Saturday was another action-packed day in the Tuley’s Takes home office as we had a 9-race Breeders’ Cup added to wall-to-wall college football, Game 6 of the World Series and all the other sports going on.
After nailing the BC Juvenile on Friday by picking Forte ($12.04 Win ticket at 5-1), Saturday didn’t go as well for yours truly. It was a lot of work handicapping and writing this week for very little payoff, but we’ll get on the proverbial horse again on the next big racing day. The silver lining is we went 2-1 ATS in our college football Best Bets with Baylor (+3.5 at Oklahoma) and Georgia State (+2 at Southern Miss) both pulling outright upsets, with Syracuse (+4 at Pittsburgh being the loss). We passed on Game 6 of the World Series as we decided to just let our series bet on the Phillies ride, but the Astros clinched their second world championship with a 4-1 victory. At least we didn’t add to our losses. Hopefully football continues to pay the bills, so let’s recap the rest of Saturday’s major betting results and then make our Best Bets for an NFL Sunday. As has become our custom around here, we’ll then rerun our “takes” column from Wednesday in which we go over the entire NFL Week 9 card as we try to follow up on the Thursday Night Football win on the Texans.Saturday’s Recaps
CFB: No. 3 Georgia beat No. 1 Tennessee 27-13, but it wasn't an upset as Georgia closed (and covered) as a 9.5-point home favorite (game stayed well Under the betting total of 65.5 points). No. 10 LSU (13-point home dog, +400 on money line) upset No. 6 Alabama 32-31 on 2-point conversion in OT. Notre Dame (4-point home dog) upset No. 4 Clemson 35-14. No. 5 Michigan (26-point road fave) trailed Rutgers 17-14 at halftime but pulled away to win & cover 52-17
More CFB: Earlier Saturday, other highly ranked teams struggled as No. 2 Ohio State (38-point road fave) never came close to covering in 21-7 win at Northwestern and No. 7 TCU (9-point home fave) trailed Texas Tech 17-13 after 3 quarters but rallied to win and cover 34-24.
MLB: Astros (-145 home faves) beat Phillies 4-1 Saturday night to win the WorldSeries 4 games to 2 (game stayed Under the betting total of 7 runs). In the series, faves/dogs split 3-3 (Astros were -104 road dogs when they no-hit Phillies in Game 4) and so did home/road teams. Unders went 4-1-1.
More MLB: Underdogs still finished ahead 20-19 in the playoffs with 1 game closing pick-'em. Home teams improved to finish 23-17 in playoffs. Unders improved to finish 21-17-2 overall in totals wagering.
NBA: Favorites went a perfect 8-0 SU on Saturday and 7-1 ATS as the only underdog to cover was the Magic as a 4.5-point home underdog in a 126-123 OT loss vs. the Kings. Home teams went 5-3 SU and 6-2 ATS. Over/Unders split 4-4.More NBA: Overall in the regular season, faves improved to 90-47 SU with 2 games closing pick-’em, but dogs still lead 67-63-7 ATS (51.5%). Home teams lead 84-55 SU but lead just 67-65-7 ATS (50.8%). Overs lead 72-64-3 (52.9%).
NHL: Dogs went 9-5 with biggest upsets by Coyotes (+245 in 3-2 win at Capitals) and Kraken (+170 in 3-2 win at Penguins). Road teams also went 9-5. Over/Unders split 7-7. On the season, faves lead 105-78 with 6 PKs. Home teams lead 100-87 with 2 neutral-site games. Overs lead 96-90-3.
NFL (ICYMI): Through Thursday night’s game in which the Eagles won as 14-point faves but didn’t cover and the game went Over the total, faves lead 73-48-1 SU on the season with 2 game closing pick-’em, but dogs improved to 68-50-4 ATS (57.6%). Home teams dipped to 66-54-1 SU with 3 neutral-site games, but road teams improved to 62-55-4 ATS (53%). Unders dipped to 70-52-2 (57.3%) and primetime Unders dipped to 15-10-1 (60%).
Sunday’s Takes on NFL
Here are my Best Bets as of early Sunday morning; full details in the column below:
Jets +11.5 vs. Bills Lions +3.5 vs. Packers Panthers +7.5 at Bengals Jaguars +8.5/Seahawks +8 (2-team, 6-point teaser) Seahawks +8/Rams +9 (2-team, 6-point teaser) Titans +12.5 at Chiefs Welcome to our weekly Wednesday column where we give our “takes” on the full NFL schedule. Regular readers should know the routine by now while we trust newbies will get up to speed with our “dog-or-pass” philosophy. We’re basically looking for the live dogs on each week’s card, but we know everyone isn’t as dogmatic as we are. We also have a lot of readers that play more chalk than we do, but they still check our “takes” each week because they feel that if I’m not able to make a case for an underdog, they see it as tacit approval to lay the points. To each his own. We’re just trying to help in any way we can! Last weekend, we had a rollercoaster ride as we won our Best Bet on the Packers +11.5 (early in the week for our regular readers) and +11 in their 27-17 loss at the Bills on Sunday Night Football, but went 2-3 ATS overall with our top plays. But the good news is we still had a winning weekend as we hit nearly all of our teaser plays, including Buccaneers +7.5/Over 40 on Thursday Night Football (given out in last Wednesday’s original “takes” column). We then flipped to Ravens +8/Over 40 on game day when there was a change of favorite and cashed both in the Ravens’ 27-22 victory. So it pays to check back for our daily updates. Without further ado, let’s go over the NFL Week 9 card. Even if I don’t have an official Best Bet on a game, I still give my “pool play” strategy for those who are in contests where you have to pick every game. Philadelphia Eagles (-14) at Houston TexansI’ll just come right out and say that I believe parity is alive and well in today’s NFL and I'll be on all three double-digit underdogs this weekend, including the Jets +13 vs. the Bills and Titans +12.5 at the Chiefs. We know the Eagles have the league’s best record at 7-0 SU as the last undefeated team and Lions’ 1-6 record is the only one worse than the Texans’ 1-5-1. However, we still don’t think any NFL team should be two-TD faves vs. any other on any given Sunday (or Thursday night), plus double-digit dogs – while not the automatic play they once were – are 5-4 ATS far this season with the Panthers’ 21-3 Week 7 home win vs. the Buccaneers being the lone outright upset. In fact, double-digit home dogs (like the Texans here) are 1-0 SU and ATS. For those curious, 9.5-point dogs (just on the cusp of double-digits) are 2-2 ATS with the Steelers’ 20-18 Week 6 home win vs. the Bucs being the next-biggest upset . The Texans are a respectable 3-3-1 ATS and also covered in their lone game as a double-digit dog as they only lost 16-9 at the Broncos back in Week 2 as 10-point dogs. The Texans have been 7-point pups three times and are 2-1 ATS in those games as they tied the Colts 20-20 in the season-opener and beat the Jaguars outright, 13-6, in Week 5, so they’re used to sticking around in games with big spreads.
Best Bet: Texans +14 (pool play: Texans in all my rare ATS contests using TNF, but Eagles in all my SU pools).
Indianapolis Colts at New England Patriots (-5.5)