Spread picks for every game in 2018’s college football Week 6

The top three teams in the preseason AP poll were Alabama, Georgia, and Clemson. After five weeks, they are No. 1, No. 2, and No. 4. Ohio State (preseason No. 5) is third. Oklahoma is still No. 7. Preseason No. 9 Auburn is No. 8.

Aside from LSU’s rise from 25th to fifth and Wisconsin’s upset loss to BYU, not a lot has changed near the top of the college football pecking order yet.

Can rivalry games begin to change that? LSU heads to Gainesville, where the Tigers are a three-point favorite over Florida (and, per S&P+, an underdog). Oklahoma is off to Dallas to face Tom Herman’s Texas — a team that is typically underwhelming as a favorite and dynamite as a dog. (And yeah, they’re eight-point dogs.)

Below are FBS picks and projections using the S&P+ projections, listed in full for all 130 FBS teams here. See the bottom of the post for more detail about these.

The spread (listed in parentheses) is shown next to S&P+’s pick for each game. The team in bold is projected to beat the spread. (At most books, there is no listed spread for FCS games.) When S&P+ predicts a tie or a push (a tie with Vegas, basically), I list the pick on the side S&P+ would pick if teams could score in decimals.

This document breaks games (and S&P+’s season performance to date) out into their decimal glory. This year, I am including and monitoring total (over/under) picks as well.

S&P+ is 4-1 against the spread so far this week. This post was originally published on Thursday.

The last four Florida-LSU games have all been decided by a touchdown or less. No reason to think this year will be any different.

Kentucky kept South Carolina at arm’s length last Saturday night. Now comes a stiffer test in College Station.

Yes, Illinois-Rutgers is technically a P5-vs-P5 game.

The MWC’s most consistently high-quality programs kick off mid-day in Boise. BSU needs a win to keep pace with UCF and the other primary contenders for the Group of Five’s NY6 bowl bid.

Each year, I post weekly S&P+ picks as a way of affirming the ratings’ validity. I use my S&P+ system as a complement to most of my analysis, and the picks are a way of showing it generally knows what it’s talking about.

S&P+ tends to hit between 50 (meh) and 54 percent (great) against the spread from year to year. It isn’t always the single best performer, but it holds its own.

And beyond picks, it goes deeper than any other set of college football analytics on the market. You can go into granular detail regarding team strengths and weaknesses in a way that no other set of ratings allows. (See the annual team statistical profiles as proof.)