Happy football season! In this column, we’ll highlight some of our favorite future bets --including some deep pulls -- for the Heisman, each Power 5 conference and the national championship game.
Heiman futures
Safest play: Tua Tagovailoa +260. For our Monopoly bucks, Tua should have won the Heisman Trophy last December. We think he gets it done this season. We’ll yell it from the mountaintops, “Do not overreact to Alabama’s title game loss!”. Trevor Lawrence is tied with Tua as Heisman favorite, but we’re banking on the likelihood that voters won’t jump Lawrence over him if this is close.
Buy the hype play: Justin Herbert +1600. We have questions about Herbert, we feel nervous about all the QB1 talk, but even so, this is a lopsided number. You have a potential No. 1 pick playing behind the best offensive line in the country, on a team which has had steam throughout the offseason and opened in the AP Top 25 as the No. 11 outfit in the country -- primed for a Playoff run.
The Ducks fielded a Heisman winner in Marcus Mariota just five years ago and are backed by Nike dollars. All of this could be upended in Week 1 against Auburn, of course, but Herbert currently has longer odds than Justin Fields (+900), Jalen Hurts (+1000), Adrian Martinez (+1300), Jake Fromm (+1400) and Sam Ehlinger (+1500). We like Herbert over all of them.
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Wanna get crazy?: Jerry Jeudy +6000. If you, like your author, are smitten with Tagovailoa, doubledown with a longshot flier with his favorite receiver. Alabama has oh so many offensive stars in its skill-position galaxy but none shine brighter than Jeudy. Hey, we’re all in on the Crimson Tide revenge season. And if you feel weird about rolling with two Crimson Tide players as Heisman finalists, remember that Baker Mayfield and Dede Westbrook pulled off the feat just a few years back.
Sell, Sell, Sell: Coin flip between Justin Fields +900 and Adrian Martinez +1300. OK, let’s get Martinez out of the way to start. No. Don’t do it. He is a true sophomore who has not yet even played in a bowl. And he plays in the most fluid division in the country -- which, to us, means that he could be involved in some wild, wild games. Unless Frost is about to unleash an Oklahoma-esque storm on the Big Ten (and hey, maybe), we bet he loses a few shootouts. That knocks Martinez out. Nebraska might not even win their division. They probably won’t win their conference. And they almost certainly aren’t going to be in the Playoff, as much fun as that would be. We understand the upside of Martinez, but not every upside player makes for an upside play. Folks are too hot on A-Mart right now.
Fields, meanwhile, is a more interesting case, though ultimately another stay away for us. He comes with a higher profile than Martinez, plays for a potential conference-winner and has through-the-roof athletic potential. So why a stay-away for us? The odds just don’t provide value. We would prefer to roll with a more assured thing like Tagovailoa at +260 than the wilderness gamble in Fields. We just don’t know who Fields is, yet. Maybe he’s spectacular. He certainly plays in a spectacular spot (unlike Martinez). For us, though, there just isn’t enough value, here.
Conference + National Champion plays
ACC: Virginia +1600. Admittedly, it’s difficult to foresee anybody actually supplanting Clemson in the ACC. And by and large, this conference is a radioactive zone for us (the Tigers make it so). If we are to put on our radiation suits and venture out to try to find a darkhorse to lay a few greenbacks on, it would be the Cavaliers. Playing in a Coastal division which saw Pitt emerge last season (poor Pitt is currently drawing +6500 to win the ACC), UVA’s main competition would be Miami at +750. We would consider a small play on the Hurricanes, but view the best value as with the Cavaliers.
Maybe, maybe, maybe, we could talk ourselves into Syracuse +2200, with a few adult beverages and the idea that, sure, Trevor Lawrence and Travis Etienne could theoretically get injured. Sure.
Big 12: Texas +350. Oklahoma (-150) is favored for the Big 12, but we’ll be keeping clear of the Sooners to get a little more bang for our buck. Unfortunately, this is a conference which might only HAVE two contenders, in OU and Texas. You could theoretically make a case for Iowa State (+800), but as much as we love HC Matt Campbell’s work in Ames, we aren’t quite ready to take the leap of faith with Brocky Purdy and company. Our long, longshot play in the Big 12 would be TCU (+1600) based on our faith in HC Gary Patterson’s defense.
Big Ten: Northwestern +1600. Before we get to the Wildcats, we just have to touch on Nebraska again. Like the blob, it’s impossible to contain the preseason hype in Lincoln. If you thought Adrian Martinez’s Heisman odds were a little off, take a gander at the Huskers drawing +750 to win the Big Ten, behind only Ohio State (+175) and Michigan (+210). As the kids say, GTFO. For our play, we are diving deep on Northwestern. The Wildcats made the conference title game last season, and that was with their starting running back retiring in September and Clayton Thorson playing quarterback. Clemson QB transfer Hunter Johnson should be receiving more pub than he is. Don’t be scared off by the odds. We feel more comfortable with longshot Northwestern than the overhyped outfit in Lincoln.
Pac-12: Throw a dart. Our pick for the Pac-12 is Washington (+300), who draws the same odds as Oregon and lags slightly behind Utah (+250). We would feel comfortable with plays on any of these three programs. It’s difficult to find a nice cushy Pac-12 underdog to roll with -- get out of here with your USC +900 takes -- but Washington State at +900 would be the closest in our eyes. The issue with the Cougars is that we just haven’t seen them climb that ultimate mountain, yet. Indeed, we have seen the Huskies kick the Cougs off the proverbial Hillary Step in every matchup between Chris Petersen and Mike Leach.
SEC: LSU +1300 or Auburn +1800. Alabama (-155) and Georgia (+250) are the chalk bets, here, and we’ll consider laying at least a little bit with the Bulldogs. However, diving a little deeper, LSU and Auburn are two long shots which we find exceedingly intriguing. Both will have to get through Alabama during the regular season and there’s a reason they are drawing long, but these are live long dogs in our eyes.
National Championship Game: Michigan +1400. Play it safe with Alabama (+225) or Clemson (+225) if you must, but we’re keeping our eyes on some options a little lower down the board. We would prefer to take a swing at the Wolverines over Ohio State (+1000) in part because we get even better odds, here, but even more so because we believe this is the year that Michigan finally (finally) crashes the Playoff. Georgia at +650 somewhat splits the middle between the Alabama/Clemson quotient and lower-down dogs like OSU, UM and Oregon (+2000). We aren’t touching Oklahoma (+1500) at all, as there are too many up-in-the-air factors heading into the season for our liking.
