endomorph joke GL

Alabama -27.5 Missouri

For the want of a rickety Tua and 2 losses by a total of 8 points, we would have had Alabama once again in the college football playoff. This year the Crimson Tide has plain vanilla QB Mack Jones at the helm. They haven’t had a quarterback this boring since AJ McCarron was their winningest quarterback ever. All of the 5 star quarterbacks that Bama recruited couldn’t unseat Mac Jones as the starter. Coach Saban must be seeing something he likes, saying he had a great preseason Missouri had four quarterbacks listed on its 2020 roster: redshirt juniors Shawn Robinson and Taylor Powell, redshirt freshman Connor Bazelak and freshman Brady Cook. Powell has already indicated he’s going to transfer. Quitters never win. No one knows who is going to start on Saturday. That’s not a ringing endorsement for a quality passer, especially when Mizzou is coming off of a 6-6 season where they averaged only 13 points per game in their 6 losses. Speaking of 6’s, Missouri’s offense has lost 6 starters from last year’s team, including 3 linemen who are now in the NFL. It would be a stretch to think that the Tiger offense is going to be much better than last year’s squad. On the other hand, Alabama averaged 47 points per game last year and covered this 27.5 spread in 6 of their 11 victories.

So far the COVID bug seems to have avoided the Crimson Tide but Missouri is not so lucky, with 12 players on the COVID bench and it could be even more by the time we see the opening kick. The new Tiger Coach is Eli Drinkwitz, but I think once Bama is done with his team he will want to Drink Piss. Bama will start the season with most of their offensive line returning leading the way for the best, and scariest running back in the SEC – Najee Harris. Mizzou also has an excellent back, and I am sure Harris is going to want to show him who is the man. Also, Mac Jones will be flinging it to two NFL ready wide receivers.

If Missouri can’t run the ball against the terrific Tide front 7 (I’ll give you a hint, they can’t), then Alabama is going to have plenty of possessions. Missouri is barely a top 50 team, and every time Bama played teams of this caliber, they held them to under 10 points. I’ll be nice and assume the Tigers notch 10 points on Saturday. Will, Bama hit their average of 47 points of Saturday? Of course they will, and we’ll likely see a defensive or special teams score to boot. Laying 27.5 points can be sometimes painful, but in Alabama you might be looking at the best team in the country. They will certainly be better prepared to play than their opponents. If the JV defense can do their job, this will be an easy cover. Roll Tide – laying 27.5.

NC State +7 Virginia Tech

Everyone is hooting and hollering about the Hokies, but I’m just not seeing it. First of all, they haven’t played yet, so there is nothing to see. Second, they all have COVID. Virginia Tech football coach Justin Fuente says, because of COVID protocols, they will not have a full roster and he hopes the Hokies are able to play N.C. State Saturday. That’s not a ringing endorsement for a vigorous week of practice and preparation. So far this season, Virginia Tech has had two games rescheduled (including one against the Wolfpack) due to the coronavirus pandemic and has yet to play in a game. Last week, Virginia Tech had to stop practice for four days. That’s not a small distraction. On the other side of the ball, two former Virginia Tech coaches are currently on the Wolfpack staff and N.C. State cornerbacks coach Brian Mitchell held the same position for the Hokies from 2016-19. Wolfpack defensive line coach Charley Wiles was at Virginia Tech for 24 seasons. Which team do you think will be better prepared?

NC State was prolific on offense last week, lighting up the scoreboard for 45 points and a victory over a scrappy Wake Forest team that held Clemson to 37 points. The Wolfpack pounded the ball on the ground, rushing 49 times for 270 yards. NC State has a great offensive line up front, and they should be able to control the game on the ground and eat clock which is always good when you’re getting points.

Quarterback Bailey Hoffman was efficient and accurate, completing 70% of his throws for 191 yards. While Virginia Tech’s starting defense is certainly better than Wake Forest’s defense, they still gave up more than 30 points per game in half the games they played last season. So I am looking for NC State to have a fairly robust day putting up points, thinking they will get at least 31 against the Hokies. That means VT will need to find a way to score 38 points even though their Offensive Coordinator has spent more time watching Dr. Fauci than he has watching tape of the Wolfpack defense. I hear the dogs barking pretty loud and not even Michael Vick can keep them quiet this week. There might not be enough ventilators to keep NC State out of the end zone. Give me the Pack and 7 points in this ACC tilt.

Good luck IAH. I'm on Bama HUGE (for me, at least!).

Citadel / Eastern Kentucky Under 48.5

One thing I can tell you about the Citadel - and I watched both of their games this year against USF and Clemson – is that they aren’t exceptionally fast but they never quit. Their defense runs to the ball on ever play and they lower their shoulders to hit you. Their offensive line will come out at you play after play after play and their QB is a very good athlete. Now mind you, they were overmatched athletically in both of these games and the only reason USF scored on them was because they had a short field a few times and their speedy running back was able to catch the edge for some big gainers. However when they went between the tackles, they didn’t have much luck at all going against the teeth of the Bulldogs defense. Of course, playing Clemson is another story, but the Citadel balled out for the whole game.

This week they play Eastern Kentucky who has scored a total of 10 points all year, against good (but not great defenses) in West Virginia and Marshall. They really had trouble moving the chains, only getting 16 first downs in the two games combined. That means they will be punting the ball a lot which leads me to why I think this game will go under. The Citadel will run the Triple Option until the cows come home. They almost never are in 2[SUP]nd[/SUP] and short - so each first down consumes 3 minutes of clock as they crank out runs of 3, 4 and 5 yards each time. They will keep handing the ball off to the fullback if his gap is not accounted for. Their last two games, the totals were 33 points (vs USF) and 49 points (vs Clemson). Since they will be WINNING this game against Eastern Kentucky, they will run the ball more and the game will be shorter. Fewer possessions for The Citadel and fewer possessions for Eastern Kentucky, which means fewer points.

The EKU Colonels will wish they had Colonel DeBeers to save them, but it won’t matter anyway because the military hard heads from The Citadel is going to be putting a licking on them as they grind out first downs and eat clock. The EKU defense had trouble setting the edge and tackling against their previous two opponents. You’re looking at a 10-3 halftime score. The total points scored by BOTH of these teams this season is 16. So if you do the math, the total for this game should be 8, not 48.5. If you’re watching this game, don’t go take a dump as you’ll miss a whole quarter of action. Taking the UNDER 48.5.

I like UAB but hate giving the points...will just watch for fun.

Huge.........BOL with all this weekend action buddy.........indy

Does the UAB win make Miami look better against FSU? Does it make Southern Miss look worse against Tulane? these are questions that need to be answered!

Vanderbilt +30.5 Texas A&M

Sometimes when you see a good value, you just have to stock up on it. I’m Armenian, so it’s virtually impossible for me to pass up a sale at Building 19, Value Village or Filene’s Basement. When I look at this line, it’s a real head scratcher. The spread is 30.5 but the Over/Under Total is 45.5. That means the oddsmakers are predicting that this game will end up 38-7. Last time I checked, Texas A&M didn’t have that kind of defense to keep conference opponents under 10 points. Last year’s Aggie team only did it one time and if you take exclude their non-conference body bags from last year’s team, their defense ended up coughing up 27 points per game. Oh by the way, their top linebacker opted out last week.

On the other side of the ball, Texas A&M averaged 29.5 points per game of offense last year…that’s it. They weren’t a high flyer by any stretch, and of course we have yet to see them play this year. Everyone is blowing Kellen Mond. He’s very good, but not great. Mond threw 9 interceptions last year. Turnovers lead to scores and it’s hard to cover 30.5 points when you turn the ball over. His #1 receiver from last year, Jhamon Ausbon, decided to opt out this season and 3 of Mond’s other primary receivers are also gone. Vandy has their top 11 tacklers on defense returning and 26 of the top 28 in their rotation. That’s a lot of depth and experience. Last year’s Commodore defense wasn’t great, but their opponents exceeded 40 points on only 3 occasions. This year’s Vandy defense will certainly be better.

On offense, Vandy will be starting true freshman Ken Seals. The Commodores QB coach has been forthright with praise, so it might not be a complete disaster. I have my eyes open on this one, recognizing that Vandy has a completely new offensive line. Texas A&M will have a very comfortable lead at halftime but I don’t see them extending that significantly in the second half. In fact that hasn’t been the case in most of the mismatches so far this season, with most coaches on the winning side looking to run out the clock and pocket the win. This is just too many points for a fraudulent “top” SEC team against a non-body bag conference opponent. Give me the points and Vandy +30.5.

Vandy is candy from babies

Not much data can be derived from the MTSU - UTSA game, although MTSU did outplay them.

Bet summary:


Baylor -17.5 Kansas
Alabama -27.5 Missouri
NC State +7 Virginia Tech
Citadel / Eastern Kentucky Under 48.5
Vanderbilt +30.5 Texas A&M

Best of luck to all this week!

Eastern Kentucky offense shows up...game goes over. 0-1 for the week

Bama doesn't cover...Bryce Young was terrible, Bama JV defense worse. 0-2 on the week

Back up QB cost us the cover for sure

Vandy with the easy cover over fraudulent Texas A&M...1-2 on the week

The Baylor Mike Bears with the easy cover, although Kansas QB shows a lot of potential and will be fun to watch as he gets more experience. 2-2 on the week

NC State gets punished by an undermanned VT squad.....it's been a weird week...and a weird season. 2-3 for the week, 7-9 YTD 44%

If someone had told me that Virginia Tech would be down to their 3rd string quarterback in the 2nd quarter, I would have been all over NC State...well, there you go!