in NCAA F Articles

“To err is human,” Alexander Pope once wrote. You can rest assured there will be a lot of humanity on display during the college football bowl season.

There are some excellent football teams out there. They’ve demonstrated their abilities over the past four months, mowing down the opposition left, right and center. And some of those teams are going to lose their bowl games. Identifying which ones is difficult, but picking the right ones can be highly profitable for those handicappers willing to go against the grain and throw down a few moneyline bets on the underdog. If that’s a bit too adventurous for your tastes, a bet on the pointspread provides a nice cushion, just in case the “better team” does win after all.

The three bowl games getting the early buzz as prime upset situations all feature underdogs who run some variant of the option on offense. The games in question are the Meineke Car Care Bowl (Navy vs. Boston College), the Pacific Life Holiday Bowl (Texas A&M vs. California), and the National Championship game pitting the Florida Gators against the No. 1 team in the nation, the undefeated Ohio State Buckeyes. The Gators are 8-point underdogs, and while OSU is by any measure the better team on paper, Florida’s spread offense under coach Urban Meyer is so dangerous – and unfamiliar to Ohio State – that the Gators have the proverbial puncher’s chance at upsetting the Buckeyes.

The other two bowls are far less prestigious, but the chances for an upset increase dramatically. Navy has its own super-weapon on offense: the No. 1 running attack in the nation at 327.4 yards per game. That accounts for nearly all of the Midshipmen offense, but their ground game is based on coach Paul Johnson’s variation of the rarely used flexbone offense, currently steered by sophomore QB Kaipo-Noa Kaheaku-Enhada. Boston College has a very good run defense, but the Eagles haven’t seen anything like what Navy brings to the table. B.C. is favored by seven points in this matchup.

As for California, the Golden Bears are co-champions of the Pacific-10 Conference along with the USC Trojans, but there’s still a significant gulf in talent between the Pac-10 and the Big 12. Cal went 5-6 ATS overall and 4-5 ATS in conference action; the Aggies were 8-2-1 ATS overall and a wallet-bursting 6-1-1 ATS against the Big 12, upsetting both Texas and Oklahoma State (and losing by just one point to Nebraska and Oklahoma). The Bears just don’t measure up to that level of competition, but they’re still 5-point faves at the books. This really wouldn’t be much of an “upset” at all if the Aggies win outright.

Moneyline bets aren’t available as widely in college as they are in the pros, so talk to your customer representative to see what is in store for the bowl season. As the Gators, Midshipmen and Aggies have all proved, it’s good to keep your options open.