Welcome back Rack Pack! (I thought of this lying in bed last night.) After another mediocre and melodramatic 3-3 week, we find ourselves in a similar situation to last week: trying to take that next step to greatness. We’re basically an 8-8 Dallas Cowboys team right now – just as close to the first overall pick as we are to being Super Bowl champs. The bright side in all of this mediocrity is excluding guest pickers, your boy now has four winnings weeks in a row and is hitting at 70% (14-6) during that time. Queue the fade the guest pick, editor.
I would say it’s borderline impressive at this point that guest pickers have successfully missed a 50% coin flip spread 5 weeks in a row now. It’s also quite impressive that the conspiracy group was able to convince my sister to join forces as well.
All that being said, nothing makes me happier than seeing the remaining college conferences kicking off this week/weekend. The MAC will be kicking off this Wednesday in style. Rejoice degenerates! Pencil me in for a 6-leg parlay with every game involved and win or lose, expect me to look similar to every middle aged backwards hat wearing frat bro celebrating with his buddies yelling “let’s go!”
The Pac 12 will start things up Saturday with a 9am PST kick. I can only presume that USC or Arizona State had to have done something to really piss off the Pac 12 commissioner in order to get a kick this early. (Give me Herm Edwards -250.) The last time these guys had to wake up this early for a sporting event had to be a Saturday morning middle school basketball practice. After witnessing the Big Ten fustercluck the first two weeks, it might be a good idea to kind of sit back and watch the first week or two of Pac 12, but count me in for some late night action here as well.
Some quick NFL thoughts as well. Looks like there are two teams standing above the rest in both the AFC (Steelers and Chiefs) and NFC (Seahawks and Buccaneers). I have been putting off a Steelers-Bucs Super Bowl parlay for a few weeks now, but this seems destined to happen in my mind: my least favorite team vs my least favorite player’s team.
It will be interesting to see if they do decide to go with an 8-team playoff in both conferences, whether we can get the 8 vs 1 upset we have always wanted. Sounds crazy right? But looking ahead, that could possibly be a #8 Raiders vs #1 Chiefs matchup, and do I have to remind you who the Chiefs only loss was to this year?
Anyways, enough rambling. It’s recap time.
WEEK 8 RECAP
1. Kansas State +3.5 (vs. West Virginia) 
LOSER
Final Score: Kansas State 10 – West Virginia 37
I knew I was in trouble when I saw the Bear fire off this tweet Thursday morning.
Dating back to 2017, there have been 13 instances of a team ranked outside the Top 15 as an underdog of 4 points or fewer on the road vs an unranked team. Those 13 teams are 2-11 SU and ATS. Kansas State falls into this category this week...
— Chris Fallica (@chrisfallica) October 29, 2020
I’ll take the blame here – we didn’t play the right numbers for this game.
2. BYU -28.5 (vs. Western Kentucky)
WINNER
Final Score: BYU 41 – Western Kentucky 10
After a 35-3 BYU lead at the half, it took a Jake Oldroyd 45-yard field goal with less than a minute left to cover this. You are probably picturing the Travman sweating this one out, but I unintentionally only saw the score at half and at the end of the game. Consider me lucky on two accounts here with me getting the cover and avoiding pit stains.
3. OSU -11.5 (vs. PSU) 💰WINNER💰
Final Score: Ohio State 38 – Penn State 25
I’m not going to dwell on an 0-2 PSU start. I’m not going to dwell on an 0-2 PSU start. I’m not going to dwell on an 0-2 PSU start.
4. Raiders +2.5 (vs. Browns) WINNER
Final Score: Raiders 16 – Browns 6
John Gruden improves to 4-0 against the Browns. I stumbled across the easiest remaining schedules in the NFL and turns out the Raiders (#3 easiest) and Browns (#1 easiest) might both be making playoff runs so place your playoff future bets now for these two.
5. Tampa Bay -10.5 (vs. New York Giants) LOSER
Final Score: Tampa Bay 25 – Giants 23
I still love this spread so much. It actually moved to -12.5 before kick and I thought I was getting a couple of extra points to work with. The Bucs ultimately found a way to win, and I foresee this continuing against far superior opponents in the second half of the season.
6. Guest Pick: Titans -5.5 (vs. Bengals) LOSER
Final Score: Titans 20 – Bengals 31
We are now 0-4 with Titans picks this year, gang.
LSMLW: Arkansas +364 (vs. Texas A&M) LOSER
Final Score: Arkansas 31 – Texas A&M 42
This closed at 14.5 so Arkansas was able to cover with a 14-0 fourth quarter but this game was unfortunately never close.
What was I right about:
- Dallas against the spread (now 0-8!)
- Steelers are still really good
- BYU vs the spread
- PSU being unable to slow down OSU
- Wrong team is favored: Raiders vs Browns edition
- Stephen Gostkowski hates me
What was I wrong about:
- Great Value Tagovailoa and Maryland are terrible (both might be…good?)
- Wrong team is favored: KState vs WVU edition
- Buccaneers dominance
- Titans win when Derek Henry runs for 109 yards
- Joe Burrow ending up in the ICU
WEEK 9 WINNERS
It’s officially time to wine them, dine them, and week 9 them. Week’s 9’s winners are:
1. Oregon State vs. Washington State UNDER 65.5
Washington State will start true freshman QB Jayden de Laura and Oregon State will start junior Tristan Gebbia who has one career start. What part of that makes you think they will combine for 9-10 TDs? Maybe Vegas forgot Mike Leach left Pullman but this seems 10 points too high.
Also does anyone think Washington’s State’s coach, Nick Rolovich, looks like me if I grew 5 inches and put on 100 pounds because the editor sends me snapchats of this guy everytime he sees him on the sideline?
2. Liberty +14.5 (vs. Virginia Tech)
Something tells me this is Liberty’s Super Bowl and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them race out to an early lead. Va Tech is 1-4 against the spread in their past 5 non-conference games and they have not covered consecutive games yet this year. I suspect the Hokies win this game but I love the 14.5 point wiggle room here for the Flames.
Why do his leg muscles look so atrophied that he looks like he belongs in this wheelchair?? Give me Stephen Hawking in his prime to kick Hugh Freeze’s ass in a wheelchair fight.
*Editor’s Note: Jesus Christ do I have to take responsibility for the words published on this website?*
3. Nebraska (+3.5 vs Northwestern)
Again, give me the points here as well. Six of the past nine meetings between these teams since Nebraska joined the Big Ten have been decided by 3 points or less including a 13-10 Nebraska win last year. Scott Frost has had two weeks to get the boys ready (minus a possible half day of prep for Chatanooga) and we are just going to take a week off of worrying about Nebraska’s record against the spread.
4. Raiders +1.5 (vs. Chargers)
I am going to roll with the Raiders until they burn me. I don’t know who Chris Ruffolo is but I read an article from him that states verbatim “the wrong team is favored.” We all know how we feel about that phrase at the $ix Rack laboratory. The Raiders have covered 5 of their past 6 on the road and the Chargers are now 3-14 in games decided by 7 or less since the start of last year (thanks PMT). This game has 1-score game written all over it and we know ahead of time who is coming out on the right side.
5. Cardinals -4 (vs. Dolphins)
Both teams are coming in winners of 3 straight so something has to give here in the matchup of Josh Rosen’s former teams. I give the edge to the Cardinals who have had two weeks to prepare and are playing at home. NFL teams are 8-6 this year ATS following a bye. That is a narrow margin but I will take my chances here with the Cardinals.
*Editor’s Note:
6. Guest Pick: Patriots -7 (vs. Jets)
The Guest Pick of the week is more like a Guests Pick of the week. Two friends, Teej and Jeff, put their heads together for this one and you know what they say: “two heads has a better chance of ending a 5-game guest picker losing streak than one.”
I tend to agree with this. If Cam Newton’s fumble last week is recovered by a Pats player and they score on the next play, we would be talking about how the 3-4 Patriots are back to themselves and are inevitably going to win the division. The contrast to the Patriots volatility this year would be the New York Jets consistent inability to cover the spread (now 1-7). Let’s expect the Pats to bounce back and win this by at least a TD.
Long Shot Moneyline of the Week:
Baylor +470 (vs. Iowa State)
I love this pick so much. Expect Charlie Brewer to have his first big game of the year as the Bears pull off the upset in Ames.
1:1
Okay, so week 1 of the 1:1 did not go as planned thanks to Michigan and Minnesota inexplicably playing down to their level of competition. The good news is, just put in double what you put in last week and you will be right back to where you expected to be. Also, if you read that and thought “wow, that is such a good idea!” please visit this website for more information: www.1800gambler.net.
This week’s 1:1 winners:
TOLEDO (vs Bowling Green) -1429
MEMPHIS (vs South Florida) -834
UL LAFAYETTE (vs Arkansas State) -500
APPALACHIAN STATE (vs. Texas State) -910
CINCINNATI (vs Houston) -556
COASTAL CAROLINA (vs South Alabama) -910
The above gets you +109 odds. Who likes free money? (And for real this time.)
There you have it for Week 9. Already looking forward to next week after we get back to our winning ways. Also, don’t forget to check out the editor’s Snaker’s Dozen so you know who not to pick for this weekend as well.