Free Picks
College Football Moneyline Play of the Week
By John Mosko
Oct 6, 2006, 10:28

Welcome back to the continuing saga of John Mosko's College Football Moneyline Pick of the Week. To those of you who have followed the column over the past several years, we're glad to see you're still here, to our new readers, welcome aboard. If you're not at all sure what College Football Moneyline betting is or why one might want to try it, you can take a look at this article I penned a few years back as I started this column:

Colege Football Moneyline Betting

That said, I'll assume we are all up to speed, and get right into what is on the board this week:

Purdue +350
Syracuse +250
Indiana +280
Maryland +450
Buffalo +160
KState +115
Tulane +115
Navy +130
LSU +110
Oregon St +140
Arizona +400
Oklahoma +150
Minnesota +120
Virginia +210
Akron +200
Kentucky +180
Baylor +180
Iowa St +220
Memphis +200
Missouri +180
Ohio +150
Central Mich +120
UConn +250
Oregon +170
SMU +350
Nevada +400
N Texas +140
UL Monroe +210
Miami OH +550

Looking through the above, we have a nice list of lines to choose from. At first glance, I like Purdue, Indiana, Arizona, and Nevada. Frankly, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Missouri are likely better bets as I wouldn't be at all surprised to see any of them win, but with moneylines all just a shade above 100 they aren't really all that fun to consider for a column on picking big dogs against the moneyline.

So, of our four candidates, lets take a deeper look:

Purdue is coming off their first loss of the season against Notre Dame and travelling to Iowa where Tate and the Hawks had their bubble burst last week against Ohio State. Purdue has talent, and getting 350 here isn't bad. No one knows how the Hawks are going to respond after that big loss (look how Michigan State fell apart last week against Illinois after a bubble burst the week before) and Iowa hasn't looked sharp in a number of games this year.

Indiana isn't a good team. But frankly neither is Illinois. The Illini pulled a victory from MSU last week and are getting some favorable looks now. The Hoosiers have the situational value playing with Coach H back from a second surgery and on the sidelines, but when I think this is essentially a coin flip, and you're getting +280, its worth a look.

Arizona has played a schedule that makes the patsies UCLA has beaten look like Pop Warner squads. The Bearcats haven't posted the big wins, but they hung around all game against USC, and had the experience of going into SEC country and tangling with LSU. UCLA struggled with Rice, and won ugly, and gave up a big comeback win when up 16 to Washington. I think Arizona has probably a 35-40% chance of grabbing the upset, and getting a full 4 to 1 you have to take a look here.

Nevada is also getting 400 and is worth a look. The situation doesn't favor the pack, as they are fresh off a big rivalry win against UNLV, and are now "vacationing" in Hawaii where it is notoriously tough to get UP to play, but this team is still solid and getting 4 to 1 is big. Both teams have lost twice this year, both beat UNLV pretty badly, and both have played as expected in games they were supposed to win. Frankly, Nevada's three game win streak over CSU, NWestern, and UNLV, seems a shade more impressive to me than Hawaii's win over UNLV and E Illinois, but who cares. In this coin flip type situation, you have to like getting 4 to 1 for your money.

So with all the above reviewed, we're going to go ahead and make this a two for one weekend and take both Nevada and Arizona on the big moneylines as our underdog moneyline play of the week.

Thanks for reading and good luck.

John

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