Today's Free Picks for
Posted at 10:00 AM EST. Odds are subject to change.
Acrisure Bounce House, Orlando, FL
Stream:FOX
UCF +7 -110 over BYU
3:30 PM EST. This one checks every box we have. BYU is undefeated, and BYU is 6-0 against the spread, which means the great equalizer itself — the point spread — has not caught up with the Cougars yet. A week ago this team was ranked eighth in the country and sitting as a 10½-point home underdog against No. 2 Notre Dame. The Cougars did not just win that game outright, 28-24, they did a number on the Irish. Now, seven days later, that same team goes from a 10½-point underdog in its own building to a 6½-point favorite on the road, clear across the country in Orlando. That is a 17-point swing in the span of one week, and it is built entirely on one Saturday night. Nothing about BYU changed in seven days except the price, and the price changed by two and a half touchdowns.
Here is the part the price never accounts for: these are kids. BYU woke up this week ranked No. 2 in the country, the program's highest ranking since the 1984 national championship team, and every one of those players spent the week being told how great he is. Kings on campus, heads swelling, that big No. 2 beside their name everywhere they look. Then comes the hangover — a cross-country trip from Provo to central Florida, into a UCF homecoming crowd, against a Knights team that sat home on its bye week and watched the whole celebration unfold with two weeks to prepare for exactly this game. Everybody who hunts situational spots has had this one circled since the schedule came out, and win or lose against Notre Dame, this was always the trap. The letdown spot after the biggest win in school history is not some theory. It is the single most reliable spot on the college football calendar.
The 6-0 against the spread deserves its own paragraph, because people have it exactly backwards. Covering the spread is supposed to be a 50-50 proposition, and a team cannot keep doing it forever for one simple reason: the oddsmakers won't let it. Every cover forces the next number up, and the number keeps climbing until the price finally catches the team. That is what is happening here. The power-ratings crowd will tell you BYU should be laying double digits in this game, and they'll point to last year, when UCF closed as a 17½-point underdog in Provo, jumped out 14-0, and still lost 41-21. Let them. That is last year's team at last year's price. If you bet BYU this week, you might cash your ticket — but man, are you ever late to that party. You are paying for six straight covers and a win over Notre Dame, all taxed into one inflated road number.
The football questions sit on our side of the ticket, and we're not hiding from them. UCF's quarterback picture is murky — Alonza Barnett hasn't played since Week 2 with a hamstring injury and remains a question mark even off the bye, so Keyone Jenkins starts again — and Bear Bachmeier is a genuine problem, a dual-threat who threw for 224 yards and ran for two scores against the Irish. BYU has also won and covered each of the last three meetings. None of that is the bet. The bet is a celebrated, traveled, still-celebrating favorite laying a number inflated by the greatest six weeks in school history, against a rested home team that doesn't have to win the game,
Our Pick
UCF +7 -110 (Risking 2.2 units - To Win: 2.00)
