#146 ASA TOP PLAY ON Georgia Southern -6.5 over Coastal Carolina, Saturday at 7 PM ET - Georgia Southern has been very impressive this year under HC Clay Helton (former USC head coach) with a 3-1 record. Their only loss on the season was @ Wisconsin and GSU actually outplayed the Badgers in that one (more first downs & total yardage) but had 6 turnovers (0 for Wisconsin) in that setback. They bounced back nicely after that loss trouncing Ball State on the road 40-3 last Saturday. The Eagles offense has been tough to stop ranking 18th nationally in YPG and 7th in yards passing. Tulsa transfer QB Brin has completed 73% of his passes this year for 1,300 yards in just 4 games. If he can avoid the turnover, the GSU team will be very tough to beat. Brin does have 7 interceptions on the season, but again 5 came in one game vs Wisconsin. The defense has improved dramatically over last season allowing 334 YPG so far this season after allowing over 500 YPG a year ago. Coastal has taken a step back as we expected. They had a turnover on the coaching staff with their head coach moving onto Liberty. The Chanticleers are 2-2 on the season coming off a 30-17 home loss vs Georgia State. Their only 2 wins have come vs FCS Duquesne and Jacksonville State. This will be their first road game in almost a month and GSU has been waiting for this one. The Eagles went to Coastal last year and almost pulled the upset losing 34-30. GSU led by 10 in the 4th quarter in that game but allowed CC to score TD’s on each of their final 3 possessions. If we subtract games vs FCS teams this year, GSU still has a +0.6 YPP differential while Coastal is -0.8 YPP. The Eagles could have easily won on the road last year vs Coastal and we have upgraded GSU this year while the Chanticleers have clearly taken a step back. We’ll side with Georgia Southern at home.

#137/138 ASA PLAY ON Over 59.5 Points – South Carolina vs Tennessee, Saturday at 7:30 PM ET - FAST! That’s what this game is going to be like with more than the normal number of possessions for both teams. Tennessee is the 2nd fastest paced team in college football with a play run every 19.8 seconds. South Carolina prefers to play fast also with the 19th fastest paced offense. The Vols run 73 plays per game, SC runs 70.3 which are both more than average in college football. Last year when these two teams met, they produced 101 total points and over 1,100 total yards of offense. The Gamecocks offense with QB Rattler can move the chains as evidenced by their 8th ranked passing offense averaging 340PYPG. He is completing 73.4% of his pass attempts at a 9.8 yards/attempt clip and owns the 15th best QB rating in college football. Tennessee has impressive pass defense statistics, but they haven’t faced a team that ranks higher than 50th in passing yards per game. The Vols are going to put up points in this game against a suspect Gamecocks defense. SoutH Carolina just gave up 30-points to Mississippi State and over 500-total yards of offense to the Bulldogs. The week before they gave up just 24-points to Georgia which was misleading considering the Dawgs had 470-total yards of offense. Tennessee is 24th in YPG, 31st in YPP at 6.6 and average 35PPG. The Vols tend to score more at home as they average 45PPG at home since 2021 and last season they scored 53.7PPG at home. This game has a shootout written all over it.

#191/192 ASA PLAY ON 8* Under 45.5 Points – Georgia vs Auburn, Saturday at 3:30 PM ET - Neither offense is peaking right now in our opinion. Auburn’s offense has been brutal in their 2 games vs Power 5 teams this season. Versus Cal they scored only 14 points and vs Texas A&M it was just 10 points. Facing those 2 teams, the Tigers had a total of 430 yards (in both games combined) on just 3.5 YPP. The Auburn QB Thorne, transfer from Michigan State who wasn’t good with the Spartans, has thrown for 138 total yards in those 2 games. That won’t get it done here vs the best defense he’s played and a team that’s held Auburn to 14 points or less in each of the last 6 meetings. UGA is still breaking in a new QB Carson Beck and a different system under new OC Bobo. They’ve put up some big points but they’ve faced mainly poor defenses including UAB (130th in total defense), South Carolina (122nd) and Ball State (102nd in total defense). The only SEC defense they’ve faced, and not a great one at that, was South Carolina who held the Bulldogs to 24 points. UGA only had 3 points at halftime in that game and Auburn will easily be the best stop unit they’ve faced (32nd in total defense). It’s also Georgia’s first road game which will make it tough for the offense to play at a peak level. As good as the Bulldogs offense has been over the last 4 or 5 seasons, they’ve averaged just 24 PPG their last 5 trips to Auburn. The last 10 times these SEC rivals have met, they totaled 44 points or fewer 8 times. We see another low scoring game here and we grab the Under.

#154 ASA PLAY ON 8* Central Michigan -9.5 over Eastern Michigan, Saturday at 1:30 PM ET - We faded EMU last week @ Jacksonville State (-6.5) and picked up an easy 21-0 win. As we mentioned last week, Eastern Michigan had a record of 2-1 (now 2-2) but they were very lucky to have won any games this season. Their wins came vs Howard (average FCS team) and UMass who we have power rated as one of the 5 worst teams in the nation. Despite the wins, EMU was actually outgained in the Howard game by 120 yards and needed not one but two kickoff return TD’s to win by 10. In their game last week vs a bad UMass team, EMU was again outgained by 93 yards, they were +3 in turnovers, and still need a 50 yard passing TD with just over 1:00 minute remaining in the game to win 19-17. In their loss the Eagles were blasted by Minnesota, allowed almost 300 yards rushing and they were outgained 413 to 152! In last week’s loss the Eagles only had 152 yards of total offense and gave up nearly 400 to JSU. The Eagles were outrushed 295 to 57 in the loss. Now on the road again for the 2nd straight week we think there’s a good chance they get blasted again. CMU is also 2-2 but they’ve played a tough schedule with losses @ Notre Dame and @ Michigan State (prior to MSU coach firing) and last week the Chippewas looked very good upsetting South Alabama on the road as a double digit underdog. That was just 1 week after South Alabama topped Oklahoma State on the road 33-7! CMU put up 34 points last week vs a solid South Alabama defense and they are facing an Eastern Michigan offense that can’t score (just 23 total points in 3 games vs FBS opponents). EMU ranks 131st (out of 133) in the nation in total offense (240 YPG) and on the other side of the ball their rush defense ranks 130th allowing 230 YPG on the ground. CMU won 3 straight vs the Eagles from 2019 – 2021 by an average margin of +18 PPG before losing @ EMU as a 1.5 point favorite last year. Central dual threat QB Emanuel will be EMU’s poor defense fits here and we like the Chippewas to get their revenge. Double digit win here.

#126 ASA PLAY ON 8* Syracuse +7 over Clemson, Saturday at 12 PM ET - We were on Clemson last week in what we thought was a great spot getting them in a rare home underdog role. The Tigers outplayed FSU in the stat sheet and never trailed in regulation. They lost by 7 in OT and we expect them to be flat here after blowing that game and ending their shot at the College Playoff. Now they are in a really rough spot going to a venue they’ve struggled in versus an opponent who sees this as one of their biggest games of the season. The Orange have covered 3 of the last 4 at home vs Clemson and their most recent game in the Carrier Dome (now JMA Wireless Dome but we can’t bring ourselves to call it that) in 2021, Syracuse outgained the Tigers but lost 17-14. They missed a FG with under 1:00 minute remaining which would have tied the game. Last year Cuse traveled to Clemson and gave them all they could handle losing 27-21 in one of the toughest stadiums to play in CFB. Syracuse is 4-0 on the season (3-0-1 ATS) but started a bit slow last week vs Army (looking ahead to this game?) before rolling to an easy win and holding the Cadets potent rushing attack to just 2.7 YPC. This Orange defense ranked in the top 25 nationally last year in YPP allowed and they are in the top 20 this year in that stat. Offensively they have a veteran QB Schraeder who is very dangerous throwing for almost 1,000 yards already this season while rushing for over 300 on nearly 7.0 YPC. They are averaging 44 PPG on the season through 4 games. The Clemson offense has some cluster injuries at the WR position and they’ve had problems with the Syracuse defense scoring only 44 points the last 2 meetings combined. This is a HUGE home game for Syracuse and they are catching Clemson in a perfect spot for an upset. We’ll take the points.

#211 ASA PLAY ON Kansas +16.5 over Texas, Saturday at 3:30 PM ET - Too many points here in our opinion. We have a big dog that can score points so they have a great chance of keeping up with Texas and the backdoor could be open late and this high number. Tough spot for Texas coming off a big win vs in state rival Baylor and a huge game on deck vs Oklahoma. A look ahead is possible as the Horns have been prone to do covering just 2 of their last 11 games the week prior to facing the Sooners. The Jayhawks topped Texas here on Austin 2 years ago as a 31 point dog in Lance Leipold’s first year as head coach. KU had only 2 wins that season and 1 was here so they should have some confidence rolling into this one. Not a revenge game for Texas however as they picked up a big win @ Kansas last season. We love the Kansas balance on offense (rush and pass for over 200 YPG) and their OC Kotelnicki is one of the top play callers in CFB. Defensively this team is improved as well allowing less than 300 YPG so far this season after giving up almost 500 YPG last season. Improvements on both sides of the ball was expected as this team has tremendous continuity with 18 starters back along with their head coach and both coordinators. KU has topped 30 points in every game this season and we think it will be tough for Texas to pull away here. Take the points.