Posted on 10/17/2007 5:47:33 PM

NCAAF Betting: The Original T.O. is back!

By D.S. Williamson

The news came swiftly like one of the few remaining bald eagles trolling the Nebraska plains - - the original T.O., Tom Osborne, was back.

Of course, that shudder that you hear throughout the college football world wasn’t the cry of Oklahoma and Texas wondering how they would cope. Nope. That shudder is the cry of thousands of college football bettors wondering if they will ever make another dime betting on Nebraska to cover.

The truth about this team is that even though, no offense to the original 81, Tom Osborne is the greatest T.O. to ever live, he’s coming back to Nebraska to run the athletic department, not to coach.

That means that college football bettors get to live and die with Bill Callahan for at least the rest of this year. Here’s a trend for you: since Bill Callahan has taken over as coach of Nebraska, the Cornhuskers haven’t found a way to come back from a deficit entering the third quarter.

That means that Callahan doesn’t make the adjustments and that means that he isn’t suited to coach in Division-1A college football. Until Osborne replaces Callahan, expect Nebraska to keep losing.

Of course, Osborne wasn’t the only news. The USC Trojans took a huge hit over the weekend and they won their game. Why? Because their number one rival in the Pac-10, and the 2nd ranked team in the nation, the California Golden Bears lost. That means that USC gets to play one less team in the top five this year. With a loss already on their record, the cupcake win this weekend versus Notre Dame isn’t going to do them any favors. USC’s road back to that BSC Championship game sure took a big hit. By the way, the line on their game against Irish this weekend is USC – 17 against the spread. I think the Trojans cover.

One team that does have a chance to crawl back into the BCS Championship game is LSU. They gave it up versus a very determined Kentucky team, but Kentucky is good this year - - not at all like Stanford - - and LSU still only has one loss in the SEC which once again has proven to be the top conference in the nation. If LSU can get through the SEC Championship with that one loss on their record than forget about it, they waltz into the BSC Championship game. With that being said, I’m not that excited about their chances to cover that – 11.5 against the spread versus Auburn. The trend has always been UNDER when Auburn faces LSU. That makes the 11.5 points huge. I just don’t think LSU’s offense will put up the required amount of points to bury Auburn.

Ohio State, the new number one team in the nation is favored by 17.5 points against the Michigan State Spartans. Believe it or not, this is Ohio State’s first real Big Ten game of the year. Ohio State has been on a roll but the real trend of this college football season is that you don’t want that number 1 ranking. For some reason, teams just want to give it up. So, even though I believe Ohio State will win, that 17.5 points is awful lot. I’m going to bet the Spartans in this one.

Until next week, good luck!

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