5 college football bets to take to the bank in Week 2
There were surprises, letdowns and much more in the first week of the 2018 college football season, but what bets can you bank on in Week 2?
Going into the first week of the 2018 college football season, I talked extensively about how little that we actually know. The games that we saw undoubtedly saw that play out. You can talk about changes and potential and so on as much as you want, but none of it matters until things take shape out on the field. And the way that things took shape on the field last week was an incredibly surprising affair in many regards.
Perhaps the biggest surprise of last week was what the Miami Hurricanes looked like against the LSU Tigers. Based on what we thought we knew, this seemed like the Canes would simply out-class the Tigers on every level of the field. As it turned out, having Malik Rosier as your quarterback has a way of derailing all of your plans. In turn, Miami got rocked by their SEC foes and now have more questions than answers moving forward.
Adding to the list of surprises were the Penn State Nittany Lions and Michigan State Spartans needing everything they had in the tank to avoid big-time upsets. Meanwhile, the Michigan Wolverines added to the woes of the Big Ten as a whole in their highly disappointing showing against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. And if that weren’t enough for everyone, the Washington Huskies were in the same boat as Michigan with how they played against the Auburn Tigers.
However, now that we have a week of action under our belt, we know a little bit more than we did. My performance last week of picking “best bets” was abysmal. Don’t lose faith just yet, though. These are five college football bets to take to the bank this week.
5. TCU (-22) vs. SMU
As is often the case when it comes to the beginning of a season, we saw a lot of good teams take on subpar competition. Like we said in regards to Penn State in Michigan State, however, not every team handled their business like they should have. Good-to-great teams come out and make easy work of teams that are simply not on their level, and that’s exactly what Gary Patterson and the TCU Horned Frogs did to the Southern Jaguars.
Dual-threat quarterback Shawn Robinson was clearly on another level than anyone that the Jaguars could hope to throw at them. He finished the day going 17-of-24 for 182 yards and three touchdowns while taking both of his rushes on the day into the end zone. Oh, he also made all of this happen while not playing in the second half. So yeah, you could say that this team is good.
Obviously the SMU Mustangs are a step up in competition for the Horned Frogs and offer a little bit of in-Texas flavor. Having said that, this TCU team looks like a sleeping giant right now with the talent that they possess. That’s even more the case with Patterson, one of the best coaches in the country, getting his team ready for every week.
With a huge date with Ohio State looming next week, I think Patterson looks to make another statement with a dominant performance and that the Horned Frogs easily clear the 22-point spread in their Friday night matchup against SMU.