Does defense really win championships?

Let's find out. I'm not gonna spend a ton of time capping these games, I'm simply going to bet a unit on whichever team has the better points allowed per game. Besides scheduling spots/motivation I usually look more at red zone, turnovers and sacks as I find that affects who covers the spread most but sometimes it's nice to just keep it simple. College teams are trickier to cap off stats due to playing diff levels of opponents and let's face it, these idiot kids can make bonehead plays that will scupper any efforts to cap off stats with the variance that causes.

However... For this first game (and one other tomorrow) I'm not taking the better ppg defense as I feel like Jax St is the best team in their conference and really like their offense and run game. Plus, I like this spot having revenge within the same week and the game was only a FG last time in WKU, while Jax St is at home for the title game. Tyler Huff their star QB is a GTD but the line tells me he is going to play. If he was 100% this would be more than a standard unit but it is a short week so have to be cautious. Jax St -4.5 is the play.

Taking UNLV +4.5 for the MWC as they have the better ppg defense, but only by .75 points. Jeanty is a beast for sure many bettors will want to back him, but I think the Rebels are underrated and they gave Boise a game last time and so taking the points is attractive to me. UNLV I thought the Sluka stuff was the reason they were winning early this season and they would peter out but they have proved it was no fluke by getting to the title game

Army +5

Reluctant to go against Tulane who I've made good money betting on the last few years but Army has been excellent at running the ball down teams throats and has covered in 7 games some with quite high spreads. Better defense by 3 points and doesn't turn it over. Tulane got their bubble burst getting smacked by Memphis and cannot make the CFP now, I'm not sure they will beat Army by more than a TD even tho they did beat Navy 35-0 Navy allows 8 points more pg than Army.

Again this is just an experiment to see if the old adage is still correct. I actually think the worst offenses tend to be the worst teams against the spread (especially in NFL) but let's see about these championship games.

This is definitely worth keeping an eye on...also since you mentioned it I'll look into bad turnover prone teams to go against best of luck

Great insight and question. If they can’t score they don’t win and turnover battle is huge. GL 

So far the better defense ppg team is 2-1. The two wins were blowouts. Both sides of the ball did their job tbh.

Worth noting the team with least giveaways coming in went 3-0 (Army and Boise had the least and 2nd least per game in the nation).

But we'll stick with ppg for now and see do we need to maybe tweak it and combine those stats next year.

Picks for today using this simple one stat 'system' and a short writeup on the 4 teams i like most and am putting an extra unit on

Iowa St +2.5 (now down to 1.5)

Cyclones are just very cohesive this year and as great as Skattibo is, I think Iowa St will scrape and claw their way to victory. There's a good article up on espn site about them

Miami-Ohio -2.5

They won the title game last year without Gabbert as he was hurt, they can repeat now with him. Salopek on the defense is a beast. They already handled Ohio by 10 not allowing a passing TD getting 2 picks the starter got benched after the 2nd one, Gabbert had 3 TDs no picks. They blocked 2 FGs in last year title game too and are 85% on FGs made this year. They have the things MAC teams often lack and are very gritty that's how they won it last year as a 10 point dog to Toledo and Dequann Finn.

Texas -2.5

ULL -5.5

SMU -2.5

Ive posted some stats on SMU in other threads, really like this game based as rhey appear to have the better offense and defense and QB.  They have played the softer schedule  tho and Dabo has won 8 straight ACC title games. But IMO he's due a loss and SMU has the full package you need to hand it to him

Penn St +3.5

And this is the one play I'm switching on and fading the angle. I'm on the Ducks. As hard as it is to stay undefeated, I think this is gonna be a day to celebrate Dilllon Gabriel. Guy has been a warrior and is the 3rd most productive QB ever, conf MVP, played on 3 teams and yet hasn't won or even played in a conference title game and only won one bowl. Oregon lost the title game to Washington last year with Nix facing Penix. This Penn St team is good but they're not as good as Washington was (who ironically had a former big10 QB). So last year the team that won it had a transfer stud (Oregon too with Nix) and Drew Allar doesn't have the same experience level. Penn St lost to Ohio St who Oregon beat (only by a point). The Nittany Lions have an excellent defense, been impossible to run on them lately but Oregon is so fast they can attack you in different ways if something isn't gonna working. Even tho they're in the CFP regardless, they will want this conf title after losing the last pac12 one ever they can win the first big10 one in this expanded era. I often like teams to get one 'level' above their success last year and Oregon looks well on their way to doing that.

BOL

Just to add, interestingly the teams with least giveaways today are mostly the teams that aren't on the better defense list. With some games the difference is miniscule like Penn St and Oregon it 0.8 vs 0.9 per game but with some it's more pronounced as Clemson has 0.7 per game 7th least and SMU has 1.6 per game 89th.

ULL has the 3rd least in the nation and considering how the 1st and 2nd least teams did yesterday, combined with having the better offense and defense (2nd best in conference in both), I like their QB better and I also think the fact they got back to the title game just a couple years after Napier who won back to back titles left, they certainly look to be the best team in the conference. I actually had UL Monroe in ULLs last game thinking it was a good spot catching 10.5 with ULL already in the title game regardless and ULM needing a win for a bowl game. And it looked like I was right they were winning the whole first half, with the spread I was up 3 TDs.. But ULL finished very strong and ended up winning by 2 TDs and the promising looking wager went down in flames.

That impressed me. Not even needing to win they could have quit when they fell behind to a team playing with max motivation.

So I'm going to make ULL a 3 unit play, largest of the day based on their ability to take care of the ball and what I saw last week.

Dang it, said I wasn't gonna spend a lot of time capping these games and just keep it to one unit each. Anyway that's me signing off now. BOL all on conf championship Saturday.