College Football Wrap up and Preview
2023 Season in Review and five bets for the 2023 College Football Playoff semifinal weekend.
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Michigan and Texas A&M are opposites. Texas A&M has, under Jimbo Fischer the last few years, run an amazing recruiting operation. The Aggies brought in some of the most talented high-school kids and some of the most talented transfers. In recruiting, A&M was first in 2022, eighth in 2021, and 6th in 2020. And yet they’ve had trouble playing consistently. The Aggies have been .500 or worse in conference the last three years, despite all those top players.
And now they’re on to a new head coach.
Michigan has a different advantage. Michigan’s highest recruiting rank is 9. Mostly they fall somewhere between 10 and 20. But what they lack for in athletes, they make up for with the best coach in football history.
Jim Harbaugh was an NFL pro bowl quarterback, who spent most of his career with the Chicago Bears: a team that was defense first then and remains so now, long after the league has passed by that way of playing. After his NFL career, he was briefly a position coach with the Raiders, before moving into the college game to take a head coaching job.
His first stop was at the University of San Diego. USD is not even the largest school in its own city. That honor belongs to the San Diego State University Aztecs: the pride of the Mountain West. No matter. Harbaugh won the Pioneer league twice, coaching in front of 6,000 fans under the bright lights in San Diego.
He would quickly move on to Stanford. A bigger named school. There, he would win the NCAA’s coach of the year award, the Woody Hayes trophy, for an 11-1 season that saw Andrew Luck emerge as a star.
The next season he would win the same award in the NFL ranks: the start of a four year run with the San Francisco 49ers. The Niners would finish with double digit wins in each year except for Harbaugh’s last—when internal politics forced a split.
And now Harbaugh is back at Michigan, where he has built a juggernaut. The 60-year old coach has been at his alma matter for 9 years now. And the last three have been exactly how Michigan imagines them: dominant wins over Ohio State, and forays into the College Football Playoff.
Harbaugh has won everywhere he’s been. But he’s never won the big game anywhere.
NCAA Football Year in Review
This year, our NCAA preview focused on our Simple Talent Tiers: an estimate of how many good players a team had, based on their recruiting and transfer portal history. This provided a pretty good estimate—though not a perfect one.
Only two of the teams in Vegas’ top five finished the season ranked in the top 5: Alabama and Michigan. From a betting perspective, however, the top 5 still includes Georgia and Ohio State—who we also had as elite teams based on their STT.
Overall, 50% of teams we rated by STT landed in the location we projected, and 50% missed: an average season.
STT is more closely aligned to the Vegas lines than the official college football rankings—but ultimately it’s the rankings that determine who gets into the playoffs.
Our biggest misses were Texas A&M and Clemson, who we projected as Top 10 teams. We cautioned against A&M, despite the talent, on the backs of Jimbo Fischer’s personal history of running programs into the ground.
With Clemson, we said the team would go as far as Cade Klubnik would take them. Unfortunately for the Tigers, that wasn’t very far. Klubnik had a mediocre season and Clemson finished with a mediocre record. Hopefully he’ll improve in the off season.
We were most right about Tennessee—a program we were bearish on. Ultimately, the Volunteers finished at the edge of the top 25, right about where their talent profile puts them. They were a unanimous borderline top-10 team heading into the season.
We also got Penn State right, being much more bullish on the Nittany Lions than the media. PSU benefited from a light schedule and lost handily in both their true contests against Ohio State and Michigan.
Florida State and the Primetime Buffalos
The two biggest stories of the college football season were Florida State being left out of the playoff at the end and Colorado winning a handful of games at the beginning.
We did not like the talent on Florida State’s team this year. They played in a weak ACC and even still needed narrow wins over middling teams (see the remarks about Clemson above.) It was a good call by the committee to put stronger teams in the playoff. If FSU had their star quarterback, it would have been hard to leave them out. But it would have been the right move either way.
The full on playoff cannot come soon enough. Though, no tournament can tell you who is the best: it can only tell you who won the tournament.
And Colorado, ultimately, settled in their rightful spot around 70th in the country. Our talent tier had projected them at #70 in the country, while Vegas has them at #78. At 4-8 on the season, there’s not much more to say about them.
The Buffalo should be one of the most improved teams next year, with good talent coming in and an easier conference. Colorado is moving to the Big 12 in 2024, which will effectively be an elite mid-major conference.
Without having run the numbers on the Simple Talent Tiers for 2024, I would expect that Colorado is bowl eligible next year.
NCAA Finals Preview
Lastly, we come to the games that matter. We’re releasing this early on Monday to get it out ahead of the Monday games. This year’s college football semifinal round includes two matchups:
Alabama vs. Michigan (-1.5)
Washington vs. Texas (-4.5)
The first, features a coaching matchup for the ages—with arguably football’s two best ever coaches going head to head.
Alabama does not get points often, so Michigan giving points in this spot is a sign of trust in the Wolverines. But Alabama is the more talented side—by far—based on our Simple Talent Tiers. And its possible the market is over-representing Michigan’s undefeated status.
Alabama is 2-1 straight up when underdogs in the CFP era. This is the first time they’ve been an underdog to a team other than Georgia.
Even more so, though, I like the over here. Both teams—Alabama and Michigan—have good defenses, but their offenses can play as well. Michigan put up 30 and 24 on Ohio State and Penn State, and Alabama put up 27 and 24 against Georgia and Texas. If we assume the game is like that, we could easily see a game in the 51-48 point range. And right now the O/U is at 44.5. That’s suggestive of a 24-21 game.
You also get upside on the possibility of overtime. Which could bring even a 21-21 game well past the over.
Moving on to Texas (-4.5) vs. Washington, I don’t particularly like any of the standard plays. Texas is the more talented team. Washington has great skill position players and a quarterback who is making the most of his time in college. But Texas has more depth.
Ultimately, this may be a question of who stops who first: Texas’ defense stopping Washington or Texas’ offense stopping itself.
There are two ways that I can see playing this game:
Texas (-6.5) and Washington (-6.5)
Washington and Over 62.5 (+316)
Washington and Texas can both put up points. And it’s possible that one of these teams just doesn’t come to play. Take each team by a touchdown and spread the money out so that you win so long as the game isn’t close. Giving a touchdown is not so much that you’re ever out of the game either. Any score can help put you into the money.
The other way I see value here is by playing the Washington moneyline and the over. Washington has one of the best offenses, but their defense is lacking. And Texas QB Quinn Ewers, at his best, is very good. Even in games he makes fatal mistakes—like against rival Oklahoma—Texas puts up 30.
If Washington is to win, they will need to score a lot of points. 34-30 was the score of Texas’ lone loss of the season, and Washington’s win in the conference final against Oregon was 34-31. Both good for the over.
Playing Washington on the moneyline allows you to win both bets, if you want the riskier play and the more conservative play.
Bet recap
Alabama (+1.5, -105)
Alabama v. Michigan Over 44.5 (-112)
Texas (-6.5, +112)
Washington (-6.5, +280)
Washington and Over (+316)
[The content in this section was added on Jan 2, 2024]
Betting Results
Total wagers recommended: 4 units
Losses: 2 units (Alabama +1.5; Texas -6.5 and Washington -6.5)
Wins: 4.05 units (Over 44.5; Washington and the Over)
Net: +2.05 units (51% return)