CFB Week 9 betting: Big game lookahead
Five games to get excited about
Matt Russell is the creator of THE WINDOW, and former lead betting analyst at theScore. If there’s a bad beat to be had, Matt will find it. You can find him @mrussauthentic on X.
The difference between “Best Bets” and “Big Games” is that we choose the best bets but the big games choose us.
We look at the biggest games of the week, and we (usually) bet on them, because we know we’ll be watching them with great intrigue, not knowing what to expect. It’s the collision of the fun of college football and the excitement of sports betting.
The doubleheader of SEC showdowns from last week lived up to the hype for diametrically opposed reasons. Alabama-Tennessee was close but sloppy, while Georgia reasserted that they’re the big Dawgs in Texas’s first real SEC test, sending another No. 1 team falling out of the top spot.
Going 2-for-2 gets us back to .500 for the season on games where we expect to be more entertained than profitable. Week 9 provides a more pedestrian slate than we’ve seen the last two weeks, so we’re back to a high-volume approach in looking at the biggest games of the weekend.
No. 17 Boise State @ UNLV (+3.5, 66.5)
*Friday, 10:30pm ET
A 3.5-point spread in favor of the road team implies that the Broncos are a full touchdown better than the Rebels.
Maybe that’s true, but Boise State’s current reputation is built on one man - Ashton Jeanty.
The Broncos’ have faced five FBS teams, and four of their opponents’ rushing defenses have ranked 62nd, 66th, 113rd, and 129th in EPA/Play. The Heisman Trophy candidate also had a big game against Oregon (12th), but if UNLV (20th) can hold Jeanty to 192 rushing yards on 25 carries, they might sign up for that. Especially if it means that Maddux Madsen throws for 17/40, 148 passing yards, like he did in Eugene.
UNLV can fight Boise State’s fire with their own, having transitioned nicely from Matthew Sluka’s quitting to Hajj-Malik Williams. The dual-threat quarterback, with a star receiving option like Ricky White, should be able to keep the Rebels in a game I have projected closer to pick’em based on lines that made UNLV a significant favorite at Oregon State and against Syracuse in their last two games.
Pick: UNLV (+3.5)
No. 12 Notre Dame vs. No. 24 Navy (+13, 52)
I have this line projected at Notre Dame -14, so +13 isn’t necessarily a steal of deal on Navy, except for the fact that the Midshipmen (like their Army counterparts) apparently always cover and, therefore, we haven’t seen a ceiling for where we can build a range of performance levels for either service academy.
Maybe that comes this week against the Irish, but Notre Dame’s offense produces like an academy, with Riley Leonard producing four more rushing touchdowns than passing TDs. They’re best suited to chewing up time off the clock on the ground.
Navy QB Blake Horvath is doing it by land and by air, with 888 passing yards and a 10-to-1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. Halfway through the season, that’s practically an Air Raid attack relative to past Navy offenses (already the most passing yards since Malcolm Perry in 2019). Unbelievably, the Midshipmen have the 5th-best offensive EPA/Play by dropback, compared to Notre Dame at 53rd.
The Irish are favored by two touchdowns because of the respect for their defense, however, their numbers are built facing teams with middling, traditional offenses. MAC teams, Stanford, and Georgia Tech’s backup, when you’re the more talented team, isn’t the same as facing a multi-dimensional offense that has put up between 34 and 56 points per game against comparable talent to them.
Pick: Navy (+13)
No. 20 Illinois @ No. 1 Oregon (-21.5, 54.5)
Illinois came through with a big win at home against Michigan, qualifying them for a place in our piece about the big games of the week. The bad news is, they get to visit the new No. 1 team in the country. The good news is, if they somehow stun Oregon, they’ll be favored in their remaining games, with an inside track on a trip to the Big Ten title game.
Based on market ratings, this line would have been -18.5 a week ago. Oregon had just beaten Ohio State as a 3-point underdog (implying the Buckeyes are 25 points better than 6-1 Illinois), so the Ducks got a boost on the anticipation that they’d handle Purdue with ease. They avoided any kind of a letdown, but other than one surprising offensively explosive half (against Illinois), the Boilermakers aren’t capable of taking advantage if they had.
Illinois is 95th in EPA/Play on opponents’ run plays. In their comparable matchup - at Penn State, they allowed 196 rushing yards on 34 carries, but managed to stay within a score because they didn’t allow more than a 20-yard pass play, and had enough long drives of their own to limit the Nittany Lions to just eight possessions.
Oregon should be able to get to their usual 30 points against the Illini’s bend-but-don’t-break defense, but with a trip to Michigan on deck, they may not fully pull away from an Illinois team that were one bad half away from a 6-1 ATS record as well.
Pick: Illinois (+21.5)
No. 21 Missouri @ No. 15 Alabama (-14, 56)
Alabama is Ryan Williams’ balletic 75-yard touchdown against Georgia, and a failed South Carolina 2-point conversion away from potentially having a 4-game losing streak. Such is life in the SEC in 2024. While they’ve received a downgrade from before the season started, do you feel like going from 88/100 to 83 is enough of one given the last four games? With this their last game of a 5-game middle section of the season between byes, how much energy do the Tide have left with a trip to the SEC title game likely out of the question and a spot in the College Football Playoff hanging by a thread?
Missouri came into the season with a high rating, on hopes that they’d improve on one of the best seasons in school history, since they were returning Brady Cook, Luther Burden, and Theo Wease. The Tigers have struggled to live up to that, and being merely 4-point favorites at home to 2-5 Auburn was a low point, until they trailed the other Tigers in the fourth quarter after Cook left the game with an ankle injury. Cook miraculously returned to lead a game-winning drive, but the injury has kept him out of practice early in the week.
The line opened Alabama -14, and I immediately grabbed the Tigers at +14. The line has come down, either in keeping with my rationale that the Tide’s disappointing stretch doesn’t warrant a full 2-touchdown line, or that worries about Cook’s availability are unwarranted.
With veteran Drew Pyne a serviceable backup, a Tigers’ win would be unlikely but a point spread cover inside of two touchdowns isn’t.
Plan: Missouri +13 with Cook, but wait on his confirmation, bet +14 or higher even if ruled out
Editor’s note: With Cook listed as ‘Doubtful’ the line has jumped up to +17 - Missouri is worth a bet at this number, as instructed.
No. 8 LSU @ No. 14 Texas A&M (-2.5, 53.5)
For those who took a flyer with us on Texas A&M to win the SEC before the season at 15-1, this is a big game for the Aggies chances to get to Atlanta - which is all we’ve asked of them.
For what it’s worth, ESPN’s Bill Connelly’s probability models give Texas A&M a 16.1% (Implied odds: +520) chance, but interestingly, LSU’s given a 21.3%. That might be fair at the moment, but the Aggies are favored in this game, and a win will transfer most of the Tigers’ probability over to College Station.
What this game means for A&M is that if they win, they can afford to lose one of their trips to either Columbia or Auburn, or a regular-season finale with Texas, and still make the SEC title game.
Both teams were rated the same before the season with two equally tough non-conference games (LSU vs. USC, Notre Dame @ Texas A&M) and the same season-win total. Nothing has happened since each lost those non-conference tilts that should change things, but oddsmakers won’t be willing to give bettors the option to take LSU with the full field goal.
There’s no way to hedge any position on the Aggies, nor do we want to with the line under -3.
Pick: Texas A&M (-2.5)
For more of a breakdown of the college football betting markets, including a quartet of bets for games during the week, check out THE WINDOW: Sports Betting Podcast.