CFB Championship Game opening lines
Georgia opened as 13.5-point favorites over TCU in the CFB Playoff National Championship after both won “instant classic” semifinals on New Year’s Eve.
And that’s how we brought 2022 to a close and entered 2023 in the Tuley’s Takes home office after a great day of sports betting action on Saturday. Our betting recaps are below as usual with TCU holding off Michigan 51-45 in the first semifinal game and Georgia rallying to beat Ohio State 42-41 in the second one that ended right at midnight ET. The Westgate SuperBook was the first I saw pop on the Don Best screen with Georgia -13.5 and the Over/Under at 64 points. They were followed in Nevada by William Hill/Caesars at Georgia -13 and Over/Under 63 and BetMGM at Georgia -13.5 and Over/Under 63.5 as well as DraftKings nationally with Georgia -13.5 and Over/Under 64.5. Over the next few hours, the line remained a mix of -13 and -13.5 with the Over/Under settling in at an average of around 62 Personally, I lost my Best Bet on New Year’s Eve with the Pelicans +6.5 vs. the Grizzlies (I also gave out Ohio State +6.5 vs. Georgia as a lean and wish I had used that as my top play instead!). That dropped my record to 39-24-2 ATS (61.9%) with our daily top play the last 65 days (nine-plus weeks) of 2022. I also almost suffered a bigger loss as I cut my right thumb deeply with a blender blade while putting dishes in the dishwasher after dinner at halftime of the Georgia-Ohio State game. That’s made it very hard to type this column (plus I crashed pretty hard after Tweeting out my nightly recaps), so let’s get to those as well as rerunning my Wednesday column with my updated “takes” on the rest of the NFL Week 17 schedule.