 This is Covering the Spread. Here are your hosts, Jim Sonnis and Dr. Ed Fang. What is going on everybody? Welcome on into Covering the Spread. That is our sports vetting podcast here on the FanDual Podcast Network. Getting you set for week three of college football and breaking down our favorite bets on the board. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for numberfire.com. Joined here as always by Ed Fang at thepowerank.com. You can find him on Twitter at thepoweranked. I'm finally paying up. I lost our bets with the Northwestern Stanford game. So I am wearing a Stanford t-shirt and people listen to the audio only version. It's very red. It's very triage. It's supposed to be cardinal in color, but. Yeah, cardinal. Because it's the Stanford cardinal. Is this like a maze thing where like, if you were to say Stanford red, people would like attack you in the streets? Well, Stanford fans aren't that aggressive. They're too busy studying and starting companies and stuff. But yeah, Stanford red, I mean it would be more of an embarrassment to you, right? Right, exactly. Like spilling a drink on a girl on your first day. Right. And I can't go walk around Ohio State saying red, crimson and scarlet or whatever it is. So the Stanford cardinal shirt firmly on me. I am draped in my shade. Looks good, man, looks good. Yeah, I figured you would approve of this. I just arrived yesterday because I am too cheap to pay for Amazon Prime. So it took a while for it to get here, but finally I can pay you back. But Ed, tough stuff over at Stanford with their tackle done for the year. You know, first round draft type. They do get Costello back, but like that's just really rough circumstance to start a year. Well, yeah, but I mean the real problem is on the defensive side of the ball where a true freshman, Caden Slovis, is throwing for over, what? I think it was 11 yards for pass attempt. Yeah. So that's where my real concern is, I don't mind that they lost the USC and USC is actually getting a little bit of love in the markets, which I think is kind of interesting because I still don't really believe in Clay Helton, but yeah, so the defensive side of the ball is where I worry about Stanford a little bit. Do you think that game was more about USC or about Stanford, the way things played out there? Because like you said, USC actually is kind of, I mean, they're getting a lot of love this week in not super easy environment as they go to BYU. Right. Four point favorites right now. Do you think that game was more about USC or was it more about Stanford? It's tough to know. I saw bits and pieces of the first half. I really don't know. I mean, I can imagine Stanford's defense being bad. I can imagine USC's offense being really good. So I think without more data, I don't wanna say anything definitive about that. For sure. And that is not one of the games we're going through for today. We had a guest lined up, but unfortunately got pulled into a meeting at the last second. So we're just gonna lean on Ed's numbers here and see what they say for week number three. We'll also have our NFO preview for week two. Going up tomorrow, we'll break down three big games in the slate and we'll also talk Pat's Dolphins because the line in that game, abundantly interesting. So we wanna break down that one. If you wanna get that podcast and every podcast, as it goes up, make sure you subscribe to Covering The Spread here on the Fando Podcast Network. Do search for Covering The Spread on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, the Google Play Store, tune in, iHeartRadio, wherever you can find it. And while you're there, if you like what Ed has to say later today or what our guest says tomorrow, make sure you subscribe, rate and review the podcast. We do appreciate that as always. Ed, anything else on your mind here is before we dive into Covering The Past and look back at our college football episode from last week. Marcus Mariota. Oh man. So Jim came on my show and talked about Marcus Mariota. I thought he had to have a pretty good season. Three touchdowns, zero picks, 7.7 yards per attempt. And a big road win at Cleveland. But the problem is I'm also a Baker Mayfield guy. So. Well, hey, you can't have everything, man. You gotta pick one. And you know what? You didn't talk about Baker Mayfield on my podcast. That's true. Marcus Mariota on the football analytics show. Marcus got a little lucky because Derek Henry House did 75 yard touchdown, but he had a really good past to AJ Brown and I think people were kind of overlooking AJ Brown entering the year like as an addition to the offense. And again, they didn't have their starting left tackle in that game and the Browns defense is legit good. So I didn't come away from that game thinking that like Mariota crushed it, but I thought that he was going to do really badly in that game. So he exceeded my, well like, I like the Browns defense a lot. Interesting. Yeah, I mean I still have my questions about the Browns defense. I mean. Well, the defensive front specifically is good and the Titans didn't have their left tackle or their right guard. And so like in daily fantasy, I had a lot of Browns defense shares, which did not go that well, obviously. But I was, my expectations were low for Marcus because of the context around it, given that they were on the road against a good defense. This weekend, I think will be the best test we'll get though because they're at home facing Indy. And you talked about even before the Andrew Luck retirement, your concerns around Indy because of their defense. And I want to see what Mariota can do in that game if he can duplicate the numbers that he had against Cleveland, maybe get a little bit less lucky than he did there. I'll feel pretty good. So cautiously optimistic. Is that an okay way I can phrase that? Yeah, absolutely. All right. I mean, you know, to be very optimistic about any team after one week or two weeks in college football is probably overreaction. It can lead you down some really dumb paths as I have learned plenty of times in the past. But I think that it was better than I expected for the Titans at least in week number one. Now with that said, let's dive into last week and take a look back at our college football podcast. Some interesting things to discuss from our time with Drew Martin then covering the past. So last week on the week two college football preview, we had Drew Martin on the show and you can find him on Twitter at Drew Martin bets. And I thought that Drew had some really sharp insights especially with the two bigger games we discussed. He wanted Texas A&M plus 17 and a half actually got that number when it was plus 18 and a half and they did cover that. It was late, but it still counts. So he got that one. Yeah, it still counts. You know, back door cover is still a cover. He said that for LSU versus Texas that he didn't wanna bet it unless the line got to seven points. And what happened? LSU won by exactly seven. The number at least based on when I was watching it never got to seven. And Ed, you talked a lot about Texas before the season. You talked about liking LSU and Joe Burroughs making you look pretty smart for being into LSU at the beginning of the year. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if I talk much about LSU. I don't love LSU. I still think the program from coach O. Well, Dave Miranda, the DC doesn't have anything to prove in my mind. And that actually ended up being the poorer unit on the field in that game which is a little bit of a surprise. You know, maybe Texas's offense is good and I can definitely believe that. But, you know, Joe Burroughs was very good. I was not expecting that many points in that game. I was expecting about that result, you know, touchdown for LSU on the road, getting it done. They are the better team. But yeah, a lot of points. I don't know if we talked about the over on that, but not something I would have expected. Well, I thought that it was also interesting because like we had talked on this podcast about how people liked Texas more than they should have. And we saw that kind of in the line movement too where it opened, I think it was LSU minus three and a half and it closed at like minus six and a half. And that's pretty considerable movement. But I thought that was a very interesting game from a betting perspective. No, absolutely. And my number was exactly at LSU six and a half. So I was pretty happy that it closed there. And yeah, you know, not something that I liked, not a game that I like to bet on just again with my hesitations about coach Oh and Joe Burrow. But they got it done. Yeah. And Joe Burrow, his Heisman odds are five to one now. So that's what a couple of good games will get for you. We talked about FIU versus Western Kentucky. Western Kentucky won that game outright. Same thing for BYU versus Tennessee. BYU won that game in overtime. Tennessee, yikes. I had Miami minus four and a half against UNC. UNC won that one outright. And I think at looking back, I may have been underrating UNC just because I didn't expect them to do this with Mac Brown, a very young quarterback. And I thought my expectations overall for UNC entry in the year, I was expecting this to maybe be kind of just a year in transition, but they've had two really impressive wins. Is that enough for you to be kind of high on UNC right now? No, not really. My numbers actually kind of like them, but I think the jury's still out. When you look at some of the numbers in this game, Miami had better yards per play, had almost 100 yards more. So if they play that game again with the same underlying statistics, it could have turned out a little bit differently. So yeah, I mean, I think it's two weeks, right? So let's wait a little while and see what happens, especially on a team like North Carolina. Well, that makes me feel better about betting Miami. So at least we have that. Thank you for that. I appreciate it for sure. I run a little model which predicts how many points a team should have scored based on yards per play and total yards in a game. Yards per play is the big variable there, just because it's so closely correlates with points scored, even with the noise of defensive and special teams and stuff like that, that can affect how many points you score and then total yards to get a sense for pace. So in that little model, it actually, if you put those underlying statistics into the model, Miami actually wins by seven. Oh wow. So I feel a lot better. There's a lot of deceiving things in games. There's a lot of interesting things that can happen on the scoreboard. And that's why I just like to look at the underlying efficiency metrics. And so that would lead you to say don't overreact in a positive sense on UNC's side, but don't also overreact in a negative sense on Miami's side, just because they lost that game on the road. Yeah, for sure. For sure. I mean, I didn't get a chance to see that game, but you know, I mean, it looks like Jared Williams was pretty good in completing passes and I think that projects better for Miami going forward. Not sure yet what to think about it with Carolina. And that matches what we saw from him against Florida too. So I think that seeing that lineup is always encouraging. So that was week two. We're going to dive into week three in just one second, but if you want to get in on the action, check out the Fandal Sportsbook and place your first bet today. If you lose, Fandal will give you up to a refund of up to $500 in site credit. Visit sportsbook.fandal.com for more details, terms and conditions apply, must be 21 plus and physically present in New Jersey or Pennsylvania, gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Let's dive in now to week number three of college football and break down some of the funnest games. Is fun a word? Regardless, the funnest games on the board in week three. Covering the present. All right, let's take a look at week three in college football. And Ed, before we really dive into these numbers, I want to pick your brain a bit because you've got these models over at thepowerwreck.com and things are obviously changing throughout the season. Your models are evolving. We've got two weeks of data on most teams by now. Some teams have played just one game, but like we've got some data. This early in the season, how much of your model is data from 2019 versus the conceptions your model had of the teams entering the year? Yeah, I mean, look, the vast majority is still the pre-season model. I really like, especially what I've done over the past two years with my pre-season analytics, especially in college football, which is a combination of data and then what the markets think in terms of win totals. But you know, like about 10% is 10, 15% right now is what we've seen this year. And the way I do it is pretty simple. I kind of look at how a team performed on the scoreboard compared to what the markets closed that for that point spread. And then I also look at yards for play, how teams perform compared to what the markets expected. So if your team like Wisconsin and you just obliterated your two opponents, you're going to move up pretty high. Unfortunately, a team like Michigan has struggled in both departments, really tough game against Army. So they're a little bit lower. Definitely a game we'll be talking about next week, but that just gives you an example. And even, this is the hard part about handicapping, especially in college football, because teams can move really fast in their number. And you don't have to look further than what happened to Louisville last year. The models kind of always had Louisville. They could never catch up to just how bad a job Bobby Petrina was doing with that team. So it's always looking at the model. And it's gonna kind of get the mean behavior in some sense, but some teams you should kind of lean more on the preseason and some teams you should lean more on what's going on this season, like a Louisville last year. And I'm sure we'll talk about that as we go through some of these games. Well, I think the important thing with Louisville last year too, is that how bad they were last year will also influence the way they're viewed in the model this year. And it's kind of hard to adjust for that because they pretty clearly quit on Bobby Petrina last year. But like you're not gonna be able to like fully account for that. So do you try to just, is there a way that you can manually adjust the inputs from 2019 versus 2018 for various teams? Like, I guess, how do you handle Louisville in 2019? It's kind of what I'm getting to here. Yeah, for sure. You know, later in the season, so after I get about three, four weeks of data, like I can start doing metrics just based on this year. And so what I do for my members is I tell you, what is the projection on this game pre-season? What do the markets think this season, which is kind of a completely different predictor, right? Because it's more wisdom of crowds-based. And then what do the pure numbers say? So in terms of margin of victory, yards per play, probably success rate this year, what does that say just based on data from this year? So the number that I'll be talking about on the show, this is a combination of those three things or will be later in the season. But you get those separate components to kind of make your own judgments about which one you feel is most important. And that's obviously gonna be different for different teams. Right. And you kind of alluded to this before, but when you're trying to dig into 2019 numbers, is it mostly yards per play? Like, if you were giving advice to someone, trying to dig into 2019 data, what would you say for them to focus on from a numbers perspective? I mean, yeah, that's a tough one too, because I wouldn't have told you a lot over the last couple of years. Like, yeah, yards per play is great. Yeah. The more I look into it, the more I realize, you know, there's a lot of randomness that goes into yards per play. Yeah. You think about like a big play that goes for a touchdown, you know, running back just happens to break a tackle and goes 80 instead of 10 yards. That can have a huge effect on your yards per play numbers. So that's why I've been starting to look at success rate numbers in all my football predictions. I incorporated it into my NFL model last year. I think it really helps. We'll be doing that for college football this year. And some of the work Bill Connolly has done has shown that success rate is more sticky from early to late season. So if you have a high success rate early in the season, you tend to have a higher success rate later in the season. So that, you know, when you're looking at small samples, it's better to lean on that than a yards per play. Okay, that's nice. It's kind of nice not to have a guess. I should just get to pick your brain, which is something that I very much enjoy. So let's continue doing that here. And break down three of the bigger games on the board for this week. We will talk about Iowa versus Iowa State. Not sure if I'm allowed to say the nickname of that game. El Asico, I guess I'll just say it. El Asico, we're gonna talk about that in covering the future. So we're gonna save that game for later with college game day out there. So we'll talk about that one later on. But let's start things off here with Oklahoma UCLA. As of right now at the Fandal Sports Book, Oklahoma a 23 point favorite. The total in that game opened, I believe it was at 66, but it's now 73 and a half. And UCLA is a team that last week, you said you really kind of wanted no part of. And I feel like they validated that last week. So what do you see in this game to Oklahoma and UCLA? Yeah, I mean, I think this is a perfect example where I wanna kind of throw out my preseason number on UCLA. You know, when I run this model, it has Oklahoma by 13. That kind of makes no sense to me. I mean, I just feel like UCLA might be a program that's struggling, it doesn't look like they, despite having almost all their starters back on the defensive side of the ball, doesn't look like they've really done that much on that side of the ball. And that's a real problem when you're playing Oklahoma, a team that looks like it hasn't lost a step even though they lost the first pick in the NFL draft and four drafted offensive linemen. And you know, on offense, you know, Chip Kelly's supposed to be the offensive guy, but Dorian Thompson-Robbins, the quarterback, you know, couldn't hit a throw against Cincinnati, really up the completion rate against San Diego State, but wasn't very efficient in terms of yards per play. So it's, he threw for 4.8 yards per play, which is yards per pass attempt, which is not gonna cut it. I just, for the record, so that number includes sacks. I include sacks. I count sacks as pass plays. This is not the case in official college football numbers. So that's something you want to be wary of. Like if my yards per rush is different from what you're seeing, it's because I've taken sacks out of the, I don't define that as a rush as they do in typical college football statistics. So I just want to make that clear. And that's anything that number fires numbers do for the NFL as they include sacks and all passing efficiency numbers, because like a sack is not a turnover, but it's like next up on like the damage scale along with there with like penalties. Like sacks put you well behind. And that's a pretty damaging thing. Right now, again, the line is minus 23 for Oklahoma. It opened at minus 21 and a half. So there has been a lot of movement there, one and a half points, 94% of the bets and 97% of the money on Oklahoma at the Fandle Sportsbook. So like, I wouldn't be surprised if this number moved more. Is it a situation where you would be willing to bet Oklahoma at that number, given that it may move even more? Or are you just saying you want no part of UCLA? Yeah, I think I want no part of any game involving UCLA. It's kind of like staying away from Louisville last year. You just kind of have no idea what's going on. Maybe you can find a beat writer that's got some insight into the team. But you know, I mean, Chip Kelly came in with all his fanfare last year and I want him to succeed because he's got all these ideas about analytics and health and using numbers. And I want him to succeed. I just don't see it so far. Yeah. And the problem is they're all facing Jalen Hertz who has looked amazing. And part of that has been, you know, yards after the catch, his receivers creating for him. But a 17.3 adjusted yards per attempt for Jalen Hertz. There was first 41 attempts. That number does not include the sacks, but it's kind of balkers. What he's doing right now. Yeah. And I haven't looked at it, but when is he going to face a real defense? I mean, All right. Let me put the schedule here because I am also interested in- Get to Iowa State. I definitely, I definitely- Iowa State's a very good defense. So that would be one of them for sure. Maybe as a defense. So I don't, you know, I mean, Jalen Hertz might win the Heisman because of strength of schedule here in some, right? I mean, TCU is probably going to put up a pretty good defense. So you've got Texas Tech, Kansas. No, no. Texas, the Red River shootout is October 12th. Okay. And then West Virginia, Meh, Kansas State. Iowa State is not until November 9th. Wow. TCU is November 23rd. And by that point, sentiment on Jalen Hertz as it relates to Heisman voting will not be set, but we'll have a pretty good idea. And like if people are like, okay, cool, this guy's a Heisman, it's going to be hard to dissuade them from that. So like, I think, I would say this, like Jalen Hertz, Heisman odds have come down. I think he was seven to one when I was looking earlier today. But if you like him, like if you want to bet him, you're probably not going to get a better number than that at any point. He is, yeah, he's seven to one right now. Kind of the same thing we were talking about with whalecapper, you know, look at the schedule and decide. And he's, by the time he faces Iowa State, he'll probably be like three to one or something crazy. So I would say that if you want to bet Jalen Hertz, I'm not saying you should want to, but like if you do want to do it now, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Any thoughts on the total in that game? It's a 73 and a half. And it's gone up quite a bit from where things opened. I know number fires numbers like the under here, but what do you think? That's a pretty lofty number there. It is a pretty lofty number given UCLA hasn't shown much competence on the offensive side of the ball. Obviously you have to balance that with the struggles that Oklahoma has had on the defensive side of the ball. So yeah, it seems high just because of that, but you know, maybe Oklahoma gets there by themselves. Right. And probably not. But you know, I mean, if it's like 77. Yeah. It was they, they had 80 points against Houston. That one was 49 to 31. And then against South Dakota, it was 70 to 14. But I think that one thing we could see with Oklahoma is maybe they go a little bit more run heavy given Jalen Hertz being there and stuff like that. I think that could show up more when they're facing not South Dakota opponents. So I would look at that line. I don't have a good enough feel on it to bet it, but I think if I were to go one way, I'd probably go the under, but I don't feel good enough on that to actually take that number. Let's move on here to Ohio State against Indiana. Ohio State, it's 16 and a half point favorite here. The total is 61. Interesting game because Ohio State kind of getting its first, I don't want to say legitimate test because like they haven't faced necessarily bad teams, but Justin Fields has looked amazing the first two games. So Ed, do you think the way we've seen from Justin Fields is legit and here to stay going forward? Yeah, I mean, I talked to Bud Elliott a couple of years ago before he had ever reached the field, the college football field, and he just loved the quarterback class of Fields and Trevor Lawrence and J.T. Daniels. And everything we've seen so far has supported that. And I think as many questions and marks that I had about Ohio State coming into the season, it's still Ohio State and they get the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. And so far they look pretty good and I don't see why that doesn't continue against one of the lesser teams in their division. And we're seeing a lot of, again, money on Ohio State here at Fandall Sportsbook right now, 99% of the bets and 99% of the money on Ohio State. So the spread has moved from Ohio State minus 15 to Ohio State minus 16. The total in that game, pretty stagnant. It opened a 60 and a half and is at 61 right now. But that's like, it is a road game. It's a conference game. Do you view Ohio State as being strong enough to cover a number that is not huge, but getting bigger? Yeah, I mean, I certainly think they are, right? I mean, with Fields and the explosiveness of the receivers that they do have. I mean, oftentimes it does come down to explosive plays and big plays and we know randomness plays a big role in that. So, you know, that's often what happens when you're trying to cover a big number and not necessarily trying to cover, but playing in these games. And yeah, so it's, you know, I think it's pretty fair. My number's a little bit lower than that, but it's not something that jumps off the board at me. It's like, oh, the number's like Indiana, let's go bet that. It seems like it should be a little bit higher. Yeah, Ohio State, the first two games, 42 to nothing against Cincinnati and then 45 to 21 against FAU. And I think the big key there is kind of the nothing against Cincinnati because last year when Ohio State was vulnerable, it was because of their defense. And I mean, the Wayne Haskins had stupid numbers all year long, but their defense struggled. It seems like they have changed their approach defensively, playing a lot less man coverage, which is seemingly beneficial for them. So like, I don't dislike Indiana, but I think Ohio State's defense is intriguing. What do your numbers say about Ohio State's defense? Are they buying into the early season performance? Or does it seem a little bit flimky? I mean, nothing yet. I mean, I can't make schedule adjustments until after week three. I will note that Cincinnati was not strong efficiency wise on the offensive side of the ball. I mean, they were a 90th, something like that, something like 90th in my adjusted yards for play, bring back the same quarterback in Desmond Ritter. So yeah, I mean, obviously a good game for them to show out Cincinnati, but I wouldn't make too much of it. It's not like they were getting like a team like Ohio that really had an efficient offense last year in that non-conference game. Yeah, I think this game, if I were to bet it, I'd actually been most inclined to go over the total of 61. It is a large number, but I think that Ohio State's defense probably not quite where, we haven't quite seen it fully yet in the sense from a negative sense. And I also just have some respect for Indiana's program. So I think that this game would go over. I don't have a good enough read on the spread here to go either way, but I'd be intrigued by the over. Number fires numbers also behind the over on this game. And I believe it was, actually don't have it right here, but regardless, I believe that they were on the over. So I think that that's where I go. Anything you feel strong enough to actually back here, Ed, with a total of 61 in the spread, minus 16 and a half? Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna stay away from this game just because I had my doubts about Ohio State that hasn't been true yet through two games. And so let's see a little bit more, let's see Ohio State get to a little bit better competition. Expand the sample size, make the data a little better. I understand that for sure, especially in a team where you don't know what to do with them, that's probably the smart way to do it. Let's go here to Alabama at South Carolina, Alabama 25 and a half point favorite, total here is 61 and a half, and South Carolina did lose its quarterback, Jake Bentley. That was back in their season opener. I believe in the final play of the game against UNC. So starting true freshman, Ryan Helinski, he looked awesome last week, but slight difference, Ed, between Alabama and Charleston Southern. I don't know if I'm being, I don't wanna be dismissing Charleston Southern, but slight difference. So how do you view South Carolina in general right now through the first two games? I mean, they're the tough luck team of the year. I mean, you come into this year and you have to play the top, kind of consensus top three teams in the nation, Alabama, Clemson and Georgia. Yeah. Because you're in the SEC East and Clemson's arrival. So that sucks to begin with. So you need to get that weak one win against North Carolina. Right. That doesn't happen. And you lose your quarterback for the year. And Jake Bentley was a quarterback that, I mean, he's been starting for two years and heading into the bowl game in the 2017 season, the numbers weren't impressive. Like they were an FBS average type team. Bentley came out and had a really good game against Michigan in the bowl game. Was very efficient, hit a couple deep balls, helped South Carolina win that game. And then they were very good last year. They were 14th in my adjusted yards for play, even better in passing in terms of the rank. And now you don't have that leader anymore. I mean, that's a killer. And they're just not catching any breaks. I still obviously have a good defense. And this is an interesting one too, because it's hard. My numbers like Alabama by about 15, that's obviously needs a big adjustment for the quarterback position for South Carolina. Do you get to 25? Probably not. But similar to what we see with the Ohio State game, these top teams get the benefit of the doubt. And partially you can think of this in terms of turnovers. When you're up, when you're a big favorite of the game, you tend to be up late in the games. That means a worse opponent has to throw to try to catch up. That can lead to turnovers. Sorry, that can lead to interceptions. And that's what makes the spread in these big games a little bit more. You can't have a model that gets close games right, but gets these large spread games right as well because of the turnovers. Because there's not going to be a huge interception differential in a close game. But there is going to be in a large spread game, which is something that I'm working to quantify over the course of this season. So Alabama, when they're playing people that are not up to the level, and South Carolina is probably not without their starting quarterback, you're going to see these inflated spreads. And just because the numbers, my numbers to take the underdog doesn't necessarily mean you want to bet that. And I think that one thing that backs up your point is you look back at, we were talking about the Browns Titans games last week. And that was in the NFL. But I think it's a good parallel because early in that game, it was a very close game the entire way. Then there's a safety, Cleveland has its left tackle ejected. And then their backup left tackle gets hurt. And things spiral. And so Baker Mayfield is trying to be aggressive to make up this scoring differential. And aggressiveness in that situation is not a bad thing, but it does lead to picks. And that kind of compounds things. And that's why we saw things get so out of hand and Tennessee win that game so handedly. And that's what you're going to see in these situations too. And I think that you look at South Carolina, the question you ask is, can they keep themselves out of a grotesquely negative game script long enough to avoid that compounding issue? And if you think they can, then you bet them plus 25 and a half. If you think that Alabama comes out and throat stomps right away, then you probably need to factor in the compounding. So it's a question of, do you think South Carolina will be relevant early in this game? If yes, take that number. And I think that that's definitely a compounding factor. You talk about the difficulties in projecting games with spreads this wide. Does that push you towards betting first half lines? Because it seems like they've been rising in popularity. Do you have a take on that necessarily? Or is it just for reducing the sample size too much for you? No, I mean, it's not necessarily sample sizing. I mean, I just haven't looked into first half betting much because I haven't looked at the data in why the first half lines are usually more than half of what the game lines. And I know there's a good reason for that. But I just haven't looked into that, so I tend to not do that. But yeah, I mean, if you like the favorite to cover, you probably more like the first half line. Especially in these powerhouse teams against FCS programs, you can potentially like the first half. You just run it up in the first half. 42 nothing, then try out whoever's available for the second half. So I think it's a very interesting game. I don't have a good enough feel to bet the spread in that game. Again, if I had to go, I might just go South Carolina. But I don't feel good enough. I'm not going to bet on a back of quarterback as a true freshman against Alabama. So personally, I'm staying away. Any definitive ones from you here, Ed? No, not really. I do want to bring up a point where you talked about the fact that you do need to be aggressive when you're down. And Baker Mayfield was a perfect example of that in the NFL Week 1. And Kevin Cole, who's a pro football focus, brought up a really good point. We laud Aaron Rodgers for not throwing interceptions. But perhaps maybe that's not the optimal strategy. Like when you're down late in games, you shouldn't be just trying to protect the ball. You should be taking some risks downfield. And on the flip side, that says, all right, well, I mean, you give Baker a little bit of a pass for throwing those picks down late in the game. You have to be a little bit aggressive in that situation. And I don't think that's something that's really appreciated in the numbers yet, and certainly not my numbers, and something I'm working towards getting a better feel for. Well, it's not even just that. It's also that sometimes people will think that they are being risk averse and take a sack rather than trying to force a ball on the coverage. But like I said, like a sack is pretty damaging, too. And Aaron Rodgers' sack numbers last year were high, which is interesting considering the talent they have at left tackle. They have one of the best left tackles in football, and David Bakhtiari, he shouldn't have a high sack total. So it's not just the fact that he didn't throw picks. It's also the fact that he took a lot of sacks potentially in lieu of throwing those picks. And maybe the aggressiveness should have been higher. Like Peyton Manning was never a low interception dude. Like he took risks. And that actually brings up another point. I had Dr. Eric Giger on my podcast this week. And he's done some really interesting things to show how much of pressure rates from the defense, like the quarterback owns as opposed to the offensive line. And that's been really interesting, too, because you watched the Monday night game. And it looked like Deshaun Watson was almost like inviting the sack in some sense. Well, he's been the poster boy of that discussion. He and Russell Wilson have been the two who have been criticized the most for inviting pressure. And yeah, I mean, when you hold on the ball, I mean, if you're just a split second late on your read or your decision, that can lead to problems. And he's done some interesting work. So yeah, I mean, I think it all kind of comes into a more modern understanding. And you know, Eric's done all that work on the NFL. It's interesting to apply that to the college level. I'm thinking about Michigan in particular. And Shay Patterson didn't have the best game against Army and oftentimes was dropped back to pass and didn't get the ball out, had to pull it down and run. Well, he got the ball out just as a fumble rather than a pass attempt. Like, can we get Shay Patterson some stick him? Like, it's a real issue, I think. Yeah, it's a real issue too. And I feel like a couple of years ago, I would have been like, yeah, you know, just protect the ball, you know, fumbles are kind of random. But now the more we think about it, it's like, well, the quarterback has even more control over what's going on in the football field than we initially thought. It's not just the accuracy, it's, you know, this decision making is really affecting sack rates and everything, you know, related to that. Yeah. So it's making me look at football a little bit differently. And yeah, I mean, that's how we all get smarter and hopefully we can use that to make better bets. And I think that that can help, be helpful for live betting too. Like, if you see a game getting out of hand, but it's not a game where the team that's trailing will just roll over and die, like if they're gonna keep trying to come back, it's going to lead to extra aggressiveness. And I think that that can be a factor when you're live betting as well. So keep that in mind, try to keep a gauge on a team's desperation factor. And if you think they're going to get aggressive and force themselves into mistakes, account for that when you're making your live bets too. Well, and plus like, I mean, you guys do that for fantasy all the time, right? When you're looking for an offense, that's going to be down late in games. Right. A lot of opportunities to throw. Well, for me, it's actually defense. So like, talking about from like a fantasy perspective, I want my defense facing a lot of pass attempts because to score points in fantasy, you need sacks, interceptions, force fumbles, and what is the play on which those are most common? It's a pass. So basically you want to have the opposing team in negative game script so that they're throwing and that they're pulling a James Winston and toss and pick sizes. Exactly, and you could care less if they gave up a big play. It's great. In fact, that really helps you. Right, exactly. But I think it's important to keep that in mind for live betting too. So that will be a factor with Alabama, South Carolina. So I think that live in-game betting, definitely a fun angle to keep an eye on here. You know, check out how South Carolina does early on and that's going to dictate how things go for the rest of the game. Anything else you see on the board here you want to mention for week three in college football? And we're going to talk about again, Iowa Iowa State in covering the future. But anything else you want to tack on here before we move on to that? Yeah, no, not really. I mean, let's move on to Iowa Iowa State. All right, let's do it. In covering the future. Covering the future. All right, before we take a look at El Asico, we got to talk to you about odds fire. I was talking about some of those numbers during that last segment about how much money is on the total and stuff like that and how many people are betting on Ohio State, et cetera, et cetera. That all comes from odds fire and Ed and I always preach searching for the best value in betting on games. Well, look no further than the new odds comparison our engineers have developed over at numberfire.com. Odds fire is a premier odds comparison service across major bookmakers in the regulated US market. Compare odds, quickly identify the best value and even examine first party fan dual data all in one place. Never settle, always get the best odds. Check out the experience for free now on numberfire or at oddsfire.com. Gambling problem, call 1-800-GAMBLER. Let's dive in now to Iowa State against Iowa. I am from Minnesota originally. I have a friend, a couple of friends went to Iowa State. My friends, my mom is from Iowa. So like I have a lot of rooted, rooted or like vested interests in this game. You want to talk about this game because your numbers see an edge within it. So talk to me about Iowa Iowa State right now. It's Iowa minus two and a half total here is 44 and a half. What do you see with this one? Yeah, I mean, I've been a big fan of Iowa State this preseason. We've talked about that on the show. I see them as a dark horse contender to potentially win the big 12. And a lot of that is they bring back Brock Purdy, the quarterback who was fantastic as a true freshman last year. They also have a pretty good defense. They had the second best defense in the big 12 in terms of past defense and my adjusted yards per play. And they had a lot of guys returning with experience on that side of the ball. But then week one happened. They played Northern Iowa at home. The game went into overtime and they were actually down three and they fumbled the ball right near the goal line. And obviously if Northern Iowa recovers that the game is over and then it's a crisis in Ames. But Brock Purdy jumped on the football. They took it in for a touchdown on the next play. They ended up winning that game. Now, whenever you get a three point win over an FCS team, that's really not gonna impress anyone, right? And when I make adjustments to my model, like Iowa State's obviously getting dinged for that. But they look better in the underlying statistics. When you look at yards per play, they had 5.4 yards per play compared to 3.6 for Northern Iowa. I told you about this model earlier where I take yards per play and total yards in a game to project out a score. And by the underlying metrics, Iowa State would have won 31 to 11. But that's not what happened on the scoreboard, but it just gives you an idea for what happened in the underlying numbers. I'm also starting to look at success rate and here Iowa State also did a lot better. They had a 44% success rate compared to 33 from Northern Iowa. It was very asymmetric and I think you do have to be concerned about Iowa State in that they only had a 34% success rate on rushing. So a lot of their success came through the air and with Brock Purdy's arm. So they may not be able to run the ball again this year, an area that they struggled even with David Montgomery last year. So this preseason, I had Iowa and Iowa State basically at an identical rating, which means that with Iowa State at home, I would have made them about a three point favorite in this game. Iowa hasn't shifted much. They've done what they're supposed to do against Miami, Ohio and Rutgers. And Iowa State's definitely getting dinged for this game against Northern Iowa. But I don't think it's a five and a half point shift. I like Iowa State at home with the points plus two and a half. And I think it's gonna be a close game. Obviously a late score can definitely affect this game. But I mean, I think Iowa State can win outright. I don't, I still think they're a good team. The money line here is plus 115 on Iowa State. And I think that that's pretty interesting. 115, really? Yeah. Okay. That's interesting. Cause I would think it would be, it would be higher with the spread of two and a half. So that might. There's a big in there for sure. Okay. But I think it's interesting and hearing you talk about that, that UNI game, like I did get to catch part of that game and it didn't feel as close as it wound up being. And I think that your numbers kind of validate that. And it's also like, yes, it is an FCS team, but Northern Iowa is consistently among the best FCS teams in the nation. There's that little rivalry. UNI always plays Iowa or Iowa State really well whenever they play, like every single time UNI is ranked 10th in the FCS rankings right now. Like they're a good football team, even if they are an FCS team. It was week one for Iowa State playing without Hikim Butler, without David Montgomery. That's a pretty big changeover. So I, and they also have a week off. Like they had a week off after that. So they are rested. Iowa kind of rested because they played Rutgers. Like, did they actually play a game last week? But I think that, Well, they did. Yeah, allegedly. I'm not gonna confirm or deny that one. But Brock Purdy in that game, 41 attempts, or 278 yards, two touchdowns, no picks, played pretty well. And he's also like, I would say underrated athletically. I don't know if that's like, I don't know if that's like being outlandish, but like he did run for 308 yards last year. And that is while including sacks in that number. So I think that Brock Purdy is just a good quarterback who is at home and is getting points here. So I think that I would be okay with either the spread of the money line. I'd probably just go the money line honestly, but money line sounds pretty good. Yeah, plus 115, I think is a good number. So are we in agreement, Iowa State money line here? Yeah, I mean, I mean, I'll take Iowa State plus two and a half too. I do both. All right, cool. So we've got Iowa State either the money line or the spread, whichever you're feeling more, but I think that's a pretty good one. And broadly, I think it's important just to note the context of that game where it was their first game without two big offensive pieces, facing a good team. Now they have a bye week at home. There are a lot of things surrounding that game that are different now. So I think it'll be a fun game. It's always like, it's always like kind of a slop fest. There's a reason it's called El Asico, but like they're fun. They're fun football games though. Yeah, and this definitely makes you think about the under two. Iowa has an excellent defense. Definitely going to be able to slow down Iowa State on offense. I mean, a lot of this game is going to be on whether Purdy can make plays with his arm. I don't have too much faith in Nate Stanley, the Iowa quarterback. So I don't see a lot of points in this game. It should be an ugly, slow game that comes down to the wire. I just like Iowa State's chances there. Another thing I want to mention, you did mention the bye week, which gives Iowa State rest. It also kind of screws with my model because it's one game is kind of being counted as two. When I make these kind of season adjustments, which is not really fair to Iowa State. Right. So, you know, let me, so yeah, so anyways, like it's probably overestimating the adjustment for Iowa State at this point. So a lot of things point towards the cyclones for this game. Alrighty, I'm sure that, you happy to hear that should be a fun game. College game day going to be there. So I was sad that the Syracuse game went the way it did last week because I live in Syracuse and I wanted to go to game day, but you could kind of tell that was coming. Like I was listening to the pregame shows and everyone was talking about college game day and being there the next week. And it's like, well, you're setting yourself up for some disappointment and that's exactly how it happens. So hopefully things are fun out there in Ames. For my cover in the future at, I want to get your thoughts on this because when I first look, looking at the NFL this weekend, I love the under for the Chargers and Alliance in Detroit. And I want to get your thoughts on this because it's an interesting conundrum that I have here because the Lions are going to be a super run heavy team this year. And that's why I think that in general, they're probably not going to be in a lot of high scoring games. They played a pace up game last week against Arizona. So their slow nature didn't really show up, but they threw only 47% of the time on first down in the first half last week, which is a very low number. And they did that well, but the Cardinals defense is terrible. The Chargers defense does not have Derwyn James, but they're still much better. The Chargers will throw more often, but they're also missing their left tackle, which does ding their entire offense. Didn't do a ton last week against Indy despite the fact that's kind of middling defense. And Detroit's defense is not bad either, especially they can get some pressure on the passer, which could show up those issues at left tackle. So I generally love games and domes, and I tend to think highly of them, but I think this one will go under. But the problem, this is why I want to talk to you about it, Ed, is that I'm in the minority here because the total has already risen. It opened at 47. It's now 47 and a half at Fandall Sportsbook, and it is actually higher elsewhere, which is probably why 86% of the bets and 92% of the money at Fandall Sportsbook are on the over that is according to odds fire. So it very well could rise even more during the week, especially with this number being 48 elsewhere. I would expect it to get to 48 at Fandall Sportsbook at some point, but I personally feel very good about the under here. So I feel good about my number, but I'm in the minority here. So how do you handle those situations personally? How long are you willing to wait for that number to potentially get better before you pull the trigger and dive in? Yeah, no, I mean, I think that's a tough one. Right now, just kind of early season, Detroit had like the 21st, you know, a below average defense last year. Could they bounce back? Sure, with a little bit of health and some good bounces their way. So I mean, I definitely like your thinking about that. I think I would definitely wait a little bit while longer and see what happens when some of these limits start to go up and yeah, I would wait a little bit longer on that one. And I think that there's very good odds it gets to 48. So I wouldn't touch it until it gets that high because I think that the odds it gets there are quite high, but I just think this game is probably going to be a little more run heavy. And again, it kind of goes back to what we talked about before where the holding calls in run heavy games are going to be more apparent. And I think we saw a lot of those holding calls in week one and like, as a viewer, it was very frustrating to watch all these flags. Cleveland had like, I think it was 20 penalties. Like it's kind of insane. So I want to bet unders and gains that include run heavy teams. I expect Detroit to be a run heavy team this year. And they were when, you know, things were in their favor in week one. So I think I do like the under here, but just broadly, I just wanted to talk broadly about your thoughts on when you have like a number that you know has a possibility of getting better. So I agree. I think I should hold off there. Yeah, I mean, it's anyone's guess where the market's going to go, right? Like no one knows in particular. And like the best example was I talked to Chris Andrews, who's the director of the South Point sports book before the Super Bowl last year. And the day I talked to him, he had moved the line to I think New England by three. And then he quickly moved it back to two and a half. And you know, he came on my podcast and was like, yeah, this number is going to three. So I was like, great. This guy knows more about anything, more than anyone about where these games go. And I liked the Rams in that game. So why not wait until it gets to three? Right. Well, never got to three. Right. So that's how it goes sometimes. And it's the market. It's random. We don't know what other people are thinking yet. And we just kind of follow and see what happens. Yeah, I think it's very interesting that angle of it. We've talked with a lot of our guests about trying to get the best number. I think that things like Odd's Fire can help you get that number, just knowing where the money is at that time and saying, okay, maybe you should hold off because people are leading this way. That is all we have for today. But once again, we're going to be back tomorrow to preview week two of the NFL season, breaking down three of the biggest games. And including again, that Dolphins Patriots game, which should be fascinating discussion. Looking forward to that. Make sure you subscribe to covering the spread on Spotify, Apple podcasts, the Google Play store, tune in, stitch or wherever you get your podcast, you can find covering the spread. Ed, you mentioned a new podcast up at the football analytics show. Anything else going on? And where can they find that podcast? Yeah, the podcast is the football analytics show. Usually have a guest on every week. In a couple of weeks, I'll start doing some solo shows just because I like to get some of the good insights from my numbers as they start coming in and I can make schedule adjustments. Also, my email newsletter goes out every Thursday at noon. This is where I give you a sample of predictions that I talked about on the show, but are usually safe for paying members of the site. And I write up some analysis in there too. So if you like what I'm saying on the show, definitely check out the newsletter because that's where you can get more of it. And that's at thepowerrank.com and the podcast is a football analytics show. You can find Ed on Twitter at the Power Rank. I am at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can follow me there in the Fandall Podcast Network at Fandall Podcast. Big thank you to Calvin Theobald for working the video side of things today. Cal, thank you for keeping us on the air as always. And thank you to those of you for tuning in for today. Back tomorrow to talk some NFL. We'll get you then and good luck with college football in week number three. This has been covering the spread right here on the Fandall Podcast Network.