Tuley’s Takes – College Football Bowl and Playoff Best Bets:

Happy holidays to you and yours from the Tuley’s Takes home office. In addition, have a happy bowl season, too. We finished the CFB regular season three weekends ago by going 2-1 ATS in our college football best bets and then went 2-1 ATS again in Championship Week. Army upset Tulane in a 35-14 rout as 4.5-point home underdogs in the American Athletic Conference title game, and Ohio blew out Miami (OH) 38-3 as 2-point dogs in the MAC championship (nothing makes us happier than when our “dog or pass” plays not only cover but win outright). Our loss was on UNLV +4.5 in a 21-7 loss to Boise State in the Mountain West title game.

But we can’t rest on our laurels, as the bowl season is a brand new ballgame, so to speak. We have a lot of stats on these teams, but obviously, a lot of the talk this time of year is about players leaving for the transfer portal, NIL deals, etc. We obviously take all this into account (which is why we haven’t posted all my bowl “takes” earlier and will be adding to this file as the games approach). 

 

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However, I’ve found over the years – since injuries, academic suspensions and coaching changes have been a huge part of bowl handicapping since the sport began – that unless a team is totally decimated by changes, the backups tend to step up and the “system” can still perform well. This often leads to us landing on underdogs who are being dismissed, and we get more points on these dogs. Again, it’s a case-by-case basis, but we’ll look for these opportunities throughout the bowl season.

Without further ado, let’s kick off our bowl Best Bets with Friday’s Gasparilla Bowl and include my CFB Playoff plays from the VSiN Bowl Betting Guide (with a few updates). Check back for more (hopefully) live dogs in the coming weeks.

Tulane Green Wave (+10.5) vs. Florida Gators 

Gasparilla Bowl

Friday, 3:30 p.m. ET

Yes, we know Tulane’s starting QB Darian Mensah entered the transfer portal last week. He is leaving for Duke and won’t be playing in this game. However, longtime readers of mine know I often love to take teams with backup quarterbacks as the oddsmakers and the public almost always overreact to this type of news, and we get way more points (this line was as high as Florida -14). The reasoning is that coaches can plug a QB into the “system” and the offense hardly misses a beat. 

It’s not infallible, of course, but we’ve had a lot of success with these situations over the years. Tulane’s offense averaged 37.2 points per game this season with a balanced attack of 215.8 passing yards per game and 205.4 rushing yards led by RB Makhi Hughes. If the head coach had also left, I wouldn’t be as confident, but Tulane signed Jon Sumrall to a contract extension. Besides, the players left behind tend to step up in support of the backup. (In this case, it’s Ty Thompson, who you might remember from playing at Oregon, so he’s far from a complete unknown.) Florida’s defense has also suffered some losses due to injury. Even though we got Tulane at higher numbers in our bowl pools, anything in double digits is a play.

College Football Best Bets: Tulane +10.5

Indiana (+7) vs. Notre Dame 

CFB Playoff First Round

Friday, 8 p.m. ET

We get Friday Night Lights for the opening game of the expanded CFB Playoff and an in-state rivalry to boot. Regular readers will remember I lost with Indiana versus Ohio State in their late regular-season matchup, even though many people were saying the Hoosiers should have sat starting QB Kurtis Rourke so as not to jeopardize their playoff chances in case they got blown out. I’m glad they did the right thing (and were not punished for it), but most people forget Indiana led 7-0 and then only trailed 14-7 at halftime before getting run over in the second half. But I think they proved they could play with top teams despite their relatively weak strength of schedule – and I still have the Buckeyes power-rated better than the Irish. 

Remember, Notre Dame lost to my alma mater, Northern Illinois (at home, by the way!), and I know the Huskies weren’t very good. I’ll take Rourke over Riley Leonard, plus I’m not sold on the Notre Dame defense that gave up 557 yards (360 passing and 197 rushing) and five TDs in a 49-35 shootout against USC. The only common opponent was Purdue, with Notre Dame routing the Boilermakers 66-7 and Indiana doing one score better at 66-0. 

I’m not saying Indiana should be favored based off of just those two results, but I can argue that this line should be under a touchdown, which makes the +8 a play (note: that was the line when the VSiN Bowl Betting Guide was published, but the Hoosiers are still a play at +7 as I truly believe the early money has been on the right side). I also have the Hoosiers advancing to the CFB Playoff quarterfinals in my bracket elsewhere in this VSiN Bowl Betting Guide, so give me +250 on the moneyline as well.

College Football Best Bets: Indiana +7

Clemson (+12) at Texas 

CFB Playoff First Round

Saturday, 4 p.m. ET

The one bet I regret not making in Championship Week was Clemson +2.5 versus SMU in the ACC title game. I didn’t include it in my “Tuley’s Takes” column at VSiN.com, as my main argument would have been the Tigers have more of a winning culture recently than SMU, and Dabo Swinney knows how to prepare his team for big games. I know that’s a square way of handicapping, so I couldn’t pull the trigger. But here we are in the CFB Playoff, and I don’t want to make the same mistake. 

This Clemson team isn’t as strong as we’re used to seeing, but Swinney got the Tigers here despite losses to Georgia, Louisville and South Carolina by virtue of the 34-31 win over SMU. Texas has stayed in the Top 5 all season despite losing twice to Georgia. The Longhorns played the Bulldogs closer, but Clemson has the excuse of its loss being in the season-opener. If this line was closer to a touchdown (which is where I think it should be if being totally objective), I would probably pass, but I can’t resist getting Clemson plus double digits. The only double-digit wins by Texas overranked teams were against Michigan and Oklahoma, and we all know how overrated those teams ended up being.

College Football Best Bets: Clemson +12

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