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The best team in the country is a road underdog and I am taking it. Give me Ohio State and the point and a half in Austin. Smaller edge than it looked a week ago, and still the right side.
The Matchup
- Both quarterbacks opened at a level that tells you nothing. Julian Sayin went 21 of 25 for 320 yards and three touchdowns. Arch Manning went 20 of 27 for 305 yards and four scores with a pick. Ohio State and Texas both spent week one beating somebody who could not stop them. Neither is a reason to bet this game.
- Texas lost its running back this week. Derrek Cooper went down with an ankle in the second quarter of the opener and Steve Sarkisian says he is in a boot for the foreseeable future. That is a starter, gone, in a game the board has priced at a field goal. It is the most concrete thing that has changed since either team last played.
- Texas closed ground after Week 1 and that is the honest headline. The updated ratings moved the Longhorns up and the Buckeyes down, which cut this from a near nine point disagreement to under four. The side did not change. The size of it did, by more than half.
- What is left is a road team that is still the better team. Ohio State rates about four and a half points clear of Texas on neutral ground. Austin is worth two and a half. That leaves the Buckeyes ahead by two in a game where the board is asking you to lay it with the home side.
The Number
SP+ was updated after Week 1 and both teams moved toward each other. Ohio State came down, Texas went up, and the projection that used to have the Buckeyes winning this by seven and a half now has them winning it by about two. The board wants Texas by a point and a half. That is a three and a half point disagreement, which is a real edge and a much more ordinary one than the number I would have quoted you on Monday.
I am telling you that because the first version of this page said nine, and a page that quietly revises its own evidence is worth less than one that shows the revision. The pick survived the update. The confidence did not, and it has come down from an eight to a six.
Three and a half points is enough, and the venue is why it exists. College GameDay is on campus, this is Ohio State’s first trip to Austin since 2006, and Manning is the story of the season. A market pays for that and it should. What it should not do is pay four points for it in the same week the home team lost the back who was supposed to keep it out of obvious passing downs. The moneyline at around even money is the same opinion at a longer price, not a second play, and it counts once.
In-Game Bets
- If Texas scores touchdowns on its first two possessions. Get out of both. The crowd is doing more than I priced and a one score road dog does not want to be trailing early in that building.
- If Sayin is sacked three times in the first quarter. Release the moneyline and keep the point and a half only while the game is inside a score. Pressure is the one way a gap this size disappears in a single night.
- If Texas is forced into obvious passing downs twice in the first half. Add nothing, but stop worrying. Without Cooper that is exactly the shape of game the number is built on.
Bottom Line
Take Ohio State and the point and a half at . Still the better roster, still getting points on the road, and the home team is down its starting back. Thinner than it was. One unit.
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