The Magnificent Seven: Week VI

We had our best week in a long time. Sure seems like a market correction is in store, but hopefully it waits a few weeks. As always, home teams in BOLD.

Last Week: 6-1

Overall 20-15

Tennessee -10.5 South Carolina

Am I putting too much stock into Tennessee's win against Missouri last week? Probably. The Vols rolled up nearly 700 yards and 62 points against what may end up being one of the worst SEC defenses we have ever seen. However, given that dominating performance, I expected this spread to be over two touchdowns. Despite dropping 62 points on the road in a conference game, I believe Tennessee is still undervalued by the betting market. The Vols have lost to the two best teams they have played but it may be time to reevaluate that loss to Pittsburgh. A month ago, Pittsburgh looked to be a middling Power Five team, but according to FPI, they are the second best team in the ACC (tenth best in the country) and the favorite to win the conference. Are you prepared to live in a world where Pittsburgh is an 11-2 ACC champion with a loss to Western Michigan that prevents them from making the playoff? I sure am. Anyway, that competitive loss to the Panthers suddenly looks better and better, and while I don't expect Tennessee to have any shot at beating Alabama or Georgia, they can certainly handle an SEC team with a deficient offense led by a rookie head coach. How many points can South Carolina realistically expect to score in this game? Ignoring their game against Eastern Illinois, the Gamecocks have scored 66 points in their four FBS games. Georgia and Kentucky have elite and good defenses respectively, but the Gamecocks also scored twenty points against East Carolina and 23 against Troy. Seems like they probably max out in the mid-twenties. Tennessee has a pretty good offense, not up to the standards in Tuscaloosa, but pretty good. And they are able to maximize that offense by playing at a fast pace. This game should have more possessions than an average college football game, so Tennessee will have extra opportunities to get margin. To handicap this game, I also looked at how Josh Heupel's teams performed in home games while he was at Central Florida. His teams were a mediocre 8-7 ATS as home favorites, but that was more a function of them laying a lot of points. Here is the chronological margin of victory in home games against FBS competition for his teams at Central Florida. 

The loss by eight points came against Tulsa when the Knights blew a big lead and the three point loss was to unbeaten Cincinnati. His teams won their other 14 home games by at least eleven points. As I mentioned earlier, they did not cover a lot of those games because they were laying three and four touchdowns. I will probably regret this around 12:30 or so Saturday, but you have to lay it with Tennessee. 

Syracuse +6 Wake Forest

Wake Forest has pretty much nailed its last two football coaching hires (wish I could say the same about basketball). The Demon Deacons have enjoyed an unprecedented run of success the past twenty years, playing in ten bowl games, entering the AP Poll in six different seasons, and even winning the conference in 2006. Despite all that success, you would almost (I said almost) have been better off investing in Enron in 2001 than backing Wake Forest as a road favorite. 

I don't expect those numbers to improve much after Saturday. Wake Forest is 5-0, but their schedule has been rather light in the early going. Their best victory is either the road domination of Virginia or the close scrape with Louisville last week. Syracuse is not a great team, but they are much better than the smoldering crater they were last season. They have been pretty strong on defense, holding two Power Five opponents and Liberty to 314 yards per game and 4.69 yards per play. Despite being coached by Dino Babers, the passing game is pedestrian, but the Orange are able to run the ball with running back Sean Tucker averaging nearly six yards per carry and quarterback Garrett Shrader (a Mississippi State transfer) contributing 234 yards on the ground. Wake Forest has a great chance to start 8-0 if they can get by the Orange, but they will struggle to put Syracuse away in the Carrier Dome.  

Wyoming +6 Air Force

People tend to remember the last thing they saw. Erudite folks call that recency bias. And that is probably why Air Force is laying more than a field goal against the Cowboys. In Wyoming's last game, they had to survive a two point conversion to avoid going to overtime against Connecticut. The Cowboys trailed for most of the game before staging a second half rally to take the lead and ultimately prevail. While barely beating Connecticut is never something you should brag about, I will point out the Huskies have played much better since Randy Edsall retired. After taking Wyoming to the wire, they nearly won on the road against an SEC opponent, so Wyoming's result is not quite as bad as it would initially appear. Compare their performance to Air Force which has rolled its past two opponents by a combined 52 points. Keep the competition in mind though. Their first victim was a team from Florida playing in altitude (or at elevation, I forget which is the proper phrasing) and the other came against perhaps the worst team in the Mountain West. Give the Falcons credit for blasting those two teams, but Wyoming represents their stiffest test to date. The Falcons have rolled up over 1200 yards on the ground in their past three games, so the big question will be how well Wyoming plays against their triple-option variant offense. Their history under Craig Bohl suggests the defense will play well. 

The Cowboys have won four of six outright in this series since Bohl took over with the loss two years ago coming in a game where the Cowboys had major quarterback issues (starter hurt, inept backup) and managed just six points. Air Force has had some defensive issues this season, allowing 49 points and over 600 yards to Utah State three weeks ago. The Cowboys probably don't have the horses to get to those numbers, but they can still win this game outright. 

Southern Miss +2 UTEP

If it turns out our reality is not a simulation, there sure are a lot of coincidences. UTEP has been pretty bad for the past decade and a half (just one winning season since 2005). In fact, in the past ten seasons, this game marks the fifth time they have been road favorites. Three came against New Mexico State (including this season) and the other before this weekend came against...Southern Miss in 2012. The Eagles were led by a first-year head coach that season. Ellis Johnson took over for Larry Fedora and drove the program directly into the ditch. The Eagles went winless in 2012, Johnson was fired, and it took his successor until 2015 to get the team back to a bowl game. The Eagles are once again led by a first-year head coach, and while a winless season is not on the table, thing have not been great in Hattiesburg. The Eagles are 0-4 against FBS opponents despite being thought of as a middling Conference USA team before the season started. However, if you squint, you can see signs of progress. The offense finally moved the ball reasonably well against Rice last week and would likely have won if not for four interceptions. In addition, outside of their performance against Alabama, the defense has played well all season, holding their other three FBS opponents to 306 yards per game and 4.97 yards per play. UTEP is 4-1, but that is more a function of their schedule than anything else. You should never be at a point where you feel comfortable laying points on the road with the boys from El Paso. Take the Eagles to pull off the Miner (see what I did there?) upset.  

Texas-San Antonio +3.5 Western Kentucky

When the oddsmakers throw out a line that seems weird on the surface like this one, I am inclined to avoid it or back the team that is favored. Why is this line weird? Let me set the scene for you. Texas-San Antonio (or UTSA) is 5-0. They have beaten a Power Five team on the road (granted it was Illinois) and won another road game against a team from a superior Group of Five conference (Memphis). Meanwhile, Western Kentucky is 1-3, with zero wins against FBS competition. The Hilltoppers have come close, losing tight games to Army and Indiana. Western Kentucky does one thing well. Throw the football. The Hilltoppers relocated the Houston Baptist passing game in the offseason and the results have been phenomenal. Quarterback Bailey Zappe is completing nearly three quarters of his passes and averaging about nine and a half yards per throw. Two receivers are on pace for 1000 yards and the team is averaging 39 points per game. However, football teams also have to play defense and special teams and this is where Western Kentucky is lacking. Their three FBS opponents have averaged nearly 40 points and 480 yards per game against them. The Hilltoppers have also given up a punt return touchdown for good measure. UTSA can't compete with those robust offensive numbers, but the Roadrunners are much more balanced than the Hilltoppers, Their defense has generated 13 sacks in the past three games and is allowing just 40 rushing yards per game against Group of Five competition. I expect a high-scoring affair and Western Kentucky will likely have the lead at some point on Saturday night. However, their suspect defense will ultimately be their undoing. 

LSU +3 Kentucky

With SEC expansion, the Wildcats and Tigers don't play that often. This is their first meeting since 2014 and just their second in the past decade. With their divergent football histories and infrequent meetings, you probably wouldn't be surprised to hear this is the first time Kentucky has been favored against the Tigers this century. The last time the Wildcats were favored versus LSU was 1999. They won that game by the odd score of 31-5. Kentucky finished 6-6 that season under Hal Mumme, but the bigger story was LSU. The Tigers won a solitary SEC game that season, and wrapped up the Gerry DiNardo era with a 3-8 record. They made a pretty good hire after jettisoning DiNardo and returned to elite status quickly. I bring up that game from more than two decades ago because situations where a perennial have not is favored against a perennial have involve either the have not being historically good or the have being historically bad. That LSU team was historically bad. This LSU team may be mediocre, but they are not bad. So if LSU is not historically bad, does this Kentucky team strike you as transcendent (at least by their standards). Not really. They have won each of their last four games against vastly different competition by a touchdown or less. The victories against Missouri, Chattanooga, and South Carolina are not impressive. The victory against Florida is impressive in the abstract, but the Wildcats were outgained by more than 150 yards and needed a blocked field goal return to provide the winning margin. My sources in Birmingham tell me league officials are unlikely to take that victory away from them, but its best to ignore random, high leverage events like that when projecting forward. Kentucky is a good team, with a quality defense, but they are unlikely to blow LSU out. This is likely to be a one-score game in the fourth quarter, so I like to back the team catching points. In addition, for all his potential faults, Ed Orgeron has killed it as a road underdog during his time at LSU. His teams are 7-1 ATS in the role with four outright wins. He may end up being fired by season's end, but I think he is able to rally the Tigers to pull the minor upset. 

Memphis +3 Tulsa

Both these teams lost last week in rather surprising fashion, but the betting market has only punished Memphis. The Tigers did fall as double-digit favorites, but its possible we were too pessimistic about Temple. I certainly sounded the alarm in the offseason, as the Owls were very bad in 2020. However, they may have been more about Covid and depth chart issues than anything fundamentally wrong with the program. The Owls were blown out by the two Power Five teams they played in non-conference action this year, but that was largely a function of turnovers (-5 versus Rutgers) and an inability to block Boston College (allowed four sacks and rushed for just over two yards per carry). The Owls may end up being a decent AAC team before the year is out and the game between Memphis and Temple may end up saying more about Temple (doesn't suck) than it does about Memphis. Meanwhile, the team we really should have been worried about in the offseason was Tulsa. Despite three consecutive losing seasons, the Golden Hurricane brought back Phillip Montgomery in 2020. He rewarded their faith with an unbeaten run through the AAC regular season. However, that mirage was built upon miraculous second half comebacks and the play of linebacker Zaven Collins. Collins is in the NFL now and it seems like regression might be reaching out for Tulsa. They were blasted at home by Houston last week to drop to 1-4 and put their bowl hopes on life support. I think Montgomery will be fired by the end of the year, if not sooner, and his road to unemployment will continue with another home loss as a betting favorite on Saturday.