NCAAF Spots & Picks: Stuckey’s 2 Saturday Afternoon Predictions
Bailey Hillesheim/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images. Pictured: Louisiana’s Zeon Chriss.
We begin the NCAAF Week 6 slate with predictions and two Saturday afternoon betting spots, featuring Alabama vs. Texas A&M and Texas State vs. Louisiana.
My primary goal of this piece is to simply share a few key angles, notable matchups and injury situations for each particular game that hopefully will make you a better bettor.
For full reference of all my spots for Week 6, here's the full piece.
- 2022: 45-20-1 +22.82 units (69.2%)
- 2023: 19-14-0 +3.48 units (57.6%)
- Overall: 64-34-1 +26.90 units (65.3%)
Stuckey's 2 Afternoon NCAAF Situational Spots
| Game | Time (ET) | Pick |
|---|---|---|
| 3:30 p.m. | Texas A&M +3 | |
| 3:30 p.m. | Louisiana ML -132 |
Texas A&M +3 vs. Alabama
3:30 p.m. ET ⋅ CBS
Alabama has looked better in each of the past two weeks, but the Tide faced a shorthanded Ole Miss squad in a must-win game at home.
They then followed up that with a blowout victory over Mississippi State — a team I'm super down on compared to the market. Just look at what LSU did to the Bulldogs a few weeks back.
So, you could say I'm not ready to say everything is back to normal in T-Town with a team that still has some major question marks.
Quarterback Jalen Milroe does give Alabama its best chance, but he remains limited as a passer. That could spell doom against an A&M defense that has completely fixed the issues against the run from a season ago.
On the season, the Aggies rank 17th nationally in Rush Success Rate and yards per carry allowed (2.9) — giving up almost two full yards less than last year's mark of 4.8 (109th) — thanks to an uber-talented front seven that ranks in the top 15 nationally in Defensive Line Yards.
As a result, Texas A&M is shutting down opposing rushing attacks on early downs, forcing teams into known passing situations where it ranks third in FBS in Success Rate.
Similar to what we saw with Texas, A&M has the juice to cause major disruption up front against Alabama.
Meanwhile, Texas A&M has looked fantastic all season with a new much-needed modern offense coordinator in Bobby Petrino, who Jimbo Fisher brought in during the offseason.
The defense is also one of the most improved units in the country after an inexplicably down year in 2022 given all of the talent on the roster.
I don't see much of a drop-off at all between quarterbacks Connor Weigman (out for the year) and Max Johnson, who has shined in four games of action in 2023. I trust the A&M passing attack much more in this matchup, as it's the Aggies who have the rare talent edge over the Tide.
Ultimately, I the Aggies get this done by winning the trench battle on both ends and having the ability to sustain drives with more consistency against an Alabama team that has struggled in true road games in recent seasons, especially against quality competition.
Since 2019, the Tide have gone just 5-10 against the spread on the road, including 2-5 ATS against ranked opponents — all as favorites with an average spread of over 10 points — losing three of those seven outright. That doesn't even include a straight-up loss in their last trip to College Station in 2021 as 18.5-point chalk.
Nick Saban is just 7-13 ATS (35%) as a favorite of less than a touchdown against SEC foes.
Louisiana ML -132 vs. Texas State
3:30 p.m. ET ⋅ ESPNU
We are going back to the well with a Texas State fade here, as I think the Bobcats have become overvalued in the market even after beating me with a late frontdoor touchdown last week in the final minutes after blowing a big lead.
That has been a theme for the Bobs, who have been marred by inconsistency with some head-scratching halves of football against bad competition. The consistency is just not there on a down-to-down basis, which will eventually burn them.
Meanwhile, I doubt they can keep up the scoring efficiency pace when they do put drives together. Plus, this is still a very bad defense that ULL can exploit.
The Bobs are still living a bit off of an opening-season victory over Baylor. Not only does that win look worse than it did at the time, but Texas State also had the benefit of surprising with a brand new staff, personnel and scheme similar to what we saw with Colorado in its opening week stunner over TCU.
Since then, Texas State has three wins over Southern Miss, Nevada and Jackson State. The Golden Eagles are broken, and Nevada might be the worst FBS team in the country. I still have to play this under a field goal.
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