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Gary’s picks
College Football
Week 5! To keep up with our record for the year, along with results from each game we pick, please visit our Gambling Picks page!
Army (+9) @ Buffalo (Saturday / 11am / CBSSN)
- Army averages over 40 mins time of possession per game, and are converting 52% on 3rd down, compared to Buffalo, who is barely averaging 30 mins and 40% 3rd down conversions.
- Buffalo gave up an average of 5.62 yds per play vs Temple and Eastern Michigan (the two best teams they’ve played
- Buffalo is getting hype for thrashing Rutgers last week 42-13.
- Army is 7-3 ATS as an underdog since the start of 2017
- my metrics say Buffalo should be around a 1 point favorite. 9 points is absurd.
West Virginia @ Texas Tech (+3.5) (Saturday / 11am / ESPN2)
- Texas Tech’s defense has drastically improved over the last 2 seasons. They’re still not great, but it’s serviceable. This year in road/neutral site games, TTU is giving up 7.64 yds per play, but at home, it drops to 4.94.
- This is West Virginia’s first road game, and they have not played a single threatening passing attack so far
- my metrics say Texas Tech should actually be favored by about 0.5 pts, not including home field advantage
Temple (+14) @ Boston College (Saturday / 11am / ESPNU)
- in the last 2 games (vs Maryland and Tulsa), Temple is giving up only 3.76 ypp, and their offense is gaining 5.31 yds per play
- Boston College showed last week that their offense can be schemed against – Purdue held them to 229 yds total offense & 3.63ypp
- my metrics say Boston College should only be favored by about 6 pts here
ULM @ Georgia St (+7.5) (Saturday / 1pm / ESPN+)
- both of these teams have underperformed against good teams, and are average vs G5 competition
- Georgia St, behind QB Dan Ellington, should be able to keep this within a TD
- my metrics have ULM as only a 1 point favorite
Old Dominion @ East Carolina (-7) (Saturday / 11am / CBSSN)
- Old Dominion’s win over Virginia Tech last week gave us a favorable line here
- ODU still gives up over 500 ypg and over 35 ppg
- ECU beat an ACC team earlier this season as well
- ECU will score a ton of points, and now that there’s film on backup QB LaRussa, I don’t think ODU’s offense will be able to keep up
- my metrics say ECU should be favored by more than 11 points
UTEP @ UTSA (-10) (Saturday / 6pm / ESPN+)
- UTSA has improved their rushing yards in all 4 games this season, and are currently around 3.6 yds per run (started with 34 rushes for 2 total yds at Arizona St in week 1)
- UTEP is 1-3 ATS while UTSA is 0-4… but UTSA is 1-3 SU, while UTEP is 0-4.
- Both teams are pretty bad this year… I picked this game because my metrics called for UTSA to be a 17.5 pt favorite, and it’s only a 10 point line
Oregon @ Cal (+3.5) (Saturday / 9:30pm / FS1)
- Cal is 8-3 as an underdog under head coach Justin Wilcox
- Cal is at home, off a bye week, while Oregon is coming off of a heartbreaking overtime loss at home to Stanford
- Oregon played REALLY weak competition before playing Stanford… and then gave up 7.96 yds per play to the Cardinal.
- my metrics say that Cal should be favored by 2 points in this one, so catching more than a field goal at home is a must play