Through the first two months of the 2021 campaign, college football bettors had a nice weekend routine going: Clean the house, shop for groceries, check in with the folks, load up on ranked teams, collect a small fortune.
Then came Week 9, when Top 25 teams finally came back to earth, posting an 11-11 ATS record.
Then came Week 10, when Top 25 teams fell flat on their collective face like a college student after multiple shots of Cuervo.
For those bettors who were fortuitous enough to leap off the Top 25 college football betting bandwagon last week, congrats. For those who weren’t, we at least hope you had the good sense to numb the pain with something better than Cuervo.
Let’s recap last week’s Top 25 horror show and update the latest positive and negative college football ATS and Over/Under tendencies in the Week 11 edition of the College Football Betting Trends Report (which, as always, considers only FBS vs. FBS results).
All ATS and Over/Under stats are reflective of VegasInsider.com’s final consensus lines.
Top 25 Finally Bottoms Out
Five of the top six teams ranked in last week’s AP Top 25 poll took the field Saturday with a combined point-spread record of 26-10-1. Those five teams departed the field Saturday with a combined point-spread record of 26-15-1.
Like an 8-year-old with a BB gun taking aim at pigeons from point-blank range, the gambling gods picked off No. 1 Georgia, No. 2 Cincinnati, No. 3 Alabama, No. 5 Michigan State, and No. 6 Ohio State. (Only No. 5 Oklahoma avoided the crosshairs, as the Sooners were on bye.)
Not only did those top-six squads fail to cover the spread in their respective games, but they missed doing so by a combined 59.5 points. Only Georgia (37-point win over Missouri as a 40-point chalk) and Ohio State (9-point win over Nebraska as a 14-point favorite) came close to paying off their backers.
Had the carnage ended there, it would’ve been bad enough. But it didn’t. Not counting then-No. 17 BYU’s rout of overmatched FCS foe Idaho State, last week’s Top 25 went 15-8 SU and 9-14 ATS.
Looking for a silver lining? You’ve come to the right place, because we mass produce those things: This week’s Top 25 — which welcomed Wisconsin (No. 20), North Carolina State (No. 21), and Pitt (No. 25) — still sports a combined 128-78-2 ATS record in FBS-specific games. That equates to a highly profitable 61.5 percent spread-cover rate.
What’s more, only three of this week’s ranked teams have losing ATS records in FBS contests: No. 4 Oklahoma (3-5), No. 14 BYU (4-5), and No. 24 Louisiana-Lafayette (3-5).
This week, BYU is the only ranked team on bye, while six others — N.C. State at No. 13 Wake Forest; No. 18 Baylor at Oklahoma; and No. 11 Texas A&M at No. 12 Ole Miss — square off against one another.
From The Penthouse …
Two of last week’s ranked squads that got the job done at the betting window were Oklahoma State and Texas-San Antonio. That duo joins Syracuse at the top of the point-spread mountain at 7-1 ATS, followed by East Carolina (6-1-1) and Michigan (7-2).
Oklahoma State actually enters Week 11 as the hottest team in the land, having covered in seven consecutive contests since coming up short against Tulsa in Week 1. East Carolina, as well as Syracuse and Washington State (both on bye last week), are on 6-0 ATS runs.
Texas-San Antonio has cashed in four straight games since its lone non-cover of the season (more on that shortly), while Texas A&M, Notre Dame, and Georgia State also sport four-game ATS winning streaks. Then there’s San Jose State, which has answered an 0-5 ATS start with a 4-0 ATS run.
… To The Outhouse
And now we cross to the other side of the street. With Missouri (barely) getting inside that huge 40-point spread at Georgia to cash for the first time all season, we’re down to one school that has yet to cover a point spread in FBS competition: Southern Miss.
Last week, the Golden Eagles hosted North Texas as a 5-point underdog and got blitzed 38-14 to fall to 0-8 ATS this season. Southern Miss has now lost seven of its eight FBS games by at least 12 points and only once has come close to cashing (24-19 loss at Rice as a 1-point pup).
It’s safe to say that oddsmakers are confident the Golden Eagles are headed for another blowout loss in Week 11. They installed Southern Miss as a 33-point underdog for Saturday’s game at … Texas-San Antonio.
Yup, a team at the top of the ATS standings is hosting the team at the bottom.
For the record, the Roadrunners’ only ATS hiccup this season came against UNLV (24-17 win as a season-high 21.5-point home chalk). Also, UTSA (9-0 SU) — which joins Georgia and Cincinnati as college football’s only remaining unbeaten teams — has defeated just one opponent by more than 29 points: a 45-0 home victory over Rice on Oct. 16.
While Southern Miss is now all alone in the ATS basement, it has plenty of company making its way down the stairs. Indiana, Kansas, and New Mexico — all of which failed to cover in Week 10 — join Missouri at 1-7 ATS.
Several other teams also are mired in lengthy point-spread slumps, including: Maryland (0-5), Stanford (0-4), Temple (1-6), USC (1-5, including four in a row), Louisiana Tech (1-5, including four in a row), Wyoming (1-5), and Virginia (1-5).
How Low Can They Go?
Oklahoma State, Syracuse, UTSA, and every Southern Miss opponent — all have delivered monster profits for 2½ months. But if the season ended today, the Best Bet of 2021 Award would go to Illinois. Not because the Illini are 5-4-1 ATS and have pulled off two outright upsets as underdogs of 24.5 and 15 points. No, it’s because nine of their 10 games have stayed Under the total — including the last eight in a row.
Focusing on the last seven weeks, the closing total in Illinois games has ranged from 41.5 to 61.5 points. Final scores in those seven contests: 20-17, 13-9, 24-14, 24-0, 20-18 (in nine overtimes!), 20-14, 14-6.
You have go to back to Sept. 11 — a 42-14 loss at Virginia (56.5-point total) — for the last time an Illinois game had more than 38 combined points.
Bad news: The Illini are off this week. Good news: Their next opponent is Iowa, which is 7-2 to the Under this season. Slotting between Illinois and Iowa with 7-1 Under records are Louisiana-Lafayette (six in a row), Boise State (five in a row), Washington (five in a row), and Penn State (three in a row).
Six schools — Arkansas, Houston, Louisiana-Monroe, Pitt, Tulsa, and Utah — share top Over honors at 6-2. Utah has hurdled the total in five straight games, Houston in seven of its last eight, and UL-Monroe in five of its last six.
ATS Standings
Best:
Syracuse 7-1
Oklahoma State 7-1
Texas-San Antonio 7-1
East Carolina 6-1-1
Michigan 7-2
Worst:
Southern Miss 0-8
Indiana 1-7
Kansas 1-7
Missouri 1-7
New Mexico 1-7
Over/Under Standings
Over:
Arkansas 6-2
Houston 6-2
Louisiana-Monroe 6-2
Pitt 6-2
Tulsa 6-2
Utah 6-2
Under:
Illinois 1-9
Boise State 1-7
Louisiana-Lafayette 1-7
Penn State 1-7
Washington 1-7
Iowa 2-7
Purdue 2-7