Football Friday 8/29/25

About 30 years ago, they “invented” Casual Friday.  About 15  years ago, I “invented” Football Friday.  So, which do you prefer?

Last week, there was no “Betting Bundle” to review.  However:

• Money Line Parlay was a loss.
• Season Totals to date:  Record is 0-1  Profit/Loss = minus-$100

Linfield University did not have a game last week – – nor will it have a game next weekend – – so there is nothing to report on that front.

My 2025 “sleeper team” – – Georgia Tech – – did not play last week.  They will take on Colorado tonight.  Go Yellowjackets!

 

College Football Commentary:

 

If you think of the college football as a multi-course tasting menu, then last week was merely an amuse-bouche.  The festivities get underway seriously this week.  So, let me begin with some serious college football notes.

For quite a while now, there has been criticism of the SEC for playing fewer conference games than they possibly could each season.  The other Power Conferences play 9 conference games, and the SEC has played 8.  The impact and the importance of that discrepancy has been magnified beyond any logic that Aristotle would have understood; it had become a burr under the saddle for college football commentators.  Now it appears that the SEC will make the change to a 9-game conference schedule starting in 2026.

Trust me when I say that I picked these three SEC schools at random and then went to look up their 2025 out-of-conference opponents – – you know, the ones the coaches and the athletic directors select to provide the best entertainment value for the fans and supporters of the program.

1. Ole Miss will play Georgia St., Tulane, Washington St. and The Citadel
2. Tennessee will play Syracuse, East Tennessee St., UAB and New Mexico St.
3. Georgia will play Marshall, Austin Peay, UNC-Charlotte and Georgia Tech.

            Look at the 12 games on this year’s schedule listed above.  Georgia/Georgia Tech is a traditional rivalry game that goes back more than 100 years; other than that game, are any of the other eleven games even interesting?  I assert that is the criterion to use here because it is blatantly obvious that none of the eleven are important.

Some commentators have ascribed the SEC change of mind as being based in blunting an argument made by Big-10 schools to expand the CFP and change the way CFP slots would be assigned.  Perhaps that is the case; perhaps it is not; I don’t really care.  What I think is that more conference games and fewer “glorified scrimmages” makes for better entertainment and more intense fan engagement and all that is better for college football.

There is an added wrinkle in the upcoming SEC schedule change.  Starting next year, SEC schools will also need to schedule at least one of its out-of-conference opponents from one of the “Power 4 Conferences”.  That will not eliminate mismatches, but it will make for better matchups across the board.

So now, it is time to start a drumbeat for the other major conferences to reduce/minimize out-of-conference cupcake games.

1. Penn State will play Nevada, FIU and Villanova
2. Indiana will play Old Dominion, Kennesaw St. and Indiana St.
3. Oklahoma State will play Tennessee-Martin, Tulsa and UCF

If you look at those nine games on the calendar for this season, you will see there is still work to be done…

There will be some rule changes for college football in 2025.  There are dozens of changes on tap and if you want to stroll through all of them and try to understand how they will be applied and why they were considered in the first place, here is a link to – mostly – clear and concise explanations,

I will point out a couple here that I find either important or head-scratching:

• Feigning injuries:  If a player appears to be injured after the ball is spotted by officials, that team will be charged a timeout – – or a delay of game penalty if all the team’s timeouts have been used. Additionally, that player must remain out of the game for at least one down and cannot return to the game until receiving approval of professional medical personnel designated by their institution who have examined the injury.  This is obviously intended to curb faking injuries to effect unlimited timeouts late in games.  Administering this rule will not be easy and the recordkeeping needed to ensure no player returns without the proper medical approval will be burdensome for officials.
• Pre-snap movement:  Players within one yard of the line of scrimmage may not make “abrupt or exaggerated actions” that might be associated with the start of a play as a way to draw the offense offside or to create offensive illegal motion.  This should be relatively easy to enforce once an officiating team settles on what constitutes improper movements by the defenders and what is “normal”.
• Clear eye shields:  In the past, eye shields had to be clear; any sort of tint in the plastic was impermissible.  For reasons that elude me, the rules mavens now allowed manufacturers to submit examples of “nearly clear” face shields to the rules mavens for approved use in games.  An even more basic question here is why would there be such a rule?  If a player wanted to use a completely opaque eye shield and his coach allowed him to do something that stupid, why would the rulebook try to save him from himself?

            My “sleeper team” from last  year – – Nebraska – – opened its season last night with a win over Cincy by a score of 20-17.  Keep an eye on the Nebraska QB – Dylan Raiola.  He led the team to a bowl game last year as a true freshman and threw for almost 3000 yards in the season.  He is back with the Huskers and last night posted this stat line:

• 33 of 42 for 243  yards and 2 TDs with 0 INTs
• Not bad for a kid who is only 20 years old.

            As some schools have chosen to move toward a more aggressive scheduling philosophy, those schools have seen that scheduling an attractive early season game can be a good way to get the program some national TV exposure.  It used to be that the first week or two of the college football season was an extension of training camp more times than not.  The blight of the “Blowout Game” has not been eradicated as witnessed by these spreads on games for this weekend.  There are more than the ones I listed here because I tried to limit the listing to games where the spread was more than 5 TDs:

• Western Illinois (+48) at Illinois
• Nevada (+45) at No. 2 Penn State (this game will be on CBS)
• Marshall (+39.5) at No. 5 Georgia (this game will be on ESPN)
• Illinois State (+35.5) at No. 18 Oklahoma
• New Mexico (+37) at No. 14 Michigan (this game will be on NBC)
• Georgia State (+38) at No. 21 Ole Miss (this game will be on SEC Network)

I don’t want to leave the impression that the first real week of the college football season is a bummer; it is not.  There are more than a handful of interesting and important games on the schedule, so, let’s take a look …

 

NCAA Games of Interest:

 

(Fri Nite) Auburn – 2 at Baylor (58):  In my College Football Pre-Season Analysis, I listed Auburn coach, Hugh Freeze, as a coach on a hot seat.  Now, his team opens on the road as a favorite against a Power 4 opponent who was 5-1 at home in 2024.

(Fri Nite) Georgia Tech – 4 at Colorado (51):  If experience counts for a lot in college football, my “sleeper team” has the edge here.  Tech returns its starting QB, Haynes King, and three starting offensive linemen; Colorado is adapting to life without Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders.

(Fri Nite) UNLV – 10 at Sam Houston St. (61):  UNLV won last week beating the fearsome Idaho State Bengals 38-31.  Idaho St racked up more than 500 yards on offense in the game meaning that UNLV’s potent offense will have to be on alert this year because the UNLV defense was exposed there to be “porous”.  Bettors took note; the Total Line here opened at 58 points and has risen all week; some books have the game at 61.5 and one book has it at 62 points.  I don’t like to make picks or bets early in the season, but I would take a flyer here on the OVER just because I think UNLV will score and UNLV will allow others to score.  Put that in the “Betting Bundle”.

Ball St at Purdue – 17.5 (50):  Purdue was 1-11 last year; it not only lost games, but Purdue was also thoroughly outclassed most of the time.  And here they are a 17.5-point favorite?  Question:

• How bad do the oddsmakers think Ball St. is?

Temple – 1.5 at UMass (48):  This could have implications for the SHOE Tournament at the end of the season.

Texas at Ohio St. – 1.5 (47.5):  This is undoubtedly the Game of the Week.  This spread opened at 3 points; the movement to this level – – and there is one offshore sportsbook that has the game a 1 point – – means that there had to be a ton of “Texas money” placed on the game because Ohio St. fans are never bashful about backing their team with greenbacks.  Arch Manning will be on the field for Texas; Jeremiah Smith will be on the field for Ohio State.  That is a good thing because if those two players were on the same team, the spread in this game might be 3 TDs.

Alabama – 13.5 at Florida St. (50.5):  Let me go out on a limb here:

• Florida State will be better in 2025 than it was in 2024.

How can I be so sure?  The Seminoles were 2-10 last year; that is not a high bar to overcome.  Alabama was disappointing last year in that they were not in the semi-finals of the CFP which some Bama fans had come to believe was a birthright.  Alabama could well be invited to the CFP this year and I doubt that Florida St. is at a point where they are competitive at that level.  Even on the road I think Alabama will dominate here and cover the spread; put that in the “Betting Bundle”.

LSU at Clemson – 4 (57.5):  Brian Kelly has never won an opening game in his time at LSU; is this the year he “breaks through”?  This is a face-off for two QBs who will get a lot of attention over the season.  Garrett Nussmeier is in charge for LSU while Cade Clubnik calls the shots for Clemson.  Here is an angle for the game:

• Clemson’s DL is considered to be one of the best in the country
• LSU will have 4 first time starters on the OL in this game

Here is one last flyer for the “Betting Bundle”; I like this game to stay UNDER 57.5.

(Sun Nite) Notre Dame – 2.5 at Miami (50):  Miami graduated Cam Ward from last  year’s squad and Notre Dame will be missing a half-dozen quality players from last year.  The winner of this game will hope to point to it down the line as a major contributor to its “Strength of Schedule”.  Definitely worth tuning in for this one …

(Mon Nite) TCU – 3 at UNC (56):  The spread opened with UNC as a 2-point favorite, so this represents a 5-point swing in the spread.  Meanwhile, the Total Line opened at 59 and has come down 3 points.  All that line movement could make the game an interesting one to watch but that pales in comparison to the fact that this is Bill Belichick’s college football debut as a head coach.

 

NFL Commentary:

 

This week has not been kind to the offspring of some Pro Football Hall of Fame players:

• Shedeur Sanders (son of Deion) – – third string QB on a QB-starved team
• Shiloh Sanders (son of Deion) – – cut by Bucs
• Terique Owens (son of Terrell) – – cut by the Niners
• Brenden Rice (son of Jerry) – – cut by Chargers

The Minnesota Vikings will have transgender women cheerleaders this year in addition to the cisgender women on the squad.  This is a big deal in some regions of the Internet.  What I found interesting is that in the final Exhibition Game between the Vikes and the Titans, someone threw a lime-green dildo onto the field.  The Phallus Felonious made it from the WNBA all the way to the NFL.

As we enter the final week of preparation for the NFL regular season, two of the three major contract kerfuffles have been resolved.

1. Terry McLauren got an extension that was to his satisfaction from the Commanders.  Amazingly, his ankle injury that had him on the PUP List was also resolved and he began practicing with the tea.
2. Trey Hendrickson did not get a long-term extension but according to reports he got his 2025 salary doubled.

The other major contract kerfuffle between Micah Parsons and the Cowboys – – specifically Jerry Jones – – continued as a stalemate until yesterday.  The Cowboys traded Parsons to the Packers and Jones is treating this as a victory for his way of dealing with star players.  You can read about how this matter became cantankerous in a dozen places; I won’t repeat it all here but here is the trade itself

• Packers get Micah Parsons – – and Parsons gets a 4-year contract worth $180M with $120M guaranteed.
• Cowboys get two first round picks – – in 2026 and 2027 – – and DT Kenny Clark.

I’m not sure I would characterize this ending as a win for Jones and the Cowboys …

The NFL has several minor rule changes to go into effect this year and one rule change that is more significant.  It involves the rules for regular season Overtime Games, and it blends the regular season OT concept with the playoff/Super Bowl OT concept.  You can find the rule book prose here; I’ll try to summarize it here.

• Both teams must have a chance to possess the ball in OT – – unless there is a defensive score on the first possession.
• OT is still limited to 10 minutes so another exception to the concept that both teams must have a possession would be if the team that gets the ball first still has possession after 10 minutes of game time has elapsed.  That game would end as a tie.

The 10-minute limitation is in force as a tip of the hat to “player safety initiatives” by the league.  Frankly, the more relevant way to handle regular season overtimes is to eliminate them entirely and accept tie games as part of the team records.  Whatever …

There are no NFL games this week so let me review the “Betting Bundle” of college games and then let me propose two Money Line Parlays for this week:

• UNLV/Sam Houston St. OVER 61
• LSU/Clemson UNDER 57.5
• Alabama – 13.5 against Florida St.

            And Money Line Parlays:

• Georgia Tech @ minus-180
• Maryland @ minus-500
• Mississippi St. @ minus-460   $100 wager to win $128

And just for fun, here is a themed parlay – – all the selections have military names

• Army (The Cadets)  @ minus 475
• UMass (Minutemen) @ +108
• Tennessee (Volunteers) @ minus 480   $100 wager to win $204

Finally, this from Ara Parseghian:

“The game is not won by a pep talk on Saturday. It’s won by preparation of your club from Monday until game time. If they’re not ready on Saturday, you’re not going to get them ready by trying to inspire them with a dog-eat-dog sermon on that day.”

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………