Prop God’s NFL Playbook: Week 12
Prop God
Another season of college football is upon us, and in addition to covering DFS as well as PrizePicks, I will be releasing a couple of weekly betting articles. The purpose of this writeup is to highlight some of my favorite college football games to bet on, my reasoning for picking said game and directing you to the site with the softest lines.
Let’s take a look below at my favorite spots to attack for Week 4!
TCU Horned Frogs vs. SMU Mustangs
12 p.m. ET Saturday
TCU -2.5, O/U 70.5, DraftKings Sportsbook
This is going to be a good ol’ fashioned shootout, as evidenced by the high total. SMU is also extremely appealing as a home dog, and they’re clearly the better offense while TCU is trying to find their identity. There is also a revenge narrative on both sides as TCU coach Sonny Dykes was at SMU 2018-2021. Dykes would love to beat his former team while the Mustangs would savor showing their former coach that he made a mistake by leaving them.
This rivalry is referred to as the “Iron Skillet” game, so both teams are going to be motivated to compete at a high level. TCU leads the all-time series 51-42-7.
The high-powered SMU offense is led by signal caller Tanner Mordecai, who has thrown for over 1,000 yards in three games while possessing a 10 TD to 3 INT ratio. They have plenty of talented RBs in TJ McDaniel, Tre Siggers, Velton Gardner and future star Camar Wheaton, but it’s the passing game that makes SMU’s offense so fun. Rashee Rice has almost 500 receiving yards in three games while catching 28 passes and 3 TDs. The rest of the targets are fairly spread out, but they’re expected to get Rice transfer Jake Bailey and UNC transfer Beau Corrales back into the mix after some health issues. This group is scary good on paper and on film.
Sonny Dykes had trouble deciding on a starting QB as Chandler Morris and Max Duggan battled throughout the Summer. Morris won the gig, but an injury setback has thrust “Hacksaw” Duggan back into the mix after starting most of last season. The spurned Duggan has been on a rampage since Morris went down with a sprained knee and now needs only 24 passing yards to move up to fourth on TCU’s all-time list. That’s enough to get the TCU offense amped up but ultimately the Mustangs high-powered attack is going to prove far too difficult for them to keep up with. 71 points is a tough ask for most teams and all three of the Mustangs games have gone under so far this year. This is a product of obscenely high totals being placed on each of their games. The under is good here despite the juice both teams have on offense.
Betting Trends
- TCU was 1-5 against the spread as a 2-point favorite or more last season.
- All three of SMU’s games this year have gone under.
Best Bet
SMU +2.5 and UNDER 70.5 Total Points
Stanford Cardinal vs. Washington Huskies
10:30 p.m. ET Saturday
Washington -13.5, O/U 64, DraftKings Sportsbook
This one might seem like I’m being a homer since I’m such a huge Washington Huskies fan, but how could we not love them in this spot? They’ve had an extremely favorable schedule thus far, which has kept them in the comfy confines of Seattle and now they’re welcoming a Stanford squad to town that is slightly banged up after losing to a video game-esque USC team a couple of weeks ago. Despite having a week off, their best weapon EJ Smith has been ruled out due to injury so the team will have to figure out how to generate offense without their leading rusher and pass catcher.
This Huskies team has been a juggernaut with Indiana transfer Michael Penix running the offense and is playing with a lot of confidence after stifling a solid Michigan State team last week. Washington is 14th in the country in scoring at 45.3 points per game, while averaging 388.7 passing, good for second. Their 548.3 total yards per game are third in all of college football, so you can see it’s time to start giving this team their respect. The defense has allowed just 18 points per game, is 38th, while allowing a paltry 90 rushing yards and 188.7 passing yards. The Huskies have a lot of momentum coming into this conference game and winning by two plus touchdowns is something they can absolutely do.
The Stanford defense has been good in their own right giving up under 26 points per game and 361.5 yards per game to their opponents, which ranks inside the top 70. Obviously, it’s early in the season and they stifled a weaker opponent in Colgate while giving up over 40 points to USC. The Huskies offense is closer to the Trojans than people realize so I’m confident they’ll be able to move the ball against the Trees. The strength of the Cardinals has been their running game which ranks 46th in the country with 195 yards per game but not having Smith means we can toss that number out the window. This line should be closer to 17, so let’s ride.
Betting Trends
- Stanford beat the spread three times in 11 games last year.
- Washington is 3-0 against the spread so far this year.
Best Bet
Washington Huskies -13.5
Virginia Cavaliers vs. Syracuse Orange
7 p.m. ET Friday
Syracuse -9, O/U 53, DraftKings Sportsbook
I’m hitting you with a prop for my final recommendation of this writeup. We have had mixed results on props in the first quarter of the season, but now that we are getting into conference games, I’m fully expecting our numbers to hit more frequently with less blowouts.
I’m focused on Syracuse RB Sean Tucker and the 105.5 rushing yardage prop listed on DraftKings. The Virginia rush defense gave up over 225 yards per game in 2021 and that unit has improved through three games in 2022, but it’s still not very good. Illinois RB Chase Brown gashed them for 146 yards, and he profiles very similar to Tucker in their running styles. Back in Week 1 against the Richmond Spiders the Cavs gave up over 76 yards to two of their RBs. The Spiders have somewhat of a committee in the backfield so the 164 yards the duo combined for looks even better when you consider Tucker is essentially a bell cow. Virginia was better last week against Old Dominion running back Blake Watson after holding him to 70 yards on 21 carries, but I simply don’t believe they’ll keep Tucker under 125 yards with his expected workload of 20-plus totes. I’m rolling the over on Tucker’s rushing yardage with confidence.
Best Bet
Sean Tucker OVER 105.5 Rushing Yards -115
