And just like that – outside of the Army-Navy game next week – the college football regular season is over. We now turn our focus to conference championship week, bowl season, and eventually the College Football Playoff – where there is still much to be decided.
Lines and odds for every upcoming conference championship game are posted and already taking action, so it’s time to evaluate the market and cap it all off with a best bet after finishing the regular season 8-5 on these early-week picks. Let’s dig into the early lines and odds for the upcoming championship weekend courtesy of bet365, and don’t forget to check Pickswise throughout the week for NCAAF predictions on all of the championship matchups.
CFB Conference Championship Lines and Odds
- C-USA: Kennesaw State -1.5 (-110) vs. Jacksonville State, 59.5 – Friday, December 5
- Sun Belt: Troy vs. James Madison -22.5 (-110), 47 – Friday, December 5
- American: North Texas -2.5 (-110) vs. Tulane, 66.5 – Friday, December 5
- Mountain West: UNLV vs. Boise State -3.5 (-110), 58.5 – Friday, December 5
- MAC: Miami (OH) vs. Western Michigan -2.5 (-110), 43.5 – Saturday, December 6
- Big 12: BYU vs. Texas Tech -13.5 (-110), 50 – Saturday, December 6
- SEC: Georgia -2.5 (-115) vs. Alabama, 47.5 – Saturday, December 6
- ACC: Duke vs. Virginia -3.5 (-110), 57.5 – Saturday, December 6
- Big Ten: Indiana vs. Ohio State -5.5 (-110), 48 – Saturday, December 6
CFB Conference Championship early best bet: North Texas Mean Green -2.5 over Tulane Green Wave (-110)
It’s not often that the Green Wave are home underdogs, but that’s the exact situation they find themselves in on Friday night in the American Athletic Conference Championship between North Texas and Tulane. These teams finished with the same 7-1 conference record, but they did not play each other during the regular season. Oddly enough, their strength of schedules are fairly similar according to Sagarin, yet oddsmakers favor UNT on the road here. Though it’s a scary proposition to bet against the Green Wave at Yulman Stadium, I would argue the Mean Green should be favored by more.
North Texas has had one of the best offenses in the country in recent weeks. In fact, since Week 10, the Mean Green are 1st nationally in PPA per play and points scored per quality drive. It doesn’t matter if they run or pass the ball, as the Mean Green are top-2 in PPA per rush and PPA per pass in that span. They also sit 2nd nationally in havoc allowed over the last 5 weeks, which means Tulane’s defense may struggle to produce momentum-shifting plays. UNT simply doesn’t have very many self-inflicted wounds, as shown by its top-5 rating in turnover margin and top-35 rating in penalties per game. For comparison, Tulane is outside the top-30 in turnover margin and 115th in penalties per game this year.
Neither one of these defenses is very inspiring. UNT and Tulane both struggle on passing downs, fail to provide much resistance on opposing quality drives, and haven’t been able to get off the field much on third downs. As such, both the Mean Green and Green Wave should score quite a bit of points in this game. However, when push comes to shove, I trust this UNT offense way more than Tulane’s.
Not only is UNT better than Tulane at turning its red-zone trips into touchdowns (2nd in red-zone TD rate vs. 101st), but UNT benefits from the better offensive line and superior quarterback play in this matchup. Per PFF, UNT is top-3 in the AAC in both pass and run blocking, while Tulane is 6th or worse in both metrics. Furthermore, UNT QB Drew Mestemaker leads the conference in completion percentage, yards, touchdowns, passing grade, and NFL passer rating, in addition to having double the amount of big-time throws and half the amount of turnover-worthy plays as Tulane QB Jake Retzlaff – who has 14 turnover-worthy plays alone since Week 5.
The Mean Green are 10-2 ATS this season, which includes a perfect 4-0 ATS as road favorites in conference this year – and they were laying 18 or more points in 3 of those games. Meanwhile, Tulane is just 6-6 ATS this season and 2-4 ATS in its last 6. Lastly, for what it’s worth, while I know the transitive property is flawed in college football, I wanted to note that UNT and Tulane had 5 common opponents this year. The Mean Green scored more points than the Green Wave against every single one of those opponents and had a bigger margin of victory in all but 1 (both beat Army by 7). Despite playing in a true road game, my power ratings suggest North Texas should be closer to a 5-point favorite, so I am happy to lay it with the Mean Green at the current price.
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