College Football: What We Learned Week 8

The Ohio State Buckeyes remain the top team in the nation based on my predictive power ratings. Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, and USC round out the Top 5.

Ohio State is the favorite against Tennessee and Alabama. Tennessee is playing for a playoff berth and a possible national championship. There are seven SEC teams in the AP poll. The ACC has five teams, the Big Ten has four, Pac-12 has 4, Big 12 has 3 and the American Conference has 2.

The big favorites of 17.5 or more points went 6-0 straight up in Week 6. The market has them priced correctly with an 88-86-3 ATS record and 86-87-4 Over-Under record.

In Week 8, ranked teams playing at home went 9-0 SU, 8-1 ATS and 6-3. In the past two weeks, the ranked team playing on the road went 1-8 SU and 5-11 Ats.

There are some good betting opportunities in Week 8. Road favorites with an average of 31 points per game are good bets. USC is a 15-point favorite against Arizona on Saturday. The road favorites have gone 31-3 SU (91%) and 23-11 ATS (68%) winning bets if the game occurs between Week8 and Week 13 of the regular season.

The teams with the highest scoring games in their previous two weeks are the favorites.

Tennessee is favored by 13 points to beat Kentucky. The current line and total reflect a 38-25 Tennessee win. My predictive model shows an 85% probability that Tennessee will score at least 31 points and have fewer turnovers than Kentucky in this game.

The Volunteers are 16-0 SU and 15-1 ATS in home games when they have scored 31 or more points and had fewer turnovers than their opponent over the past 10 seasons. Kentucky is 0-9 SU, 2-7 Ats when allowing 31-plus points, and 2/7 SU when having more turnovers.