NCAA Football Week 9 Odds Overview & Top Picks

NCAA Football Week 9 Odds Overview & Top Picks

Written by on October 23, 2018

No question the most surprising regular of Week 8 around the nation in college football was No. 2 Ohio State getting bombed at unranked Purdue. It seems the Buckeyes do this every year, though: Play one crap game and lose but then do enough to reach the College Football Playoff. OSU has no wiggle room now. Here’s a look at two interesting matchups in Week 9 with the latest NCAAF odds.  

NCAA Football Week 9 Odds Overview & Top Picks

 

No. 2 Clemson at Florida State (+15.5)

  • When: Saturday, noon ET (ABC)
  Either Clemson or Florida State has represented the ACC Atlantic Division in the conference title game since 2009. FSU won’t be doing that this year, but Clemson can all but clinch the division again with a win Saturday in Tallahassee.   That’s because Clemson knocked off previously unbeaten NC State with ease this past week, 41-7. The 34-point victory was tied for the second-largest margin of victory against an AP Top 25 team in school history. Clemson was powered by Travis Etienne, who rushed for three touchdowns for the third straight game, a school first. Trevor Lawrence was 26-for-39 for 308 yards and one touchdown, and his favorite target was Tee Higgins, who amassed 119 yards and that touchdown on eight receptions. Etienne now has 14 total touchdowns this season, tied with Cliff Austin (1982) and Wayne Gallman (2015) for 10th-most in a season in school history.   Clemson reached 450 yards of offense (481) in a fifth straight game for the first time since a 12-game streak spanning the final 11 games of 2015 and the opener in 2016. Clemson has now opened a season 7-0 for the seventh time in program history and the third time in the last four years (1948, 1981, 2000, 2011, 2015, 2016 and 2018). Clemson earned conference titles in five of the previous six seasons in which it opened 7-0.   FSU is starting to play better and beat Wake Forest 38-17 on Saturday. Florida State sacked Wake Forest five times. The Noles have at least four sacks in four consecutive games for the first time since 2011. Florida State registered a season-high 485 yards with 132 rushing and season-high 353 through the air. The 38 points are also a season-high. The Seminoles held the opposition to 30 points or fewer for the 11th consecutive game. The Noles came into the game with the fourth-longest active streak among FBS teams, trailing Fresno State and LSU (17) and Clemson (11).   Clemson is 3-0 SU in its last three games vs Florida State with an average winning margin of 10 points. But the Tigers are 2-9 SU in their 11 games on the road vs Florida State. Only once has FSU dropped two consecutive games to Clemson in Tallahassee, and those contests were separated by more than a decade (1976 and 1989).  

Latest NCAA Football Week 8 Betting Trends

  • Clemson is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games
  • Clemson is 6-3 ATS in its last 9 games on the road
  • The total has gone OVER in 4 of Clemson’s last 5 games on the road
  • Florida State is 8-3 SU in its last 11 games
  • Florida State is 5-2 ATS in its last 7 games at home
  • The total has gone OVER in 4 of Florida State’s last 6 games
 

No. 9 Florida vs. No. 7 Georgia (-7)

  • When: Saturday 3:30 PM ET (CBS)
  It’s the game of the year in the SEC East, with UF, Georgia and Kentucky all tied atop the division at 4-1 – Florida already lost to the Wildcats, while Georgia goes to Kentucky next week and will be a big favorite. So in reality, the winner of this game probably faces Alabama in the SEC title game. This annual rivalry in Jacksonville is still referred to by many as the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party. It’s the first time since 2008 that both teams were ranked in the top-9 for this game, and you’ve got to go all the way back to 1983 before that to find another top-9 matchup.   Both teams come off a bye week. The No. 7-ranked Bulldogs weren’t able to rise to the challenge on offense or defense at No. 4 LSU in their last outing in a lopsided loss. Georgia allowed a season-high 475 yards to the Tigers including 275 yards on the ground and three rushing touchdowns — this, after entering the game No. 1 in the SEC in total defense.   Georgia should be one of your NCAA Football Week 9 Betting picks.   Florida has momentum after rallying from a 21-3 road deficit at Vanderbilt to score a 37-27 win. The Gators are the only team in the current AP Top 25 that finished the 2017 season at or below .500. Of the 21 first-year FBS head coaches, Dan Mullen is the only one to defeat a top-five team. Mullen and Cristobal are the only ones with two top-25 wins.   This is ESPN GameDay’s fourth trip to the Florida-Georgia matchup, with 2005 being the most recent year. The others were 1999 and 2002. All three were UF wins. Florida will make its 38th appearance on GameDay — the third-highest total in the nation. It is 24-13 in those games, with the last coming at Tennessee in 2016.   Georgia leads the all-time series with Florida with a 50-43-2 record. The Bulldogs downed UF 42-7 a season ago, which was former head coach Jim McElwain’s final game with the Gators as he was fired the following day.  

Latest NCAA Football Week 8 Betting Trends

  • Florida is 5-0 ATS in its last 5 games
  • Florida is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games
  • The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Florida’s last 7 games when playing Georgia
  • Georgia is 20-3 SU in its last 23 games
  • Georgia is 1-3-1 ATS in its last 5 games when playing Florida
 

Expert NCAA Foottball Week 9 Prediction

Take UGA at an alternate line of -6.5 as it wins by a TD in a lower-scoring game.