College Football Picks

Wide receiver Omari Evans is probably Penn State’s best deep threat, averaging 19.8 yards per reception this season. The problem is that Evans has really been all or nothing. He has just 13 receptions over his last 12 games. He has more than two catches just once over that stretch and was held catchless four times. Now he'll face the best pass defense in the country, and Notre Dame is known for not giving up explosive plays. He's stayed below this number in nine of his last 12 games.

Notre Dame  QB Riley Leonard sure seems happy that Jordan Faison is back at 100%. Faison has hauled in 11 catches for 135 yards and two scores over two playoff games. He went for seven grabs and 89 yards against the Hoosiers, and followed that up with four and 46 with two TDs against the Bulldogs. Despite becoming Leonard’s favorite target, Faison still has a reasonable receiving yards prop sitting at 42.5 for this semifinal matchup against Penn State. Not only has he gone Over that number in both of Notre Dame’s playoff games, but in three of his last four and four of his last seven overall.

Penn State QB Drew Allar loves to dump the ball of to RB Nic Singleton when facing pressure. Against USC, where Penn State needed a big comeback, Singelton caught four balls for 39 yards. Next week at Wisconsin, which was a one-point game midway through the fourth quarter, he had three for 37. The biggest game of the year was against Ohio State, and he went for six grabs and 54 yards. And in the Big Ten Championship, he had four and 43. The Fighting Irish can create more pressure than most and I expect Allar to keep using Singleton as a safety valve in this one.

Penn State had five one-score games this season. Only running back Nicholas Singleton scored in four of them, followed by quarterback Drew Allar with touchdowns in three of those games. The difference in value between the two of them makes the choice clear. Singleton is best available at +115 at FanDuel, while Allar’s +320 odds are exceptionally enticing. The logic of such a tally is simple. Penn State is facing one of the best defensive lines in the country. If the Nits do near the goal line, they will undoubtedly want an extra blocker to counter the Notre Dame front seven, and keeping the ball in Allar’s hands will allow that extra blocker.

With Jeremiyah Love hampered, at best, look for Leonard to again regularly move the chains, as he did with 91 yards on 13 carries vs. Georgia. Against a rush defense that is prone to giving up a decent rushing success rate, Leonard moving the chains should get ND into scoring range. ND will not need to be at the goal line for Leonard to be a scoring threat, simply inside the 30 or 20. He had a meandering 32-yarder vs. Georgia, and once inside the 15, ND is as likely to call a Leonard draw play as anything else. He has rushed for 15 TDs, scoring at least once in 10 of his last 13 games. Two of the exceptions were blowouts, the third coming in New Orleans when ND showed a conservative game plan.

Notre Dame gave up only one TFL against Georgia. QB Riley Leonard ran 13 times for 91 yards. These plays were not designed to blow up the scoreboard, but to keep ND from the mistakes Georgia would need to win. Yet, the Irish were downgraded by advanced metrics for that supposed offensive failure. That creates value for us. On the other side of the ball, Penn State’s insistence on passing the ball will either speed up the game and/or eventually find success. Both those scenarios will help push this game Over its modest total.

The defenses will be the two best units on the field. One causes more chaos than the other. The Irish are +18 in turnover margin this season in 14 games; the Nits are +10 in 15 games. This is a rather even matchup. In a game this tight, look to the margins for the edge, and turnovers are the clearest piece of the margins. Irish QB Riley Leonard has not put the ball in jeopardy while under pressure in the Playoff, his turnover-worthy play rate at 1.6% across this season. Penn State QB Drew Allar averages an interception every 21 pass attempts in one-score games. Notre Dame’s net field position ranks No. 3 in the country, another example of excelling on the margins.

Texas’s OL will look more like itself, RT Cameron Williams returning to the lineup after suffering an injury in the Playoff first round. But Williams’s injury is not why the Longhorns’ ground game has stalled of late, because that problem goes back far before his injury. Wisner has fallen short of this prop in 5 of the last 9 games, including 2 of the last 3. Ohio State’s rush defense is better than either of Georgia’s or Arizona State’s. The Buckeyes rank No. 3 in EPA per rush against and No. 12 in defensive success rate against the rush, per cfb-graphs at collegefootballinsiders.com.

If Jeremiah Smith is tracked down near the goal line or if the Buckeyes piece together a sustainable drive, there will be sudden value on Will Howard crossing the goal line. He has done so in seven of 14 games this season, and that does not count fumbling inches away from the end zone at Penn State. For predictive concerns, note Howard got that play call to the pylon in a one-score game. He also scored at Oregon in their regular-season matchup. Of Ohio State’s four one-score games, two of them featured Howard either scoring or having as close a chance at scoring as imaginable.

Smith cashed this prop for the second Playoff game in a row, not even needing the second half against Oregon. The Ducks’ pass defense ranks No. 4 in the country in terms of EPA per dropback against, just ahead of the Vols’ at No. 5. Take a guess who is No. 3. Yep, the Longhorns. It might sound absurd to bet on this for a third Playoff game in a row, against an even better defense. But the fact of the matter is, no one can stop Jeremiah Smith right now. Ohio State has cut loose. QB Will Howard has gone 41-of-55 (74.5%) in the two Playoff games, averaging 11.45 yards per pass attempt, leaps and bounds ahead of his regular-season average of 9.11 yards per pass attempt.

This line isn't taking the full season into account. These teams rank first and second in the country when it comes to EPA margin this season. And if there's a team that can match the talent level of Ohio State, it’s Texas. If you like Ohio State, act now because I think that recency bias will kick in when the public bettors start wagering on this game, and I could see this spread closing at a full touchdown or more. I’m on Texas because I think this number has moved too far. I recommend waiting to see if it gets bigger as kickoff gets closer, but for these purposes give me the points with the underdog.

Yes, the Buckeyes look great. Dominating Tennessee and Oregon is no joke and cannot be taken lightly. But this team threw up all over itself at home against Michigan in a game where the Buckeyes were 20-point favorites. The Wolverines controlled the clock with the run game and limited explosive plays, areas where the Longhorns excel. Texas has an underrated defense that ranks 20th in success rate and third in opponent EPA per play. While Ohio State has the likes of Jeremiah Smith and Emeka Egbuka to throw to on the outside, I wouldn’t get too pass-happy against this Longhorns defense.