Outside of a loss on the road against Penn State, this Iowa team has been very good this season. Our edge in this game is with Iowa’s defense, which currently ranks top 10 in the nation. PFF has Iowa graded as the 2ndd best defense in the nation, behind only Alabama. The strength of Purdue is on the offensive side of the ball. Purdue has been known to pull off upsets in these spots over the last couple of years. However, they had Aiden O’Connell during those upsets that everyone remembers. O’Connell was 24 years old last season playing college. He took full advantage of the eligibility rules. O’Connell actually started for the Las Vegas Raiders last Sunday. Hudson Card is good, but he’s not Aiden. We expect the better defense to prevail on their home field. Purdue’s defense has given up 35+ points in 4 of their 5 games. Iowa’s offense should be able to muster up enough points to let their defense do the rest. Our wager is on the Iowa moneyline.

10 points is too many points for us to pass up. Syracuse was a popular bet last week against Clemson, and they did not perform well. Syracuse lost the game 31-14, but the majority of Clemson’s points came off of turnovers. Defensively, Syracuse should have a significant advantage. North Carolina QB Drake Maye has looked dominant so far this season. Maye is one of the best QB’s in the nation, but Syracuse has a talented QB of their own in senior Garrett Shrader. We will buy low on Syracuse and take the 10 points.

This is one of those spots where the market is speaking loudly. Alabama is a huge public bet today. College football fans see Alabama being offered up at less than a field goal, and they are betting Bama with no hesitation. Despite all of that money coming in on Alabama, and over 85% of the tickets coming in on them, the sportsbooks have moved this line toward Texas A&M. Many refer to this as a reverse line movement. However, without being sure of what’s happening behind the scenes at these sportsbooks, we will refrain from calling this a reverse line movement game. We interpret this line movement in one of two ways. The first would be that there is a lot of sharp and respected action coming in on Texas A&M. This would even out the public side on Bama. The second way we could interpret this is that the bookmakers feel comfortable with the liability on Bama. Our model suggests this game should be a true pick 'em. We will trust our numbers, and trust the strong signals in the market. Our wager is on Texas A&M +2.5.