The Magnificent Seven: Week XV

Another regular season has come and gone. We march in to Championship Weekend and (hopefully) some better picks. 

Last Week: 3-4

Overall: 45-53

Texas Tech -12.5 BYU @ Arlington

A few years ago, I posted about how one goes about spotting a championship game blowout. The long and short of it is, when a championship game matches up one team that was ranked in the preseason AP Poll and another that was not, back the team that was ranked in the preseason. The preseason AP Poll is far from perfect, but it is a decent proxy for talent and Texas Tech certainly has it. The Red Raiders were only ranked 23rd in the preseason AP Poll, but BYU was nowhere to be found. In the thirty plus year history of championship games, teams that were ranked in the preseason AP Poll are an outstanding 38-4 straight up when they face off against teams that were unranked in the preseason AP Poll. BYU also had some distractions around the program with Kalani Sitake being given serious consideration for the Penn State job. These teams played a month ago in Lubbock with Texas Tech winning easily. I see no reason to expect anything different on Saturday. 

Georgia -2.5 Alabama @ Atlanta

Earlier this year, I posted about underwater conference championship game participants. That is, teams that qualified for their conference championship game despite being outgained on a yards per play basis by their conference opponents. Despite their glistening 7-1 conference record, Alabama fits that description this year, as they were slightly outgained by their SEC foes. 17 teams have advanced to their conference championship game despite being underwater. They went a combined 2-15 in those title games (3-13-1 ATS). I know Georgia has had trouble with Alabama under Kirby Smart, but I think they exorcise those demons on Saturday afternoon and if the margin is large enough, potentially keep Alabama out of the College Football Playoff. 

Virginia -3.5 Duke @ Charlotte

This will probably not surprise you, but Duke also finished underwater in ACC play, yet will somehow play for the conference title on Saturday night. Hopefully this inspires some adjustments to the conference tiebreaker procedures so we are not forced to endure this mediocrity in championship games going forward. Like Texas Tech and BYU, these two teams played fairly recently (three weeks ago), with Virginia winning handily and (we thought) ending Duke's chances at stealing an ACC title. Duke has one of the worst defenses of any power conference team while Virginia was low-key quite good on defense (second in the ACC in yards allowed per play). I expect the Cavaliers to win handily and end Duke's charmed run.