College Football Rivalry Week Upset Picks: Orange Dead Redemption

• Three rivalry week picks, for your viewing pleasure
• Syracuse and LSU got embarassed on big stages, but are still very good
• Hopefully this time I understand Pitt

I tried to make a Red Dead Redemption pun in the title, I really did. Hopefully I’m better at picking upsets.

Week 12 Results

That gives us +0.7 for the week, and brings us up to a somewhat disappointing 0.4 units on the season.

College Football Week 13 Upset Picks

Syracuse at Boston College

It’s not often that you’ll see a ranked team as a touchdown underdog against an unranked team, but that’s the magic of getting absolutely worked by Notre Dame in Yankee Stadium.

Syracuse is a great team, and Dino Babers is doing everything he can to make this season go for the Orange.

Boston College is good, and they were certainly more competitive last week than Syracuse, but they don’t measure up to Syracuse statistically and are being given heavy favorite odds.

That’s creating some value for betting on an otherwise great team that got absolutely spanked last week by an elite team.

Pittsburgh (#24) at Miami

I don’t know if I’ve been right about Pitt once this year. It’s a struggle.

I’m pretty confident here, though, because while Miami grades out as the better/more prestigious team, the program is in something of a tailspin. The Hurricanes dismissed #1 receiver Jeff Thomas, and now it’s unclear who N’Kosi Perry will throw the ball to.

It also helps that Pitt’s defense is what Don Brown would call “EXTREMELY MULTIPLE” and apparently designed to upset Miami.

It also helps that Miami is a terminally snakebit program that exists only to find new and more interesting ways of disappointing its many fans.

LSU at Texas A&M

I mostly just think that LSU’s the better team.

Not by much, and I hate to take a road team in rivalry week, but when the sportsbook gives you favorable odds on the better team you have to take them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2wkxPmzZ80

This is loosely related to the Syracuse pick because the last time most people saw LSU they were getting torn apart by Alabama at home.

I do worry about injuries, of which LSU has many, but I think LSU’s roster is deep enough with elite talent to make those problems manageable.