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Week 1 in college football got us off to a great start, and Week 2 continued to deliver. Another one of the Kings of College football fell, and a couple other schools are breathing sighs of relief. With wild games comes wild betting action, and Week 2 delivered on that end as well. (all odds via PointsBet Sportsbook)
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Upset Alert
We begin, as we always do, with the big upsets of the week and how the betting action went. When it comes to upsets, the public tends to get hosed by quite a bit and week 2 saw a lot of bettors take some Ls.
#12 Oregon at #3 Ohio State (Line: Ohio State -14.5, O/U 64)
Result: Oregon wins, 35-28
Action got hot and heavy quickly, with one of Saturday’s first games being a dramatic upset. Just like Georgia at Clemson last week, the upset wasn’t “technically” a big one, as these were two highly ranked teams duking it out. It’s a big upset because of the name that the Ohio State university possesses. OSU Head coach Ryan Day had literally never lost a regular season game until this one. Oregon and Mario Cristobal drew up an excellent offensive game plan and the OSU defense failed to respond until far too late.
The public never saw it coming. The total take on the points spread favored OSU by 69%, which makes sense considering Oregon were missing two of their best defensive players in Kayvon Thibodeaux (a potential top five draft pick next year) and Justin Flowe (2020’s sixth overall recruit) amongst others. Somehow, Oregon managed to limit OSU to just seven first half points, and their offense did the rest.
Despite the fairly high scoring affair, the public missed on the O/U by a mere one point. Bettors took the over 76% of the time, but it was not to be especially after the pedestrian first half that only saw 21 combined points by both teams. A furious second half comeback by the Buckeyes gave the over a chance, but the over, like the Buckeyes themselves, fell short.
OSU’s offense looks potent. While CJ Stroud has some kinks to work out, the receiving firepower is enough for the Buckeyes to put up good points on anyone, and their defense is playing poorly enough to allow good points to be put up on them. While this game did go under, OSU might be a good over pick as the season rolls along.
Stanford at #14 USC (Line: USC -17.5, O/U 53.5)
Result: Stanford wins, 42-28
The biggest upset loss in terms of spread, PAC-12 after dark proved to be as dangerous as ever. While other ranked upsets did occur like BYU over Utah and Arkansas over Texas, the lines for those games had the favored team winning by less than a touchdown. That means upsets were well within the realm of possibility for oddsmakers. A three score upset though is something that can’t be ignored.
USC, one of the fallen champions of the BCS days, was supposed to have one of their most promising seasons in years. They were coming off a surprisingly great performance in 2020, and took care of San Jose State in their opener with little drama. Stanford had different ideas for where the USC season is supposed to go however. Stanford jumped out to an early lead off of a Nathaniel Peat 87 yard touchdown run and the Cardinals never looked back, eventually ballooning the lead up to as much as 42-13 before easing up on the gas. It was an impressive defense performance by Stanford, and the public had no idea Stanford had it in them.
83% of bets and 80% of the handle took USC and the points in week 2’s biggest outright loss. There were more lopsided losses against the spread as we’ll get to, but USC had the dubious honor of ACTUALLY losing their game. On the flip side, the points total was actually one of the most split decisions in week 2. Just 52% of the bets went for the over, which hit, and 57% of the handle went under, which obviously didn’t. Stanford alone accounted for 78% of the O/U target, as Tanner McKee and the Cardinal offense exceeded expectations. If McKee wasn’t the nailed on starter after Jack West‘s rough outing in Stanford’s opening week loss to Kansas State, he most certainly is now.
Protectors of Your Cash
The whole point of the spread is that it’s harder to predict than the outright winner. For these teams, it was basically the same thing in Week 2.
UAB at #2 Georgia (Line: Georgia -22.5, O/U 44)
Result: Georgia wins 56-7
A lot of factors went into this game that saw the line drop from Georgia -26.5 at opening to -22.5 by kickoff. UAB has been on the rise since reinstating their football program in 2017, and their dominating win over Jacksonville State was supposed to show UAB wasn’t a pushover. Georgia’s offense on the other hand, struggled immensely against Clemson and were without starting quarterback JT Daniels. No one thought UAB would win, but it wasn’t farfetched to think UAB could give them a game.
Or maybe it was, as Georgia came out swinging hard. Under Stetson Bennett (and many thought Carson Beck would get the nod initially) Georgia poured on 21 points in the first quarter, and 35 in the first half. UAB’s secondary were outclassed by Georgia’s speed, and Bennet had completions of 89 and 73 yards in the opening frame. He finished with a bafflingly efficient line, completing 10-of-12 passes for 288 yards and five(!) touchdowns. You know things were easy when the QB had more touchdowns than incompletions, and it truly was easy for Georgia.
Georgia’s defense was as stout as expected as UAB was shut out offensively all night, only scoring on an interception returned for a touchdown late in the 4th quarter. The offense though was startlingly good which led to the easy Georgia cover which 75% of bettors (and 79% of the handle) appreciated. Perhaps unsurprisingly for the reasons stated above, the majority of the money took the under for this game, which the Bulldogs blew out of the water by themselves. The offensive explosion was truly unexpected, and head coach Kirby Smart has some decisions to make at the QB spot going forward.
North Carolina and Ole Miss also covered quite comfortably against their unranked and outmatched opponents, but both were fairly straightforward beat downs that saw both teams in control and above the spread by the start of the 4th quarter. More than 80% of the public knew both teams would cover, and they delivered.
Failure to Launch
Sometimes the public gets it oh so incredibly wrong. Find out who caused the biggest losses of the week.
Murray State at #7 Cincinnati (Line: Cincinnati -36.5, O/U 51.5)
Result: Cincinnati wins 42-7
Just one week removed from being a protector of safe bets, Cincinnati finds itself on the other side of the coin, if only just barely. Cincinnati did their best to recover from a disastrous first half that saw the score tied 7-7. Outscoring an opponent by 36.5 in one half is a tough ask, and Cincinnati fell just short, winning the second half 35-0, including three touchdowns in the fourth quarter, their last score coming with 1:15 left in the game.
Unfortunately, close only matters in horseshoes and hand grenades, and despite Cincinnati’s best efforts they lost the public a lot of money. An absurd 93% of the total cash (and 92% of bets) went to Cincy to cover. Not only that, but it was a double whammy of lopsided losses, as the over was bet over 80% of the time and also barely missed by 2.5 points.
Cincy tried their darndest to guard your cash, but were ultimately found wanting. They’ll need to do a lot of work to repair that trust in the bettor’s eyes, while sportsbooks everywhere are laughing all the way to the bank.
Close Calls
Football is a game of inches, and so is gambling.
Eastern Michigan at #18 Wisconsin (Line: Wisconsin -26, O/U 51.5)
Result: Wisconsin wins 34-7
Wisconsin hit their mark by just one point, and they crossed over that threshold with just 5:25 left in the game on a one yard touchdown plunge by Braelon Allen. The spread looked very safe for much of this game, as Wisconsin overwhelmed the Eagles defensively. Things got a lot scarier late however. Early in the fourth quarter, with Wisconsin up 27-0 and on the EMU 2 yard line, Badgers’ backup QB Chase Wolf threw an interception that would be returned 98 yards for a touchdown.
At that point, 88% of bettors were holding their breath in fear. Luckily for them, starter Graham Mertz would come back in. Unluckily, he didn’t do much better, going three and out on the next drive. Luckily again, EMU QB Preston Hutchinson threw a tipped pass interception that allowed the aforementioned Allen score.
Even then the Wisconsin cover wasn’t secure. For the first time ever, EMU actually started driving. EMU didn’t get a first down until there was less than three minutes left in the entire game (which was on a penalty, mind you) and had just one play go over 10 yards which happened shortly after. Regardless of the timing, EMU got as close as the Wisconsin 18 before the drive faltered. Thank goodness they didn’t decide to go for the spite field goal.
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Split Decisions
Sometimes the bets and the money don’t go the same way. Which games were the toughest calls, and which side ended up right?
UNLV at #23 Arizona State (Line: Arizona State -34.5, O/U 54.5)
Result: Arizona State wins 37-10
Total bets went the way of UNLV, with 64% of the public thinking UNLV would put up something of a fight, while 69% of the money believed in ASU domination. In a rare upset, the bets, not the money, won out, with ASU unable to pull away from the Rebels by enough to secure the bag. Similar to Cincinnati though, it wasn’t for a lack of effort as ASU put up 16 points in the 4th quarter.
As is usually the case, a tough first half/quarter sunk ASU’s chances to cover. UNLV actually struck first and were leading for most of the first half before the Sun Devils could wake up and put the game away.
The O/U was not a split decision, but maybe it should have been. Over 80% of the bets and money took the over, which missed by more than a touchdown.
There were two more notable games that didn’t get their own section above. Alabama and Mercer combined to go over on their 60.5 point total, which 91% of the bets and 93% of the money said they would, which was the surest bet win of the week. The second surest was the Western Carolina at Oklahoma O/U of 64.5. Oklahoma beat that all by themselves in a 76-0 win, and 87% of bettors (91% of the handle) predicted as much.
Week 2 in the college football world has wrapped up, and so far it’s promising to be an insanely fun season. Every week sees ranked teams crash and burn, a rarity this early, and the number three rank seems a bit cursed. Oklahoma looks next in line for that spot, and they play Nebraska next week, a team coming off a convincing win over Buffalo.
Continuing from last week’s final note, week 1 saw a vast majority of the ranked games go under, while most of the bettors went over. This week there was actually a dead even split as the 22 games had 11 go under and 11 go over. The betting however, was still solidly in favor of the over. Total bets took over in 18 of the games, with three unders and one 50/50 split. The money was slightly better, but not by much going, over 16 times and under six. We’ll see which way the games trend next week, but so far it looks like over is getting over bet by a large amount each week. Food for thought.
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