College Football Week 12 Upset Picks: Texas Overrated, Again
- Picking upsets is getting a lot harder!
- Maybe that’s a trend, we’ll look into it.
- Meanwhile: Iowa State is great!
As we pointed out last week, as college football progresses, it gets harder and harder to pick upsets. Oddsmakers have a big enough sample size to set reasonably accurate lines, and the wild volatility of the early season has all but worn off.
College Football Week 11 Upset Picks Results
| Our Pick | Result |
|---|---|
| Texas Tech (+110) | L |
| Miami (+145) | L |
| Virginia Tech (+130) | L |
Three straight L’s, just the second time this has happened. I’m going to dig into this in the offseason, but I’m noticing that it’s harder and harder to pick upsets as the season goes on. I’d like to see if that’s a trend, or if it’s just my picks that are failing to come through.
College Football Week 12 Upset Picks
Iowa State at Texas
| Team | Spread | Moneyline |
|---|---|---|
| Iowa State | +3.0 (-125) | +125 |
| Texas | -3.0 (+105) | -145 |
Iowa State is a really good football team, at least for as long as Matt Campbell remains the head coach there. They compare favorably to their rivals Iowa, and are virtually the same team, just with a more efficient offense and a slightly less stunning defense. They’ve even got the hottest commodity in football: a true freshman quarterback that came off the bench and lit the world on fire.
Texas is wildly overplaying their hand in 2018, and should more plausibly be a six or even five-win team. The defense isn’t terribly effective, the offense is good, and altogether the team is somewhere behind Iowa State.
Wisconsin at Purdue
| Team | Spread | Moneyline |
|---|---|---|
| Wisconsin | +4.5 (-115) | +170 |
| Purdue | -4.5 (-105) | -200 |
We’ve seen this a couple times now: the team that figures out what’s wrong with Greg Schiano blows up Ohio State, and then gets wildly short betting lines for the remainder of the season. It happened to Iowa last year; they put up 55 points on the Buckeyes and then immediately returned to form, losing to Wisconsin and Purdue.
Wisconsin’s the better team, and not only by a little. The 6-4 record isn’t something to write home about, but this is a strong team with effective units on both sides of the ball and a horrific schedule. Let’s get on the other side of some of that Purdue hype, why don’t we?
Alex studied political science in university but spent most of that time watching college football. He covered sports betting for SBD from 2017-2019. Avid tennis player, golf nut, and motorsports nerd.
