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College Football Week 10 Upset Picks: Go Aggies!

Alex Kilpatrick

by Alex Kilpatrick in College Football

Updated Apr 1, 2020 · 3:11 PM PDT

Iowa Football
Iowa's only job is to produce upsets, so let's hope they can this weekend against Purdue. Photo by Phil Roeder (flickr) [CC License].
  • College football is producing less upsets as the season wears on, so we’re struggling a little
  • Hopefully some tight lines will produce some value for us
  • Go Aggies!

Picking upsets in the first part of the season is easy: you just pick every big line and know that a fair amount of them will turn out to be wildly off. The later you get into the season, the more data everyone gets and the more accurate the lines are. Maybe this should be an upset-picker until Week 7 and a Locks Picker after that. Next year!

College Football Week 9 Upset Picks Results

Our Pick Result
Washington State (+135) W
Navy (+1100) L
Iowa (+215) L
Florida (+225) L

Altogether not a great week, with just Washington State coming through. We were down 1.65 units for the week, which leaves us up 2.7 units for the season.

College Football Week 10 Upset Picks

Back to the familiar old formula of three picks!

Texas A&M (#25) at Auburn

Team Spread Moneyline
Texas A&M (#25) +4.0 (-115) +160
Auburn -4.0 (-105) -180

I’ve gotten burned a lot on fading Auburn this season, but I’m convinced that the program is in decline. They don’t have the offensive linemen necessary to keep Jarrett Stidham on two feet and everything else they’re doing is trying to paper over that. I don’t think torching Ole Miss is a sign that everything’s okay now.

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Texas A&M is a program headed in the right direction. Their three losses come from Clemson, a road game in Tuscaloosa, and the day Mississippi State decided to throw the ball, a day that will live forever in infamy.

I can’t fade a program on the basis of those losses, particularly not when they’ve handled everyone else. The Aggies are going to finish this season with four losses and  a whole lot of promise.

Iowa (#19) at Purdue

Team Spread Moneyline
Iowa (#19) +3.0 (-125) +120
Purdue -3.0 (+105) -140

Iowa’s the better team. Purdue got that big win over Ohio State but that doesn’t make them the better team. Iowa’s beaten up on Ohio State too, and they went on to lose two games in a row. Beating Ohio State is more about being in the right place in the right time, specifically “being on the field while Greg Schiano’s luck runs out.” Those games are fun to watch, but not particularly useful for projecting future performance.

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You don’t get a huge payout for projecting the Hawkeyes to win this game, but you do get something. The Hawkeyes are a great, consistent team, and Purdue has already played its best game of 2018. Let’s take Iowa.

Missouri at Florida (#9)

Team Spread Moneyline
Missouri +6.5 (-115) +200
Florida (#9) -6.5 (-105) -240

Florida has some injury problems in the secondary, injury problems that Georgia and Jake Fromm exposed.

Florida cornerback Marco Wilson is still injured, so the Florida secondary is pretty young and inexperienced. CJ Henderson should be back from the injury that took him out of last week’s game, so things should be better than they were against Georgia, but not by any means good.

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Florida will try and take the pressure off the secondary by sending blitzes, and the game will come down to “is Drew Lock quick enough and accurate enough to make throws into single coverage with a blitz coming?” I’m betting he is!

Also, Florida play-calling will remain Florida play-calling. That is: it’ll be suspect.

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