ESPN+ picks this week
Doug Kezirian (0-2 last week, 29-22 overall),
Bill Connelly (1-1, 15-17),
Preston Johnson (0-3, 22-17),
David M. Hale (1-1, 15-17) and
Seth Walder (1-0, 5-7) will provide their top plays across the college football landscape.
Here are their best bets for Week 14 of the college football season.
Note: Lines from Caesars Sportsbook by William Hill as of Wednesday (unless otherwise indicated).
Walder: I think there's a little inflation here due to the Aggies' selection committee ranking. A big factor in the committee's ranking system is résumé. A win is a win in the standings, but how that win happened is critical for predicting future performance. A&M's three-point win over Florida earned it more clout in terms of strength of record than it did in FPI, and its five-point win over Vanderbilt is considered a negative by FPI. The Aggies have been the 13th-most efficient team this season, after accounting for opponent strength and garbage time, but FPI gives them a bit more credit because of preseason expectations and ranks them ninth.
Meanwhile, that preseason prior is keeping Auburn afloat at No. 15 in FPI's rankings. But there's reason for that: Even this far into the season, what we thought about teams in the preseason has predictive power. Altogether, FPI thinks the Tigers should be one-point favorites rather than underdogs by a touchdown.
Pick: Auburn +7
Hale: The Horned Frogs are one of those teams that the more you watch, the less you like. There's very little identity on offense, and the 4-4 record masks the real story. The offense struggled badly against West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kansas State and Baylor, and the Cowboys' D is better than any of those. Home field hasn't been much help for TCU (1-3), and Oklahoma State is 8-1 in its past nine when the spread is a field goal or less in either direction. Bottom line: The Pokes are a far better team, and they have something to play for. That's easily worth laying the 2.5.
Pick: Oklahoma State -2.5
Johnson: This point spread is puzzling to me. For starters, TCU head coach Gary Patterson told everybody that his team was missing more than 30 guys because of COVID-19 and injuries last week against Kansas. On the surface, TCU covered the game anyway, and everything seemed fine. But when you recognize that the Horned Frogs scored three defensive or special-teams touchdowns to make the score appear more acceptable against this hapless Jayhawks team, it might be cause for concern. My projection for this game is Oklahoma State -5, and though the Cowboys' defense hasn't been as stout its past two games against Oklahoma and Texas Tech, they still grade top-25 in EPA and success rate on that side of the ball. The TCU offense isn't nearly on par with what those other squads bring to the field. I expect to see the Cowboys' defense rebound in a cover on anything lined under a field goal.
Pick: Oklahoma State -2.5
Kezirian: Kansas State is not a good football team and would certainly classify as an "ugly dog" this weekend. The Wildcats have lost four straight games, including a 45-0 thrashing at Iowa State. However, this is all about Texas and its lack of motivation. The Longhorns were in the hunt for a spot in the Big 12 Championship game but blew a fourth-quarter lead last week at home to the Cyclones. It was a heartbreaking defeat for a Longhorns team that had high aspirations in
Sam Ehlinger's final home game. Now they travel to the Little Apple and face a K-State team that figures to be much more excited for this game. The better talent of the Longhorns may eventually win out over the course of four quarters, but I like the Wildcats to have the edge in the first quarter.
Pick: Kansas State +1.5 first quarter (at DraftKings)
Connelly: First, SP+ has been awfully dialed in with Eastern Michigan games this season, missing the scoring margins by an average of just 3.6 points per game and going 4-0 ATS. Second, Western Michigan has overachieved against both the spread and SP+ projections by a healthy amount so far. The SP+ projection is Western Michigan by 19.0, so if the odds are good that the Broncos overachieve that, I'm feeling pretty good about this pick.
Western Michigan's offense has been absolutely dynamite, averaging 45 points per game. The Broncos lost their focus a bit midgame against Northern Illinois last week, but they rallied to score twice and win. Eastern Michigan's offense is decent in its own right, but the Eagles' defense is miserable. I'd be surprised if WMU is held under 40.
Pick: Western Michigan -13.5
Connelly: This pick makes me a bit queasy from a "Tulsa plays in only close games" perspective. Only one of the Golden Hurricane's six games to date has been decided by double digits. That one game was against the worst opponent on Tulsa's schedule (USF, 110th per SP+), and Tulsa won easily.
Navy is 107th. The SP+ projections have been pretty dialed in on Navy, too, missing the past five Midshipmen games by an average of seven points per game. It's at 8.2 points per game for the past three Tulsa games as well. It seems to have a good read on these two teams, and it projects a 15.1-point Tulsa advantage on average (34.8-19.7). Tulsa has some potential QB injury issues to worry about -- first-stringer Zach Smith and second-stringer Seth Boomer both exited the Tulane game because of injuries. Smith's status is unclear, but if nothing else, third-stringer Davis Brin looked awesome in the game. Between that and the fact that Navy's offense just hasn't executed well this season for the most part, give me Tulsa.
Pick: Tulsa -12
Johnson: I can't disregard what Cal has done to this point, despite its 0-3 record. The Bears dealt with a COVID-19 pause in their first two scheduled games and then added UCLA on a whim in a Sunday matchup with a limited roster. They hadn't been practicing in full and weren't prepared. It showed. Head coach Justin Wilcox turned things around in matchups against Oregon State and Stanford. The Bears lost those two games by a combined five points, despite outgaining the opponent in each game. I think at this point, we can expect the Cal team that we all projected entering the season: one that was 7-0 under quarterback
Chase Garbers last season.
Combined with the bounce-back narrative surrounding Oregon after the Ducks lost outright in their rivalry game to Oregon State, I think we are getting a fairly good buy-low opportunity on the Bears (I project this game closer to +7.). The Ducks lost to the Beavers for a reason, and it was that their defense gave up 532 yards. Their defense as a whole this season ranks outside the top 100 in both EPA and success rate. If there is one defensive mind in the Pac-12 that can slow an admittedly elite Oregon offense, it's Wilcox's. Give me the 10 points.
Pick: Cal +10
Hale: After witnessing 21 games of sheer misery during his time at Florida State, it was tough to get too excited about the Willie Taggart era at FAU. But the truth is the Owls have been good. Admittedly, the competition hasn't been much, but they played Marshall tough, and though the offense has been up and down, the defense looks really good. FAU ranks seventh nationally in yards-per-play allowed and has given up the second-lowest rate of explosive plays in the country. All of that provides a good lead-up to the big news on the other sideline, as Georgia Southern just fired offensive coordinator Bob DeBesse. The total on this game is 42, and I wouldn't be surprised to see it go under, but I feel better about FAU winning this one outright.
Pick: FAU +2.5
Connelly: The line basically approximates a 49-19 Alabama win. It isn't difficult to see Alabama scoring 49, though LSU's defense has improved the past couple of games. But how in the world is LSU going to score 19? The Tigers scored 18 combined against Auburn and Texas A&M, their quarterback is going to be Sketchy Freshman A or Sketchy Freshman B, and the Crimson Tide have allowed just more than eight points per game their past four games. The only way this game goes over is if Alabama's defense takes its eye off the ball or Alabama's offense scores 60-plus. The latter wouldn't be amazingly surprising, but I'm skeptical.
Pick: Under 67.5
Kezirian: You know that cliché about rivalry games and throwing out the records? It does not apply here. LSU is as bad as its 3-4 record indicates, racking up those three wins against SEC cellar-dwellers (with a combined five wins). The offense is painful to watch. Quarterback
TJ Finley seems to have regressed. He completed just nine of 25 passes last week against Texas A&M and was rightfully replaced by
Max Johnson. Ed Orgeron should start Johnson, but it really doesn't matter. The Tigers will not score much, and I do not see how they will slow down Alabama's offensive juggernaut.
Garbage time might play a role, but I think Bama can overcome that wild card. Let me put it this way: Bama just won the Iron Bowl by 29 points. Auburn beat LSU by 37 points. I realize that handicapping involves more than the transitive property of common opponents, but this could be an absolute bloodbath because I wonder how much fight some LSU players have left.
Pick: Alabama -29.5
Kezirian: I backed the Wolf Pack last week and regretted it as soon as they allowed Hawaii to covert a third-and-15 just before halftime. I was doomed. However, I have to run it back because I have been itching to fade Fresno State. The Bulldogs' 4-1 record is phony. Two of their wins came against lowly UNLV and Utah State. Another came against Hawaii, which is a much different team on the mainland, and then the Bulldogs beat Colorado State before Steve Addazio figured out that he was playing the wrong quarterback.
Following their first loss, Nevada players are saying all the right things. They seem to grasp the importance of this game and concede that they need a better mindset than they had against Hawaii. Plus, the team stayed Saturday night in Honolulu rather than flying out immediately after the game. That allowed the players' bodies to recover more effectively.
Pick: Nevada -7
