College Football Odds–Can Alabama Repeat As National Champions?
Technically, the 2016 college football season began last night as California whipped Hawaii 51-31 in something called the ‘Sydney Cup’ played in Australia. Apparently, there wasn’t much going on ‘down under’ since over 61,000 fans were duped into watching this fiasco in 83,500 seat ANZ Stadium. The bigger story in the Australian media was the poor planning of the event which resulted in long queues for beer and food. If the locals had wanted more bang for their entertainment dollar they would have waited for the Guns ‘n’ Roses reunion tour to make its way down under. Apparently, the college football powers that be are planning on saturating Australia with college football starting with a Pac 12 Game of the Week.
Real college football will begin on Thursday, September 1 with six games of the board and even more action throughout the weekend. The first few weeks of the college football season always offer a bountiful selection of mismatches as the power elite play ‘non conference games’ against not only bottom feeders but against teams from lower divisions. That creates some huge pointspreads. On the ‘main board’ this week the biggest number is Louisville -39.5 over Charlotte on Thursday. You have to go to the ‘Extra Board’ for the really ugly mismatches like Missouri State -52 over Southwestern College of Kansas. That leads us to the following college football prop bet odds:
WILL THERE BE A COLLEGE FOOTBALL POINTSPREAD HIGHER THAN 60.5 POINTS?
YES, THERE WILL BE A POINTSPREAD OF HIGHER THAN 60.5 POINTS -160
NO, THERE WILL NOT BE A POINTSPREAD OF HIGHER THAN 60.5 POINTS +140
All regular board and extra board games are action
Florida State was a -70.5 favorite over lowly Savannah State in 2012 and it wouldn’t be a huge surprise to see Savannah State cash this ticket. In fact, this bet could go down as early as Saturday, September 10 when Southern Mississippi hosts Savannah State. Last year Southern Miss beat Austin Peay 52-6 and beat Rice 65-10. They can basically name the score against Savannah State who last year lost to Colorado State 65-13 and to Akron 52-9. In 2014, Georgia Southern beat them 83-9 and BYU beat them 64-0.
WILL SAVANNAH STATE SCORE A TOUCHDOWN AGAINST SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI?
YES, SAVANNAH STATE SCORES A TOUCHDOWN -225
NO, SAVANNAH STATE DOESN’T SCORE A TOUCHDOWN +175
As wretched a team as Savannah State is they’ve managed to score at least a touchdown in all of their games against FBS opponents since 2013 with the exception of a 66-3 loss to Troy that year and a 64-0 loss to BYU in 2014. Here’s the catch–they’ve scored exactly one touchdown in each of these games. Whether it’s a ‘gift’ from the undermatched opponent or an inevitability when the more powerful team starts putting graduate assistants into the game they’ve been able to be counted on for one–and only one–touchdown in these games.
We’ll pick on Savannah State some more with our next prop bet:
2016 SEASON WINS BY SAVANNAH STATE
OVER 0.5 WINS -140
UNDER 0.5 WINS +120
Savannah State’s record over the past few years:
2015: 1-9
2014: 0-12
2013: 1-11
2012: 1-10
2011: 1-10
2010: 1-10
2009: 2-8
2008: 5-7
As you can see, Savannah State has been consistent though not in a good way. At one point, they guaranteed themselves at least one win per year due to scheduling but they really can’t do that any more. At one point, North Carolina Central was a ‘winnable game’. Not any more–the NCCU program has experienced a turnaround and will be going for their third straight winning season. One possible win is against Florida A&M–a team that also went 1-11 last year and 3-9 the year before. Howard University also went 1-10 last year but their only victory was a 55-9 win over Savannah State. In fact, they’ve had little trouble with Savannah State winning the last six meetings. Morgan State has had only one winning season in the past decade but they’ve never won fewer than 3 games in a season. The deal with Savannah State is that they’re usually good for one win a year–you just don’t know where it’ll come from.
And finally we’ll look at the National Championship, specifically Alabama’s chance of repeating:
WILL ALABAMA WIN THE NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP?
YES +450
NO -300
Defending a championship isn’t easy in any sport and college football is no different. Since 1986 there have been only three teams that could at least make the argument they’ve defended their national championship. Of course it’s easier now with the BCS Championship than it was in the day when there were a million different polls and ranking system. In any case, the three teams are:
NEBRASKA 1994-1995
USC 2003-2004 (sort of)
ALABAMA 2011-2012
It’s a tough challenge. Will Alabama be up to it?