Welcome again to the Monday coach potato, a recap of the football weekend that was. It’s hard to believe we are already into November, but while that’s the stretch run of college football’s regular season it also comes with a benefit: there now will be an NCAA game pretty much every night from Tuesday-Saturday the rest of the season. What would we do without the Mid-American Conference!!?? Here are a few things that caught my attention in the pro and college ranks this past weekend:

Hello, Bye Weeks!

I have always been a big believer in betting on NFL teams coming off the bye week. That extra week of preparation usually is a huge advantage. However, that hadn’t been the case too much this season. Perhaps it had to do with the new collective bargaining agreement that severely limits practice time during the off week (mandatory four days off that week for players)?

Entering Week 8, teams were just 3-9 coming off their bye. On Sunday, however, those teams went 5-1: Buffalo over Washington, Cincinnati over Seattle, the New York Giants over Miami, Philadelphia over Dallas and San Francisco over Cleveland. Only the Giants, who tend to play down to their competition (remember the Seahawks game?) didn’t cover. The only team that lost was New England at Pittsburgh, just the second time in the past 11 years the Pats had lost after a bye. The Eagles are a machine after the bye, improving to an incredible 13-0 in such situations under Andy Reid.

If you are wondering, the teams coming off byes in Week 9 are: Chicago, Atlanta, Green Bay, Oakland, NY Jets and Tampa Bay. Look for my game preview of the Packers-Chargers marquee matchup later this week here at Doc’s.

Niners Remain Lone ATS Unbeaten

If you have been betting on the San Francisco 49ers this season, you no doubt have a nice bankroll going about now. Jim Harbaugh’s team is the only unbeaten ATS club remaining at 6-0-1 following Sunday’s 20-10 home win over the Cleveland Browns. I still don’t trust Alex Smith, but I definitely believe in that defense, which leads the NFL in rushing defense and held Cleveland to 66 yards on 23 carries. And as long as Frank Gore stays healthy, there’s no reason the Niners can’t earn the No. 2 seed in the NFC behind Green Bay. For the fourth straight game Sunday, Gore ran for more than 125 yards and a touchdown. Gore is one of four players to do that since 1970.

Normally I would say don’t touch the Niners this week at Washington with the whole West Coast team playing on the East Coast at 10 a.m. Pacific time. But the Niners already have won in Cincinnati (which looks better by the week), Philadelphia and Detroit.

Speaking of the Bengals, they are the only other team with six ATS wins so far after thumping Seattle 34-12 in the Pacific Northwest on Sunday. It was Cincy’s first win on the West Coast since 2003. The Bengals are rather similar to the Niners in that they stop the run (No. 2 in the NFL) and just ask their QB not to make mistakes. Is it time to start giving Andy Dalton some love for NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year? Cam Newton has much better numbers, but the Panthers aren’t going anywhere. Cincinnati is 5-2 for the fourth time in the past 21 years and the previous three times it reached the postseason. The Bengals are tied with Baltimore a half game behind Pittsburgh in the AFC North.

By the way, there are no longer any winless ATS teams. The St. Louis Rams won their first on Sunday with the shocker of the year, a 31-21 win over New Orleans. The Miami Dolphins also got their first ATS win of the year by dominating the Giants for most of Sunday’s game before gagging the win away but still covering by 9.5 points on the NFL odds. Why Tony Sparano still has a job is baffling.

Don’t Tell Me Conferences Don’t Matter

I’m at the point now where I’m just going to bet on every Big 12 and Pac-12 game to go ‘over’ the total and every Big Ten and SEC to stay ‘under’. This past weekend, the following Big Ten and SEC games involving ranked teams went ‘under’: Purdue-Michigan, Michigan State-Nebraska, Illinois-Penn State, Florida-Georgia, South Carolina-Tennessee. The only two that went ‘over’ in those conferences were Arkansas-Vanderbilt and Wisconsin-Ohio State.

Meanwhile, in the pass-happy Big 12 and Pac-12, the following games involving ranked teams went ‘over’: Missouri-Texas A&M, Washington State-Oregon, Oklahoma-Kansas State, Colorado-Arizona State and Stanford-USC. The only unders were Baylor-Oklahoma State (a push actually) and Iowa State-Texas Tech.

The weather is only going to get worse in Big Ten country, so look for those ‘unders’ to continue. The SEC, meanwhile, has a handful of the nation’s top defenses. I look forward to the total on this week’s uber-game between No. 1 LSU and No. 2 Alabama. That game could easily end 3-0. And also monitor the Houston-UAB game this week in the wake of Cougars QB Case Keenum’s nine touchdown passes last week. The Blazers are comically bad on defense, even worse than the Rice unit that Keenum just torched. Houston may get to 80 points against UAB.