After righting the ship with a winning performance the week before, we could not be more pleased with another strong performance this past weekend that netted our $100 bettors a profit of $1,760. We went 5-1 in our college football picks for a total of +18 units, led by a 6-unit play on Oklahoma State. The Cowboys beat TCU by a score of 24-10 in a game that was hard to watch.

Many of the top handicappers across the country have struggled the last two weeks, but that has not been the case with Doc’s Sports. We plan to finish out the regular season with a bang, including the release of our annual Big Ten Game of the Year next Saturday, Nov. 2.

Recapping the last two weeks in both college football and the NFL, we have gone 13-4 in our picks and +41 units using Doc’s Unit Betting System. What it all adds up to is a $3,950 profit for our $100 bettors. As we continue to preach each and every week of the season, do not get too high or too low with any of the results. Just turn the page and focus in on next weekend’s matchups.

Getting back to our top play of the week, Oklahoma State held off TCU despite a terrible performance by a usually high-powered Cowboys’ offense. It moved the ball at will against the Horned Frogs, but it also turned the ball over four times and missed a pair chip-shot field goals.

Things got so bad that Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy went to quarterback Clint Chelf as his starter in the second quarter for an ineffective JW Walsh. Chelf responded by throwing an interception in his first passing attempt. The saving grace to covering the spread was the Cowboys’ defense. It played lights-out for the full 60 minutes and never let TCU get comfortable on offense. It also forced four turnovers while holding the Horned Frogs to a total of 325 total yards, and this number was greatly enhanced by a fluky 69-yard pass play. Give some credit to TCU’s defense as well since it got absolutely no support from the other side of the ball.

The Horned Frogs will host Texas this Saturday, and we will likely go against them again given that this offense is one of the worst in the country. As for Oklahoma State, it needs to get its quarterback situation figured out in a hurry. Both played poorly, but if it were up to me I would go back to Walsh. He gives you a better run/pass option, and that is what this offense needs to be successful. The Cowboys should have won this game by four touchdowns, but we will take the big win and move on.

We thought that our second strongest play of the week was Wyoming over Colorado State, and we could have not been more wrong with this pick. These Cowboys never showed up for the game and were clobbered 52-22 as home favorites. I knew Wyoming had a bad defense, but I figured that its offense would still be able to outscore the Rams by more than the 6.5-point spread. How this unit only managed to score just 22 points is beyond my comprehension, especially against a less-than-stellar Colorado State defense. Most of the other handicappers I talked to about this matchup agreed that the actual spread should have been at least 12 points, but it never moved off the 6.5-point mark despite 70 percent of the public betting on Wyoming as well. This is the kind of stuff that just makes you wonder sometime! That was our only blemish on Saturday, and we will take a 5-1 performance any day of the week.

All the hype for the Florida State vs. Clemson game was a huge waste after the Tigers got blown out at home in a game that was never even close. With that performance, the Seminoles vaulted to No. 2 in the initial BCS rankings; overtaking an undefeated Oregon squad. I have no real problem with that scenario, and as it stands now the two best teams in the nation may be Florida State and Oregon. Alabama will remain No.1 as long as it keeps winning, but I do not see any one-loss team from any conference overtaking an undefeated Oregon, Florida State or even this Ohio State squad. We can save that discussion for another day with plenty of football still to be played.

As for Clemson, all that mojo it had going for itself after beating Georgia to open the season has drifted out the window after playing poorly the last two weeks. This has been a very typical pattern for the Tigers over the years, and despite all the talent, they are still searching for the week-to-week consistency that is needed to win championships.

This week’s card features four matchups between ranked opponents, but the games that I would like to focus on are Texas Tech on the road against Oklahoma and Stanford against Oregon State. In both contests the higher-ranked team is the visitor, but it will not surprise me if the home team comes away with the straight up win in both. The Sooners have been opened as seven-point home favorites, and the Cardinal are four-point favorites on the road.

We used Stanford last week as a selection and once again had to sweat it out behind an ultra-conservative game plan. Stanford played outstanding on defense and shut down UCLA quarterback Brett Hundley. The loss knocked him out of the Heisman race and the Bruins out of the BCS Championship Game picture. If Stanford is going to have any shot at running the table, it is going to have to let Kevin Hogan use his arm to try and win games. He has playmakers at the wide receiver position as evidenced by the catch that Kodi Whitfield made in the third quarter against UCLA. The Cardinal still have Oregon looming after the Oregon State game, so they need to start getting much more aggressive on offense.

We will not be using the Texas Tech vs. Oklahoma matchup as a selection this week. The Red Raiders are an unproven commodity, but the Sooners are not good enough this year to be laying that many points.

There are a couple of new coaches on the hot seat despite the usual grace period that is afforded someone when they first take over a new program. The two that are drawing the most fire are Bret Bielema at Arkansas and California’s Sonny Dykes. To be fair, both took over major rebuilding programs, but multiple blowouts are a sure-fire way to quickly get yourself in trouble with the fans and the alumni.

Coach Bielema does not have the players to fit his system right now, so it is very important that his recruiting efforts go extremely well next year to hopefully show some sign of improvement. He is probably looking at a three-year window to turn things around before being shown the door. This really makes you wonder why he jumped ship from a cushy job at Wisconsin where he could have become a fixture for as long as he wanted to stay there. The fan base was never really on his side, but his job security was never in doubt.

As for Dykes, he definitely made the right decision jumping ship from Louisiana Tech. Cal is a much better job with a higher salary, and the Bulldogs were facing a major rebuilding program of their own after losing 14 starters from a nine-win team in 2012. If you are going to have to rebuild, I would much rather do it at Berkeley than in Ruston, Louisiana. Things have not gone as planned this season behind a multitude of injuries, making the undermanned Golden Bears a good team to go against from here on in.

That’s it for this week, and as always, best of luck with your wagering for this upcoming weekend.
The money has been flowing in the last two weeks for Doc’s Sports, and we would love to have you along for the ride.

Sincerely
Max Power