What a wild college football weekend. When Wisconsin, South Florida, Boston College, and Kentucky are all in the top ten, you know the season has not gone according to plan. The ‘Others Receiving Votes’ section is also a bit comical as it is a list of several elite teams from the past decade including: Miami, Florida State, Auburn, and Michigan. Three Big East teams are undefeated at this point in the season but three most expected would be, Louisville, West Virginia, and Rutgers are not among them. Rather Cincinnati, South Florida, and Connecticut are among the remaining undefeated squads. The most anticipated game in the Big 12 season was also spoiled last week with Texas and Oklahoma being upset by teams from supposedly greatly inferior North division. The Big Ten has three undefeated teams remaining but two of them face off this week. The other surviving team, Wisconsin barely survived last week and will play as an underdog this week despite ranking #5 in both polls. We like to talk about the polls but they certainly are meaningless.
The underdogs came out in college last week in many of the big games but it was another big underdog week in the NFL. Underdogs went 9-4 on Sunday with home underdogs going 6-2. The Bengals will take their shot tonight against a Patriots teams that has looked invincible. There will likely be just three home underdogs this week as the schedule can go in shifts. This is also the first week that we have teams coming off bye weeks in the NFL schedule. In past seasons the bye week rotation started in week 3 but things were pushed back a week this season. It occurs in a different place in the schedule this season, but the early bye week group has fared well in the next games, going 14-6 ATS the last five years. New Orleans one of the teams on the bye this past week is in a dire situation after starting 0-3 so the bye week should give us a read on whether or not they have a chance to turn things around. The Chargers fell to 1-3 last week to join the Saints as major disappointments this season from teams that were among the most exciting to watch last season. This week returns the October scheduling of weekday games on Tuesday and Wednesday, there will be a Wednesday game next week but there will not be 19 consecutive days with a football game being played, a situation we had at one point last season.
Check out a new article about NFL teams in back to back road games this week.
