If you’ve been enjoying VSiN content in recent weeks, you know all about a high-profile trend involving the best college football team in the nation.
Heading into Saturday night’s Alabama-LSU game (CBS, 8 p.m.), the Crimson Tide have been obliterating opponents in the first half.
30-Minute Crimson crushes
| Opponent | At half | Opponent | At half |
|---|---|---|---|
| Louisville | 28-0 | Ark St. | 40-0 |
| Ole Miss | 49-7 | Texas A&M | 31-13 |
| Louisiana | 49-0 | Arkansas | 41-14 |
| Missouri | 30-1 | Tennessee | 42-14 |
While trends can be fun to monitor, they’re usually just trivia. Outliers regress. Markets adjust. What’s important to sharp bettors here is that those margins give you a great sense of the skill sets of Alabama’s offensive and defensive starters.
Coach Nick Saban typically doesn’t call off the dogs and focus on running out the clock with backups until the second half. What would Alabama be capable of if starters played the full 60 minutes at peak intensity? It’s easy to figure out by running those examples together sequentially to create full “games.” You get final scores of 68-0, 89-7, 80-20, 80-13, 90-14, 71-24, and 72-24.
VSiN isn’t suggesting Alabama is a lock to stomp LSU out of the gate Saturday night, nor that it will run away to a 60-point win because the starters will play the whole game (our Matt Youmans posted a pick for you on the Tigers +14¹/₂ earlier this week).
LSU represents, by far, the toughest opponent Alabama will have faced this season. The Tigers have a high-quality defense. Alabama has largely faced outmatched sieve defenses (many of which will play in bowls anyway).
But those results, reflecting outstanding skill-sets, explain why Alabama is such a heavy favorite in current futures prices to win the SEC championship and national title. And why the Crimson Tide are laying such a big price in Baton Rouge. Minus 14¹/₂ on the road is about the same as -17¹/₂ to -18 points on a neutral field — against another current final-four contender!
Alabama’s starters are doing something nobody else is capable of. Very few teams are even in the neighborhood. The other two undefeated teams in the playoff picture are Clemson and Notre Dame. Let’s check out their first-half scores so far this season:
- Clemson: led Furman 27-0, Texas A&M 14-3, Georgia Southern 21-0, Georgia Tech 28-7, trailed Syracuse 16-7 (in-game quarterback injury), led Wake Forest 28-0, NC State 24-0, and Florida State 28-0. Quality stuff, particularly since Trevor Lawrence returned from injury for the Wake Forest game. That’s why stat-based models give the Tigers a chance to hang with Alabama down the road.
- Notre Dame: led Michigan 21-10, Ball State 14-6, Vanderbilt 16-3, Wake Forest 28-13, Stanford 21-14, Virginia Tech 17-16, trailed Pittsburgh 7-6, and led Navy 27-0. Ugly recent tandem against Virginia Tech and Pitt considering where those teams stand in the national picture.
Today’s tip: The TV schedule is picking up with important matchups. As you watch, focus on the strengths and weaknesses of starting units. That will help you make smart picks in marquee matchups down the road, particularly in the postseason.
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