 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's right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network in NumberFire.com, where today we are getting you set for week eight across College Football by talking to Michael Rondello of NumberFire.com, getting his thoughts on this week's games and his overall betting process for College Football. My name is Jim Sonnis. I am a senior writer and analyst for NumberFire.com, joined here as always by Dr. Ed Fang. You can find his work over at thepowerrank.com, and, Ed, we talked about it last week. We talked about it last year at Orgiron, officially out at LSU now, while not officially yet, but will be at the end of the year. The circumstances that departure are a lot weirder than we initially thought, based on the reporting by The Athletic, but this is something you've been on for a while now, and now it is the case at LSU. I never believed in Coach O as a coach, and then looked really dumb in 2019 with that belief, and then Kana said, almost jokingly, hey, what if you got fired in two years, just like half into Gene Chiswick at Auburn, which was more a nod to just the overall talent that these teams have down in the South, and that things can go from so good to so bad to so good to so bad again. So yeah, it's definitely a strange situation. I don't think it was a coincidence that Colin Wilson talked about that hot seat last week when he was on the show. I think it was very much under the radar that that was even happening, and then we do get the news. And yeah, I mean, I just think back to Week 1 or 2 when I bet both USC and LSU felt lucky to go one-on-one as USC covered before Clay Heldon got fired the next week. I feel like I can hear the little voice of Rapazole in my head, like, look at the coaches, damn it. Well, that's kind of what I had. The week where all the batter and mire stuff happened, I'd bet the Jags plus six and a half against the Bengals. So like, it's kind of the same thing where it's like, I feel like I got lucky in that situation and then just never want to go near the situation ever again to escape there. We had Joe Straszki on the NFL show last week. He was betting the Raiders this week with no John Groot. We'll talk about that with Jurdinsk tomorrow, about the process you go through to decide all that. But it's definitely wild with the way things changed here at LSU. I think you got to get a little extra credit because he said two years and it was actually a little bit less. I mean, like, assuming he sticks to the end of the year, it'll be two years, but like a year and a half when the decision was made. That's real fast. Yeah, I'll just take the win on it. I'm not. We're not going to. We're no extra credit there. All right. Well, either way, weird circumstance with LSU. We'll talk about that game that they've got coming up with Ole Miss Ole Miss, obviously central in the headlines right now as well with Michael Rondello. You can find him on Twitter at Michael Rondello. He is a writer over at Number Fire. Does a lot of our college football betting stuff over at Number Fire? I think he has stuff up for the weekday games this week as well. So check those out over at numberfire.com. We'll talk to him about his process of betting college football and his read on the week eight games. I mentioned that while Jurdinsk had gone, that is tomorrow for the NFL show for week number seven. We're talking about his, the back and forth. He had a surface Peabody talking about the way you determine how a team will differ after a coach is fired. The method he goes through for that. I think it's a fascinating conversation. We'll talk to him about that tomorrow on the NFL side and get his read on week seven. Get that by subscribing to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast. You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher. I think we're on our radio still. Either way, we're pretty much wherever you get your podcast. We search for covering the spread, hit subscribe and also leave us a rating interview if you like what you hear. Before we get to Michael, though, got to go back to last week and recap week seven. You mentioned we had Colin Wilson on. Got to go back through what Colin discussed in that show. Covering the past. So once again, Colin Wilson, a writer over at the Action Network. We had him on to talk week seven in college football. You can find Colin on Twitter at underscore Colin one. Colin was on Oklahoma State versus Texas over 60 and a half and it closes 61. So a bit of upward movement there for Colin. The Texas offense just didn't really come to play in the second half. They didn't score in the final 25 minutes. Oklahoma State finished on a 19 to nothing run to win that game and close things out. It finished with 56 total points. So kind of a tough beat for Colin there. If Texas had done anything, he would have gotten that over, but couldn't quite get that in the second half on that one. Colin hit a pair of unders for Michigan State versus Indiana. He won the full game under 48 and a half points and the first half under 24 and a half and both those hit pretty easily. There were just 16 points in the first half and 35 for the game. So no real sweats there, even in two wins for Colin for the Michigan State versus Indiana game. Well, but I think I think there was a defensive touchdown pretty early in that game. So Sweating like the first couple of minutes. Yeah. Yeah, my mind had been a little bit. You always freak out with the defensive touchdown when you are betting the under. Yep. Yeah. Defensive touchdowns were a thing this week. It was a little annoying at times, but or it made me ecstatic in one of which we'll talk about tomorrow. But yeah, that one, even with the defensive touchdown, didn't really matter. Colin, an easy win there. Colin had a spread bet for Georgia versus Kentucky. I was watching this game Saturday and I just remember I thought he had the full game spread. He didn't. He had the first half spread. Oh, good. It was Georgia minus 13 and a half. So Kentucky still covered that one, but I thought that he had the full game spread, which would have been painful. The most annoying thing on the planet. Did he watch the end of that game? I was watching that end of that game with a bunch of people at back Kentucky. So it was okay. It was the most exciting end of a blowout game. Well, I was like, so I was, I was watching it and I was watching my wife and I was explaining to her like, what was happening? Because like, she can see that I was like, what's that? Well, I mean, she's probably asked, why do you care? Georgia, I mean, I didn't care because I didn't bet it, but I was like, I was like watching it with like a lot of I was watching it close, which you wouldn't normally do in these situations. And I had to explain to her like, why it mattered. And then Kentucky calls the time out with like four seconds left or whatever it was. And I was like, oh man, this is going to happen. They're guaranteed to score. They did. So if you bet Georgia condolences, that's a rough way to go. But hey, at least it makes the room you're with a little bit happier. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was exciting. So, you know, we had a good read from Colin on the Minnesota versus Nebraska game. He said it was a three and a half. We talked. He said if it got to four, he would bet Minnesota and it actually closed at four and a half. So which point he would have been back in on backing Minnesota and good read on his part, both from how the market would move, but also the game itself, because it was a tight game late in the fourth quarter. Minnesota is up by five. And then there was the safety that happens. There was Minnesota touchdown, Nebraska touchdown to make it a bit closer again. Minnesota won by seven, but a wild finish and a great read by Khan across the board. And Ed, I think it was even a better read because part of the reason why he was against Nebraska was Adrian Martinez and his funky ways to give up the football. And that wound up being pertinent once again. Yeah, it's tough because that kid's so talented and he's actually thrown the ball decently at times. But man, the turnovers fumbles are weird. And as you said, you know, they happen a lot when you hang on the ball too long. And that's what appears to happen with Martinez a bit is tough because like he does have talent, he plays well, just one fatal, fatal flaw that just keeps on popping up for other action. Colin was on Eastern Michigan at plus one and a half against Ball States. That closes the point. So point or half point of movement for him there. Ball State got out to a 14 nothing lead pretty early on and then basically back and forth in there. So Ball State won 38 to 31 to cover. Khan is on Louisiana Tech at minus six and a half against UTEP. It closed at six and a half and really weird, sloppy game because both teams turned the ball over at least three times. Louisiana Tech's offense couldn't do anything though. So UTEP won outright 19 to three in that game. Finally, Colin wanted to see the status of Jake Hainer for the game for Fresno State. If Hainer played, he wanted Fresno State minus three and a half. Hainer did play and it closed at three. Fresno State's defense was awesome here. They blanked Wyoming and won 17 nothing. So a cover there for Colin as well. So a good week overall for Colin. Again, check him out on Twitter at underscore Colin one. The other game I was watching at was Northwestern versus Rutgers. I actually had time to watch Northwestern game this year and I picked a game to watch apparently because you'd bet it when Rutgers was a one point dog and you got a lot of them there because they closed as a two point favorite. But Northwestern's defense decided to tackle for once, which had not happened the entire year. Rutgers 222 total yards, 3.4 yards per play. Ryan Helinski threw the ball down field, which was really jarring like as a Northwestern fan to see a quarterback throw down field, which I've not seen in a very long time. It was not expected. I feel bad because I told you to bet Rutgers when they were an underdog, but just a weird game across the board where both Northwestern and Rutgers deviated pretty heavily from what they had done up to that point. I mean, it's not your fault. I was going to bet them anyway. Just wanted your opinion on it. I think I had a closing at Rutgers two and a half. Okay. Yeah. So it's a further half point there. So three and a half points of movement. You're not going to fight that very often. Nope. Sometimes things just break against you either way. So that's college football week number seven. We're talking week number eight here with Michael Rondello. And just one second, find him on Twitter at Michael Rondello and find all his work over a number of fire. We're going to get his thoughts on really big games this week. We'll talk about the Oregon UCLA game and get his thoughts on others across the board. But first, NBA is back, which means that so is FanDuel's free over under contest. It is simple. Head over to fanduel.com slash over under and choose either over under on each listed prop. You can make free picks for a chance to win a share of $5,000. All you have to do is make your picks over on FanDuel before every NBA and TNT broadcast for your shot at a big payday eligibility restrictions apply. Go to fanduel.com or download the FanDuel app for more details. Let's bring Michael Rondello on to covering the spread to talk week number eight in a college football. Michael, of course, does all of our work over at numberfire.com talking some college football betting there and had him on today to talk about that as well. Michael, we appreciate the time. How are you doing today? Great. Thanks for having me on. Excited to talk this week's slate of college football. I'm just kind of bummed that we have you here on Wednesday like this show will be out for Wednesday night. But like we could have had you on earlier talk, Coastal Carolina, get some Chanticleers talk on the show. But you know, we'll get people a larger window. That's all right. Are you eyeing that game at all or no? Not really. You know, I think Coastal Carolina is the top team just because of kind of their schedule and who they play. You know, they're a pretty good team, but they kind of have a week schedule. So I haven't really had my eye on that game too much. Unfortunate. And a relevant game, too, because you're in Michigan and they're playing Appalachian State and there's no connection, I'm sure at all, between Michigan and Appalachian State dating back a couple of years. But obviously you're a big Michigan fan. We talked at Plain Times about Michigan as well, but thoughts on how things are going so far this year. Are you allowing yourself to get excited yet or not yet? I'm cautiously optimistic. I think to me, the biggest thing that's kind of held Michigan back in the past is their defense, which at times looked dominant in the last few years under coordinator Don Brown. But it seems like they had like a very rigid game plan and that kind of that kind of seemed to be their kryptonite. And I think the last straw was the Michigan State game last year, where we got torched by Rocky Lombardi. And we seemingly couldn't stop the sideline throws one on one against our corners. And, you know, I rolling out the same guys this year. You know, I don't think corner cornerback is the strength of our team. But, you know, Harbaugh firing Brown really rehauling the whole coaching staff and bringing in Mike McDonald. I thought that really hopefully what I was hoping to see is that Michigan's defense could make, you know, be a little bit more adaptable to, you know, what opponents strengths are and, you know, can make better in game adjustments and maybe it'll be a little bit more bend and don't break than they kind of have been in the past. So so far so good. I, you know, the two biggest games, you know, left in the season, of course, Michigan State and Ohio State. And I think both teams are kind of built to beat the Michigan defense of the past because they just have a lot of explosive skill players. And, you know, that's kind of been a problem for Michigan. So I think, you know, next week, the 30th against Michigan State is really, you know, I'll allow myself to be fully optimistic instead of cautiously if they if they win that game. Yeah, I know, I think you're right with with what happened with Don Brown last year. As you mentioned, it's the same guys in the secondary. I mean, they've added one new guy this year, but they were bad last year and they've been good this year. And it just goes to show you how volatile secondary play is. I kept thinking that they weren't as bad as we thought they were last year. I thought the corner backs were in position on a lot of place on a lot of plays in that Michigan State game and a lot of the other games. They just couldn't make the play. And I think that happens. And then, you know, Don Brown probably gets fired because Quidipay and Aiden Hudgenson go down. I mean, you're you're losing two NFL caliber past rushers. And yeah, you know, should he have adjusted and stopped blitzing so much? Yeah, of course. But even with all that said, I well, I mean, you're stealing a lot of my thunder, what I want to talk about a little bit later. But the early returns are that Harbaugh got this hire right. And this was the hire he had to have. He could he did not have the luxury of screwing this up. And the early returns are pretty good. Yeah, they struggled in in in a couple of halves this season. Nebraska second half, Rutgers second half. But but yeah, no, I think it's good. What are you thinking about the offense? You think they're going to put JJ McCarthy in a quarter vaccine? So I could see them playing JJ McCarthy and like, you know, say, you know, they show up to East Lansing and they're, you know, down by two touchdowns at half time. That's when I could see them playing JJ McCarthy for the entire second half. You know, after some of these like highlight throws that he's making that, you know, fan base is getting really excited and kind of clamoring for him to start, you know, certain you know, certain circles. But, you know, Kate McNamara he's been really good at just limiting negative plays. He doesn't really throw interceptions. I think he says he has one on the season and doesn't take sacks. I mean, part of that, too, is, you know, Michigan's past protection has been pretty good. But, you know, it seems like he's and he just says it seems like he just has this poise and this competence that's kind of infectious across the team. So I'm still kind of I want to see him like air out the ball a little bit more. I know that in more recent weeks, we've kind of seen that. But, you know, before I'm like all in on the Cade train, I'd like to see I'd like to see him throw you know, make some bigger place, you know, against tougher opponents. Yeah, I mean, I think I think we've kind of seen the ceiling of McNamara in some sense in terms of just a little bit of lack of consistency with some of the throws. And we've seen the upside of McCarthy. He's eventually going to take over this team. I think it's a question of when not if I agree. And yeah, I mean, you've seen those explosive throws. I would guess right now in practice that McCarthy is just not as consistent and the staff is waiting waiting for that to happen. So yeah, we shall see. And and like you said, like I think the Michigan State game next week is is very interesting, because I think Michigan State's a little overrated, obviously put your a little bias in that. But there are some good data reasons for that as well. No, I'm with you there. I think I think they're a little overrated as well. But, you know, the fan and me, you know, I'm just I'm just not that lucky. So I kind of, you know, could go both ways. All I hear is we're disrespecting Ryan Helinski's bombs that are coming on Saturday. That's that's the only thing that I'm hearing right now. Watch out for the feisty Northwestern Wildcats, baby, said entirely ingest. Let's talk here's about some college football with you, Michael. First time we had you on the show, we like to try to pick people's brains, see where the strengths are, see why their strengths are the strengths. When you look at yourself as a college football better, where do you think you excel and why is that the case? Yeah, I think my process is really based around trying to find overvalued teams, undervalued teams, and in terms of like where the underlying numbers, you know, say their level of play is at versus like public perception. And the way I mean, you know, I'm not reinvent reinventing the wheel here. I think the way a lot of betters do that is through power ratings. You know, my process, you know, includes, you know, an aggregated ranking of, you know, several different power ratings, you know, on the Internet. And the way the reason I like to do like an aggregate is because, you know, I think the not only is the average ranking pretty helpful to kind of see what I'll call like the hierarchy of teams. But also, I think having the variance of their rating as well, you know, for example, you know, my aggregated ranking this week has, I think Clemson number nine and they're playing Pittsburgh, who's number 10. You know, Pittsburgh's variance is pretty low compared to Clemson's. And so that kind of, you know, makes me a little bit more cautious when I'm betting teams with a high variance like Clemson. So and then so that kind of gives me like a nice high level look. I can make reactions when the lines first come out every week and then kind of go back and see where I think that that number should be, you know, based on some of the inputs to my aggregated rankings. And then, you know, I always like to look at, you know, what makes a team successful and does that give them a particular advantage against that opponent that particular week. So yeah, that's that's really that's really kind of what goes into my rationale on picks every week. Yeah, I mean, I think the aggregation of ratings is a good thing. I mean, you know, my rankings are definitely perfect, right? But everyone else no, I'm just getting obviously every every every you know, it's kind of it's kind of like that wisdom of crowds of the preseason AP poll, right? No one ballot is perfect, but the aggregate is is a pretty powerful predictor of team strength. And I think the same thing applies for for computer predictions as well. Michael, you were talking about matchups. What what is your approach there? Are you looking at passing versus rushing, so on and so forth? Yeah, I like to just, you know, different phases of the game, you know, if one team has a particularly good rushing offense versus a rushing defense, I think that's kind of the obvious. Another thing that I like to, you know, even go a little bit deeper in and, you know, I like to use the stats on football outsiders dot com. They have some pretty good line stats and, you know, so much of the game is is, you know, one and lost up front. And so kind of what teams have, you know, specific line advantages over another, you know, that can be pretty helpful to look at as well, especially because of the discrepancies in college football can be large. Like they can be big in the NFL team in terms of like, you know, mismatches on one side of the ball from the line perspective. In college, the variance in quality is bigger and that can get you in some some seriously bad situations. So I think it doesn't make sense. Basically, what you're saying is you start with the number and then slowly dig down deeper from there. Is that correct? Exactly. OK, yeah. OK, I think that makes a lot of sense. Let's talk about a good action. Sorry, before we move on, I did want to ask you, Clemson for me has been the most difficult team to figure out this year. They clearly haven't played well, but, you know, number wise, numbers wise, they're not terrible. I just looked at my team rankings, which is margin of victory adjusted for schedule. They're 17th. They're clearly getting credit for playing the best team in America. Pretty tough week one, you know, the performance seems to have slipped. You talked about, you know, you're calculating a variance in teams as well. It's no surprise that Clemson has one of the biggest variances, depending on how you deal with data from the current season versus preseason expectations. You know, what do you think about this team? Like, are you betting them? In short, no. I try, I tend to stay away from the teams with higher variance just because I'm careful. I'm probably a little bit more risk-averse. You know, definitely going to be keeping my eye on the Pittsburgh game this Saturday because I just think that's a fascinating matchup. But, yeah, I, you know, I think that if the number was a little bit different, you know, if Pittsburgh was a little bit bigger of a favorite, I'd probably jump on the Clemson train. But, you know, I don't think that there's a particular advantage on this line. So I think it kind of depends, you know, week to week and what the situation is. But I would say like most of the time, I just, I don't like, you know, trying to figure out these high variance teams. Yeah. No, it's interesting because Spets a three and a half point favorite over at Vandal. And if you would have said that line in the beginning, I mean, no one would have, no one would have hesitated to bet Clemson plus three and a half. Yeah. And, you know, I, I mean, I like Clemson against BC. That didn't work out. Clemson did not cover against Syracuse last week. Maybe that was two weeks ago. I forget. That was too. It was a fright. I know, yeah. But I just feel like at some point they're going to start playing like Clemson again, if only for a game. There's still the most talented team in that conference by far. So yeah, I think we could, I think that, you know, we could see that this weekend Spitzberg. So yeah, we shall see. Interesting game for sure. And interesting team overall. They're always interesting, but I think extra very much so this year. Let's talk about the futures market here because we know there's kind of like a tier or two in the, in the championship betting. But the same thing is true with the Heisman right now. Matt Corral and Bryce Young, both plus one seventy five or at Vandal Sportsbook. Are you seeing any value in that market as it currently stands, Michael, or is it a stay away for you with where things are at? Um, you know, at this point in the Heisman race, I tend to stay away from the lower odds. You know, Heisman races, you know, kind of a tough market to bet just because you're not betting like, you know, you're not just protect projecting stats. You're trying to get also into the minds of the voters and I think some of the narrative of the season kind of plays along with that. So, you know, it's kind of a tougher market to bet, you know, and this this year has been pretty, pretty crazy, given that, you know, the front runner at the beginning of the year, Spencer Rattler has been benched. So, you know, and, you know, another front runner Sam Howell like the North Carolina's just hasn't played up to, you know, preseason expectations. So it's been a lot of volatility this year. You know, I think if there were to name a winner today, I think it would be Matt Corral just because of how good Ole Miss's offense is and how much he has a part to play in their success. But he just had 30 carries against Tennessee and Lane Kiffin saying he's not in very good shape for this week's game against LSU. You know, 170, you know, plus 175, you know, I don't want to, I don't want to take that. You know, I'm probably more willing to be just because of where we're at in the season. I'm probably going to look a little bit more down the list. I think CJ Stroud was like eight to one. I don't know if that's a great pick just because he's got, you know, two first round picks at receiver and, you know, that can kind of sway the narrative a little bit. Another guy that I would like, I think he's a little bit farther down the list towards like 20, you know, towards like 25 to one, I think I saw was Kenny Pickett, Pittsburgh's quarterback. And, you know, we just said like, you know, Clemson can come alive this weekend. And, you know, that would, that would hurt his chances. But, you know, if Pittsburgh runs the table wins the ACC, I know it's a weaker year for that conference. And they're a one-loss team. And, you know, he continues to play at the level he's playing. You know, I think that's a good, that's a good pick to take a flyer on. I mean, if you look at ESPN's QBR, I think both of the favorites, Young and Corral are in the top four, but the other two guys are Stroud and Pickett. So, and I think Pittsburgh throws the ball enough where, you know, he can get those volume stats. So, you know, not really like, you know, allocating a chunk of capital towards one of the favorites. I'm more just kind of taking a flyer on a guy and seeing what happens. But yeah, I think Pickett's my favorite pick in that market. Cool. Let's go on to some games. We have a big one out in Pac-12 with Oregon at UCLA. UCLA is favored in this game, totals up to 60 and a half. What is your take on this game? Well, I think first, my first reaction was, I think UCLA would get the upset, but it turns out that they opened as a small favorite. So, I guess, you know, wasn't too surprised to see that. You know, I kind of look at Oregon's body of work this year, you know, going back to the Ohio State game, really big win for them. And I think, you know, a lot of people kind of bump them up into that top tier of college teams. But, you know, if you kind of look at what happened in that game, a lot of Buckeyes miscues, they, I think, three drives ended in Oregon territory on turnover on downs. So, you know, imagine if they get, you know, one of those conversions, plus CJ Straub throws an interception at the end, you know, when they're trying to tie up the game. So, you know, that wasn't like a super decisive win for me. Ohio State outgained them yards-wise. And, you know, so I think they were a little overrated coming out of that game. And then they, you know, a couple of weeks later, they play Arizona, who is just bad. And then they get outgained by Arizona in that game. You know, Arizona has like 31 first downs, so I believe Ohio State's, sorry, Oregon's 17. And if I told you, you know, hey, Arizona had 31 first downs, Oregon's 17, you know, Arizona outgained them. And I was going to, you know, I asked you, who do you think won the game? Well, you would probably say that's a trick question and know that it was Arizona. But if you didn't think that, you would say, you would say that it was Arizona and not Oregon. So, you know, they lost to Stanford. They looked shaky against Cal. You know, in my aggregated rankings, I do not have them close to 10. They're more like mid 20s. And, yeah, I don't think, and you look at, you know, they're, you know, the same opponents, you know, they both, UCLA and Oregon have both played Stanford and Arizona. And UCLA has looked a lot better against those two teams than Oregon has. So that was kind of my first instinct. I think the line has moved up a little bit, which, you know, anytime you see this early week movement, you know, I think it's a little bit of a indicator of like sharp money, which I think kind of gives me a little bit of confidence if the line moves that way. And then, you know, as I kind of dig into matchups, you know, Oregon's been pretty reliant on running the ball this year. They lose their best running back, CJ Verdell, and UCLA has the best rushing defense in the pack 12. So I think this is like one of my, you know, more favorite picks of the week is just to lay a couple of points with UCLA. And I think it's really mostly because I think Oregon's overrated. Yeah. UCLA minus one and a half right now at Fandall Sportsbook, and that is minus one 14. So you can still get the one and a half at Fandall, just laying a bit more juice there at minus one 14 versus one 10, potentially elsewhere at a larger number. I think it does make sense to snag that right now. Let's talk about the interesting game of the week, even if it's not like a high profile game, LSU versus Ole Miss, Ole Miss nine and a half point favorite total here is 76 and a half. The big story this week is the Ed Orgeron stuff, which we talked about and I did earlier on, but we saw last week, the Raiders rally with no John Gruden. Coach L is still here though, like he's still there. So it's a weird situation or really weird dynamic and like by weird, I mean, I don't know how to analyze this. So how, what are you doing here? How does Edo still being their leader, you know, you know, I think it's kind of a weird move to, to make an allame duck. Yeah. I think in this particular situation, what I've, what I've read, I mean, this, this is kind of one of those situations that goes beyond the numbers, right? You kind of have to get a feel for what's happening. You know, basically from, from what I've read, kind of the writing was on the wall here, you know, Ed Orgeron's issues that LSU are pretty deep, you know, you know, LSU are pretty deep seated. And I didn't think he was going to, you know, last another season. So I, I don't know if, you know, the player's motivations changed that much just based on this, just because I think he might have been a lame duck already. I just wasn't official. You know, I think LSU has just been a generally difficult team to figure out. You look at their last four games. You know, I think LSU has just been a generally difficult team to figure out. You look at their last four games. They've been out gained in three of them. And the one that they out gained their opponent was a loss to to Auburn. You know, the Florida game, you know, was a big win for for Orgeron. I think some people thought maybe he just saved his job, which clearly he didn't, but, you know, Florida turned over the ball a ton. They almost gift-wrapped that game to the Tigers and then you know, they're running back. Davis Price, I think some fans were calling for him to be benched earlier this season. He sets the LSU game rushing record. So, you know, how much of that is sustainable? I don't know whether this team has kind of made a breakthrough in the running game or not, but they just haven't been impressive in any of their conference games so far this year. You know, regardless of the Ed Ordon news. Yeah, it definitely makes it tough to like figure out how to handle things. Maybe that increases your confidence in your read on them, knowing that they've kind of been playing with the lame duck for most of the year. So, the Atlas U-side may actually be the more study part because as you mentioned, Matt Corral's banged up and Lane Kiffin said, I think Monday that he's not certain to play. We don't know that right now. We're recording here Wednesday. What's your read on this game right now with where things stand? Any betting value here, overall read on this game as a whole? Yeah, I think you know, with a healthy Matt Corral or, you know, close to 100%, I would feel confident in laying the points for oldness just because I, you know, LSU doesn't have, you know, a stellar record by any means, but I think even they're a little bit worse than that record might indicate, you know, they're pretty talented, but the program's just a mess right now. You know, oldness is, you know, they've had, I believe, three conference games so far, you know, they got crushed by Alabama as, you know, one does and they, you know, kind of eaked out wins against Arkansas and Tennessee. So they, they haven't really been particularly impressive either so far to kind of set themselves apart, but, I mean, like I said earlier, like if you called the Heisman race today, it would be, it would be Corral. So, I'm kind of waiting to see what the, the news is, I'm keeping my on, on this game, you know, if they announced that Matt Corral's going and, you know, maybe we get like an inside to, you know, inside peek at his health status, you know, maybe I'd be a little bit more confident betting on this game, but right now it's a stay away. Plus, I'm a little bit, meaning, you know, full action LSU, which makes me even more confused. So, probably a stay away until we get a little bit more information about Corral's health. All right, let's move on to USC at Notre Dame a battle of two of my overrated teams at the beginning of the season. I, I, I still think Notre Dame was a little bit overrated, but they look all right in the record department. They're a six and a half point favorite against the USC team that, got a lot of questions about total 57 and a half. Notre Dame's got a quarterback issue. And so what are your thoughts on this game? Yeah, it's an interesting game. You know, rivalry game, you know, one of the oldest rivalries in college football, you know, something I always, you know, as someone who enjoys the tradition of college football, I always like to tune into this game, but it's kind of a bummer that, you know, one of the teams has fired their coach already this season. And, you know, it's, you know, Notre Dame's a solid favorite in this one. USC's defense isn't that great. And so I think that the quarterback situation for Notre Dame probably won't, you know, affect their chances at winning as it might against a team with a better defense. You know, if I'm Brian Kelly, you know, I'm looking at some of the games that USC has played and lost earlier this year. Like if you look at the Oregon State game, I think they were just content with running the ball and USC couldn't stop it and they won. So, you know, I think that would be kind of my game plan going into the game. Maybe that means starting Tyler Buckner instead of Jack Cohen. And if, you know, if the game turns into a shootout, which for Irish fans, hopefully not, you know, maybe then you bring in Jack home. I think the key matchup in this game though is going to be Notre Dame's defense against USC. I mean, you know, Slovis and London are, there's a pretty solid connection there. Drake London's probably a first round, maybe early second round pick in the draft next year. And Notre Dame has a pretty good secondary. It's been improving. You know, they obviously have an elite safety in Kyle Hamilton. You know, I think the supporting cast around has, you know, has gradually improved as season has gone on. So I think if Notre Dame prevents this from being a shootout, I think that they can win the game just by, you know, controlling the time of possession on the ground and, you know, limiting big plays from USC. So I would probably, and especially because, you know, it's below a key number of seven. I think I would probably go Notre Dame here. They've had a much more difficult schedule. You know, I think you're right, Ed, that both teams are overrated. But I just think that Notre Dame's a better team and they have the personnel to kind of limit what USC is good at doing. So, are you confident enough in Notre Dame to bet that at six and a half, or is it more just a lean if you had to pick on that one? I would say it's more of a lean. Yeah. Probably more of a lean at this point. I haven't, I haven't checked my numbers in a while, but, but I just looked, USC's defense, as you said, is terrible, like a hundredth or worse in my adjusted success rate. The past offense has been pretty good. There are 11th in my adjusted success rate, which has been right where Keaton Slovis has had them the last two years. Obviously, there was one game with Jackson Dart where he took over and they won that game and then he got hurt and Slovis got the job back. So that's probably helping the numbers, but, but yeah, it's kind of surprised that that past offense is that good given everything else that's going on with that team. Yeah, definitely. And there's certainly been a lot that has gone on with that team. Where else do you seem betting value for this week, Michael, about football? So I have one other game circled. That's Tennessee against Alabama. I think Tennessee is a little bit underrated. I know their records like right around 500, but if you, if you look at their schedule who they played, you know, they've crushed the teams that they're supposed to be and they've, they've, you know, hung tough against, you know, the tougher opponents in the SEC with the exception of Florida. So I think that Tennessee is, you know, I mean, obviously their records not going to show it because of the conference that they play, but I think they're, they're a good team. You know, Alabama isn't on that level that they were last year or that Georgia is this year. So I think like, I'm not saying that I think that Tennessee is going to go into Tuscaloosa and, you know, potentially pull the upset or anything crazy like that, but I do think that they could keep it within three touchdowns. I think the, the line opened at like already down to minus 24 and a half. So, you know, try to get on that as soon as you can. Is Tennessee, they're playing hooker at quarterback, even though it's not healthy or is Milton hurt or what is going on there? Yeah, I think, you know, Milton's gotten a couple of reps. I think he got a couple of reps, you know, last week against Ole Miss, but I think, you know, if, if Tennessee fans thought that Joe Milton was their quarterback of the future, let me just tell you, as a Michigan fan, that is a mistake. So, yeah, I think hooker has been a lot better for this, this team and, you know, obviously he won the job over. So, but that's definitely the one I'm circling. I, you know, I wrote about the Ole Miss in Tennessee game last week and I bet on the under, which, which cashed in luckily and like 30 points. Yeah. My whole, my whole argument for, for betting the under there was, if Tennessee can, you know, play well enough to win, you know, that means that they're, you know, limiting Ole Miss's offense and kind of, you know, making Matt Corral be you with his arm. And I think that the, you know, they, they did play well enough to win. They just, you know, didn't get, you know, all the breaks going their way. So, I think that they're good enough to, you know, so that we won't see them coming in, in the middle, in the middle of the third quarter. So, I think they'll keep it close enough that I would, I would take the 24 and a half. You mentioned Tennessee's steamrolling bad teams and some people will like discount games against bad teams because they're bad teams, but that's what you're supposed to do and that is a good indicator. Like that's, that's something to, to value for sure. So, Michael likes Tennessee plus 24 and a half. That is Michael Rondello. Check him out on Twitter at Michael Rondello and check out all of his work at numberfire.com. Michael, we appreciate the time. Good luck to you with your bets in week number eight. And hopefully we'll talk to you once again here soon. Great. Thanks for having me guys. Thank you. Covering the future. Big thank you once again to Michael Rondello for swinging by and breaking down his thoughts on this weekend's game. One of them we discussed but didn't get his thoughts on from a spread perspective was Michigan versus Northwestern. Currently, Michigan a 23 and a half point favorite against Northwestern. It sounds like you want to talk about that one for covering the future for today. Yeah, for sure. I mean, we got to go back to that Northwestern game. You know, they had a solid 14 point win over Rutgers, but you know, they had a big play 64 yard touchdown pass in the Washington where Rutgers missed the tackle. So when you kind of dig more into the underlying metrics, it wasn't as good for Northwestern. They had a 30.4% success rate compared to 34.8 for Rutgers. So both were well below the college football average of around 41%. But Northwestern was still down a little bit. So one of the reasons my numbers do not like Northwestern is that they struggle on both sides of the ball in terms of a justice success rate and the game against Rutgers didn't really change that. So there's still 105th on offense, 104th on defense. And I really see like this is going to be a problem against Michigan. So, you know, this is a team that had a lot of questions coming in to the season after two and four year last year. And, you know, as we discussed with Michael, I think new defensive quarter in Michael McDonald seems like the answer. So they're 22nd in my justice success rate on that side of the ball. The past defense is 41st and that might not seem great and it isn't great. But again, it's the same exact players that he had last year. On the offense, you know, it's really been the ground game that's been great. They're 26th in adjusted success rate for rushing. Still some questions at the quarterback position as we talked about. With Michael between Katie McNamara and JJ McCarthy. So, you know, my model actually likes Michigan by 22 and a half points. So I bet this at 21 and a half earlier this week setting out to my members. It has moved two points since then. I still think there's a little bit of value in this, in the sense that, you know, a couple of games ago, the market took a stand and said, you know, we're going to make Michigan a couple of points bigger favorite than whatever my numbers are saying. This is the type of respect that Alabama normally gets. I don't really think we've seen anything from Michigan to change that. I think there was value on Michigan because of what happened in the Rutgers game last week for Northwestern. I think this might get to 24, maybe not too much past that. But, you know, I think Michigan has gotten, you know, right now they're not going to be favorite against Ohio State, but I think they have gotten back to the hardball level before the last couple of years. And it'll be interesting. Like I think this team does have a ceiling. It comes at the quarterback position, but I do like them to cover this pretty big spread against Northwestern. Well, yeah. And you were talking about how Michigan has done nothing to change our opinion where the books are giving them respect. Northwestern did nothing to change the opinion either in that Rutgers game. So you mentioned the Washington play like 99 times out of 98. That guy's getting taken down. I have no idea what happened with Rutgers defender. He did. I don't know, just a dirt or whatever. I mean, I think you miss tackles at a higher percentage in that, but, but yeah, I mean, not that specific tackle because there was another guy like the safety was behind him too. And he just like ran past it and it was really weird aesthetically. But I don't think Northwestern did anything there to change your opinion of them. And if you say before that Rutgers game, the Michigan is a 23 and a half point favorite. Like I don't have to look at line was there was one, but it's probably bigger than 23 and a half and I don't think anything really changed tangibly there. Other thing too with a big number in this game is Northwestern's passing offense is not one you worry about in terms like a backdoor cover. So I think that that would be reassuring in terms of betting a large number too. Yeah. So I think that 23 and a half is probably the right read here. It was fun to watch Northwestern play decent football for a week. I mean at least from an explosive play perspective not from a sex success rate perspective, but I'll take my one week and I'll cash it out and I'll just try to avoid during this game this week. Oh. And before before I'm done talking about Michigan, I did talk a little bit about how I think Michigan State is overrated. Yeah. Benefited from a lot like unsustainable rate of big plays. And in that one against Indiana, they had that defensive touchdown. They had fewer over yards than Indiana with their backup quarterback. I do feel like Michigan State's a little bit overrated right now would make Michigan about five point favorite at Michigan State. So I'm really looking forward to what that line comes out at. Because I feel like it's going to I feel like it's going to be like two and a half three. Right. It's important too because we record on Wednesdays. If you get a two and a half on open on Sunday, that's something you want to jump on now. I think it's good to mention that now ahead of time unless something changes drastic on Saturday, which I, you know, like an injury basically to make that I would also say that like I'm posting my college football numbers on Sunday night because it's an absolute necessity. So if you want to get in on that, you can check out the power egg.com the power egg. Not actually to sign up become a member especially now that is key. So the power egg.net to get those numbers earlier on the week. Yeah, I cannot emphasize how crazy things move on Monday. Yeah. When I talk to Mike Craig, he's like, I do not know why I need to be completely prepared for Saturday on Monday, but that's just life this year. Apparently it is and it's true in the NFL too. So the power egg.net to get those numbers as soon as you can from my cover in the future go into the NFL side of things this week and we talked last week at about how you've talked to Rob Pizzola about how he's tracked bets on bad teams and how they perform and he's shown or he's seen from himself that when he bets on bad teams doesn't typically work in his favor. I'm going to go against that this week. And which is dumb because I don't like doing things that accounted what Rob Pizzola says. Generally not a sparring to play things, but I'm going to bet Houston plus 17 and a half against Arizona in week number seven. I just think that number is too big right now because part of this is we're talking here on Wednesday and Tara Taylor is labeled as day to day and there's a shot that he comes back off of IR this week and Taylor is playing really well before he got hurt. Maybe a pretty big upgrade for this offense. But like if you get Tara Taylor back I feel like that would still be an upgrade there. But even with Taylor missing a bunch of time Houston still 25th and schedule adjusted passing efficiency right now. They're not outlier actually bad on that side of the football. They're not great defensively but again they're not like an outlier either. So if you're looking at 17 and a half against Arizona which I didn't know that I respect but to get to 17 and a half you need this team to be outlier actually bad and like they kind of aren't like they're bad but they're not like an outlier in that sense. I do like Arizona I bet them last week at plus three despite my concerns around Calamari shoulder and stuff like that there are pretty high my power rankings so I've nothing against Arizona but 17 and a half is a big number against a team that's at least putting forth an effort this year. They're trying to do some cool things schematically on offense too my numbers have this one as a 14 point game in Arizona's favor that three and a half points of value which is tough to find I'm having trouble finding a lot of games with a lot of value this is one you're getting also a cross key number 17 here it feels like this line might be just I don't know if it's like conspiracy theory but like kind of juiced up to discourage teasers it seems like at this point so I'll take advantage here and play this out by itself and take Houston plus 17 and a half in this one and it makes me nervous to bet a bad team I bet Houston before this year and I'm doing it again now but I think with this number where it's at it's raw Taylor plays I think 17 and a half is just too big and we have to remember that Kyle Murray is a bum shoulder something wrong with the shoulder I don't know if anything came out I didn't see the game against Cleveland I was just watching the score he played well he threw the ball down field to despite there being some wins so my I was very concerned about his shoulder going in which is why I was hesitant to bet it despite the fact my number showed like five points of value at plus three I was hesitant to bet it because I was worried about his shoulder I did still do it much in terms of like where deviating from my number but I'm less concerned now because of the like the the willingness he had to throw down field and stuff like that but it's still not totally gone right so I think that's another factor in your favor right yeah I mean I think I'm gonna well I haven't decided about this game but I definitely think there's there's going to be places where I'm going to be going there's Arizona over the next couple of weeks probably against the Rams although not this week I think the scenes are playing well I think they're good but they're probably going to be getting too much credit in the markets over the next couple of weeks and it'll be you know I think there'd be opportunities to fade both those teams there are a lot of big numbers this week so if you are afraid of big numbers it might not be the week in the NFL there are a bunch so we'll talk more about those tomorrow with Drew Dinsick to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast. While you're there again, leave us a rating review that does help us out a bunch. That is all that we have for today though. So we're in a close-up shop for today. Big thank you once again to Michael Rondello for swinging by, breaking down his thoughts on this weekend's college football games. Find him on Twitter at Michael Rondello and check out his work over at numberfire.com. Ed, you mentioned thepowerinc.net for the college football numbers on Sunday. What else going on for you this week? Yeah, my free email newsletter. Try to give you some of the best advice with a little bit of humor. You can check out my analysis of Atlanta at Miami, which went out to the newsletter yesterday. It's on my site. But sign up for the newsletter at thepowerinc.com. I've also been doing Seven Nuggets Saturday with mostly with Edward E. Gross's help. Try to summarize injuries and tips and other important resources that you might want. So anyways, that's all in the email newsletter. Go to thepowerinc.com. And you can find Ed on Twitter at thepowerinc. You can check out his podcast, the football analytics show, wherever you get your podcasts. I'm on Twitter at Jim Sonnis, J-I-M-S-A-N-N-E-S. You can also follow the FanDuel Podcast Network at FanDuel Podcast. Big thank you to everyone for tuning in for today. Good luck to you with your college football bets if you're betting the Coastal Carolina game tonight. Either way, we'll talk to you once again tomorrow to break down NFL week number seven. This has been covering the spread right here on the FanDuel Podcast Network. What's up guys? This is Jordan Spieth. If you're watching this video, please like and subscribe to the FanDuel YouTube channel.