College football Week 9: What we learned last week

Nothing earth-shattering from this past week of college football. The best thing we got, and thankfully so, is the preservation of top teams like Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio State and Michigan as undefeated. It would have been a shame if we lost those, right?

It did not happen over the weekend, but we did finally get the firing of coach Bryan Harsin at Auburn. We have had a number of firings already and I definitely expect that we will see many more in the weeks to come. How that influences results is always difficult to predict. 

At a place like Auburn that might be a "breath of fresh air". In other places, less so. 

Here is a quick look at what we learned last week. 

What We Learned from Week 9

We Are Still Getting the Big One: UGA vs. TENN

Tennessee has been looking good all season long and they added another data point with a dominating win over Kentucky. Georgia did not cover against Florida in their annual match, but they won with relative ease against the Gators. The important thing is that both showed no signs that this week's game against each other is going to be anything less than the Game of the Year.

Betting Takeaway: Tennessee is a real threat to win. 

OSU vs. Michigan Another Inevitable Showdown

Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State, and Michigan State are supposed to be the top programs in the Big Ten East. This season there is a massive gap between the first 2 and the last 2 though, especially MSU who has resorted to fighting after games out of frustration. Now that OSU has beaten PSU and Michigan has knocked off MSU it feels inevitable that these teams meet with matching 11-0 records at the Horseshoe. 

Betting Takeaway: With the way they run the ball Michigan is a legitimate threat to win at Ohio State this season. 

ACC Takes More Hits - Ouch!

Clemson was off last week. As a result, they are still undefeated and it is probably good that they were not in action last week or otherwise they probably would have lost that distinction. The ACC results were underwhelming with Syracuse uncompetitive against Notre Dame and Wake Forest falling apart at Louisville. Perhaps the worst result of all was BC losing at UConn, scoring just three points against the Huskies. 

Betting Takeaway: These teams are probably all worse than you think. Buyer Beware!

Scoring Points and Over - It Matters There, Too

Last time we looked at scoring and ATS records. Shocker, the top-scoring teams are going over a lot of the time too. In most cases, their raw scoring numbers are goosing up the game totals, but not enough that you want to fade high-scoring teams. There are 10 teams scoring 40 ppg or more. Seven of those 10 programs are going over at least 63% of the time. That is a nice rate of return on a pretty basic strategy. 

Betting Takeaway: Don't be scared by high totals. The top-scoring teams are not ones to fade because of that. 

Winning Matters, Too 

There are 6 teams with perfect 8-0 records as we head into Week 10. It is obviously hard to predict which teams are going to win all of their games but put more simply, backing the best teams is a winning strategy and if you jump on the surprises, like TCU and Tennessee, early you get a chance to really make some dough - those teams are a combined 13-2-1 ATS this season. 

Betting Takeaway: The spread is the great equalizer but sometimes it just doesn't matter.