College Football Betting – (4) FSU & (11) Georgia Tech Meet for ACC Title

(4) Florida State Seminoles (-4.5, 60.5 o/u) vs. (11) Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets

Oh, the whining. It’s followed the No. 4 Florida State Seminoles (12-0, 8-0 ACC) all season, and it continued after last weekend’s 24-19 win over in-state rival Florida. Evidently, the Noles aren’t winning as convincingly as some people would like (evidenced by their failure to cover against Florida). Evidently, some of those people happen to be on the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, which dropped FSU from No. 3 to No. 4 after their 28th straight win.

One can surmise that the committee members aren’t big fans of Florida State’s slow starts and close finishes. (The team has trailed in five of the last six games.) But Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher isn’t concerned about style points; he’s concerned about Ws.

“That’s who we are and how we play,” said Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher. “We’ll play the way we play. The game’s a 60-minute game. Some of the games we’ve started fast. Some we haven’t started as fast. We’ll keep doing the things we do. Try to play 60 minutes as hard as we can and adjust to the game.”

Now Seminoles quarterback Jameis Winston, who is currently attending a student conduct code hearing regarding an alleged 2012 sexual assault, will be facing No. 11 Georgia Tech (10-2, 6-2 ACC) in the ACC Championship Game in Charlotte this Saturday (8:00 p.m. Eastern).

The Yellow Jackets tend to rely on their 17th ranked offense to win games, but the defense is opportunistic, especially the secondary, which has 17 picks this season. That number could rise on Saturday, as Winston, the reigning Heisman Trophy-winner, has thrown 11 interceptions in his last six games.

Despite Winston’s turnover tumult, Georgia Tech coach Paul Johnson knows beating the Noles won’t be an easy task.

He said, “I see a really good football team that knows how to win. Winning is hard. They’ve won 28 consecutive games. That’s really hard to believe in this day and age. They’ve got a bunch of guys that are good athletes, they are very well coached and they know how to win.

“They haven’t blown as many people out as maybe a year ago, but they’ve still got a really fine football team. Make no mistake about that.”

Fate will finally have its way with Florida State this weekend. If you’re squeamish about playing the Yellow Jackets’ money line (+176), take the points instead (+4.5).

A Seminoles loss will inevitably lead to more whining. But this time it will be from Noles’ supporters when their team falls out of the top four.

(Photo credit: cholder68 of flickr (http://flickr.com/photos/cholder68/270954717/) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.)