After going 3-1 ATS with my Fade The Public Plays in Week 5, last week’s plays ended up losing money. The week got off to a great start as Utah State hammered BYU on the road despite being a short underdog, but then things took a screeching turn right off a cliff. Virginia Tech was crushed by Notre Dame, Arizona State came up short against Colorado, and Arkansas pushed against Alabama. To be fair, if you grabbed Arkansas at any other time during the week, you won because of that backdoor cover, but the CFB betting odds had the spread at 34 at the time I posted it. Fading the public would have still made you money through two weeks, so without further ado here are this week’s picks.
Louisville +13.5 at Boston College
Everyone and their brother seems to think that Boston College is going to crush Louisville this week, so why did the line drop a half-point from where it opened? The Cardinals are coming off of an embarrassing performance against Georgia Tech on Friday night. They suffered their worst home loss in 21 years, and they gave up 542 rushing yards to the Yellow Jackets. Boston College loves to keep the ball on the ground, and many believe the Eagles can have a lot of success with their running game too.
However, Boston College was not impressive without AJ Dillon last week against North Carolina State. The Eagles defense allowed more than 550 yards of offense to the Wolfpack, and they were down 28-3 late in the third quarter. They rallied late to make the score a respectable 28-23 final, and covered the NCAAF betting line, but that covered up just how bad the offense looked. Boston College had just 12 first downs, and the team was largely set up by four NC State turnovers.
Dillon is questionable to play in this one, and if he is unable to go, the Eagles offense could very well struggle again. The defense’s woes are likely to continue though, and that makes Louisville a great bet here.
San Jose State +15 vs. Army
Most people expected San Jose State to be pretty bad this season. The Spartans went 2-11 in 2017 in Brent Brennan’s first year on the job, and there wasn’t much optimism surrounding the program. They are currently sitting at 0-5, yet they have looked like they might be starting to figure it out. In each of the last three weeks, they stayed within two scores of their opponent, losing by 13 to Oregon, 12 to Colorado State, and taking Hawai’i to overtime before falling.
Virtually everyone is high on the Black Knights. Army is sitting at 3-2, and the program’s last two performances turned a lot of heads. They took Oklahoma to overtime in Norman a few weeks ago, and they crushed a good Buffalo team on the road the following week.
Army’s advanced metrics just aren’t that good though. According to S&P+, Army is the 83rd best team in the country, and the Black Knights have not done a good job of stopping opponents’ offenses. I expect this to be a surprisingly high scoring game and believe that the Spartans have a better shot than you might think at pulling off the outright upset.
Rutgers +25.5 at Maryland
Rutgers is bad. There’s no arguing that. The Scarlet Knights are 2-5 this year, and they just lost their best chance of picking up a conference win when they fell at home to Illinois by 21 points last week. However, they probably aren’t 25.5 points worse than Maryland.
The Terrapins have been incredibly erratic this year. They beat Texas at FedEx Field to start the season, but just two weeks later they lost to Temple by 21 points at home. Maryland knows it has a tough test on the road next week when it travels to Kinnick Stadium for a noon game, and the Terps are unlikely to be fully focused for this one. They will win, but they won’t be able to cover the CFB betting line.
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