odds on favorites

(Guess what? I published a book this offseason. It’s about baseball. The Cubs. The White Sox. And that one time they played each other in the World Series. Check it out. It’s only available via Amazon Kindle right now, but a print on demand option is coming soon)

Jabrill Peppers leads the nation in tackles for loss and punt return yards. We all knew that. But I liked typing that out. And reading it over and over and over……

How has the unique start to his season impacted the Heisman race? His odds to win the trophy have fallen from 25/1 to 20/1. There were seven players with shorter odds than Peppers in the preseason. There are still five players ahead of him now. Two players, Lamar Jackson and Greg Ward Jr., have jumped ahead of him on the board. Ward Jr. has gone from 35/1 to 18/1. Meanwhile, Jackson is now the overwhelming betting favorite at –225 after starting out as a 50/1 three weeks ago. Below is a list of the top-6 betting favorites and their opening preseason odds.

Candidate	Current Odds	Preseason Odds
Lamar Jackson	-225	5000
Christian McCaffrey	600	600
JT Barrett	650	1100
Deshaun Watson	800	400
Greg Ward Jr.	1800	3500
Jabrill Peppers	2000	2500

I like the steadiness of McCaffrey. He started 6/1 and remains 6/1. Other notable odds not seen above: Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield started the season at 10/1 with the fifth shortest odds available. Today, he’s not even listed on the updated betting board. Had we made this chart a week ago, Florida State’s Dalvin Cook and Deondre Francis would have both been in the top-6. However in the wake of the Noles beatdown at the hands of Louisville, both have dropped. Francis began the season as a 60/1 shot, but was down to 12/1 a week ago after his hot start. Like Mayfield, he is no longer on the betting board. Cook remains in contention, although his odds have been falling all season. He opened at 8/1, was 12/1 a week ago, and today you can get Florida State’s star tailback at 33/1. For perspective, San Diego State tailback Donnel Pumphrey is just ahead of him at 25/1.

[Hit THE JUMP for things more interesting than Heisman odds]

(Guess what? I published a book this offseason. It's about baseball. The Cubs. The White Sox. And that one time they played each other in the World Series. Check it out. It's only available via Amazon Kindle right now, but a print on demand option is coming soon)

What a great Saturday of college football this weekend. For the first time in history, the top-3 ranked teams in the AP Poll go on the road to play a fellow top-20 team on the same day. Will it be Shakeup Saturday? Or Separation Saturday? I'm guessing a little from Column A and a little from Column B.

The B1G is right in the middle of it. Ohio State at Oklahoma is one of those three top-3 games, along with Florida St-Louisville and Alabama-Ole Miss. But also Michigan State and Notre Dame renew hostilities after a two season cease fire. Both teams are ranked, eyeing playoff runs and always seem to play tight, crazy games. Toss in unranked Nebraska favored and hosting mighty Oregon and there are three bigtime showdowns in the league this weekend. And the undercards all offer something interesting to watch, even if it's ineptitude. Looking at you, Northwestern. Ten of the league's 11 games this weekend involve games between FBS schools. The only game with an FCS squad is actually intriguing with that level's 5-time champ and regular giant killer North Dakota State going to Iowa. What's better is three things I dislike watching about the conference, Minnesota, Purdue, and the Indiana Defense, all don't play. It should be fun. Let's breeze through the schedule before this week's picks.

FOR DEGENERATES ONLY

[The rest of the lines, after THE JUMP]

Despite nailing the one pick from opening week made here. And even though we added a winner on twitter Friday night. I'm here offering an early season mea culpa. I boldy predicted every B1G team's Over/Under on wins last week but with the upsets in the Wisconsin and Northwestern games two of them already look like dead meat.  That's the problem with making a lot of bets and picks. You always end up making dumb ones. I wonder if there's an app for that?  Let's look back and see what happened.

My take on Wisconsin was their offensive line was too young and not quite good enough yet, especially in light of last year's performance and the Voltz injury this summer, to stand up against the monster defensive fronts they were slated to face during the season's first half. So of course they go out and beat LSU in the opener as 13.5-point underdogs.

[Jonathan Daniel - Getty Images]

Starting an offensive front with four redshirt sophomores, a Division III transfer, and a combined 21 total collegiate starts--not to mention bringing in redshirt freshmen off the bench when needed--the Badgers outplayed the LSU defensive front in the trenches. The final numbers do not look great with just 3.2 yards per rush. But the tailback combo of Corey Clement and Dare Ogunbowale rushed for 130 yards on 30 carries. There weren't any truck size holes. There weren't any vintage Wisconsin showstopping big runs either. But they held their blocks just long enough to give their tailbacks room to move forward for decent gains. Toss in seven critical catches by tight end Troy Fumagali, six for first downs and a seventh for the final chunk of yards before the game winning field goal, and the offense had enough gas to move the football against the Tigers.

Had they converted more than 3.2 points per scoring, a bugaboo from a year ago, they would have won going away. Ditto if QB Bart Houston doesn't throw a pair of killer interceptions resulting in a swing of 10-14 points. Luckily, LSU's Brandon Harris trumped those tosses with an even worse pick on the Tiger's potential game winning drive clinching the game for the Badgers.

That pick was also a big blow to last week's Under 7.5 wins pick. There are still plenty of challenges ahead, and Wisconsin still has four games they'll be an underdog in before the end of October. They will need to lose all of those for us to have any shot at this one.

Despite the LSU outcome, the lines have moved against the Badgers in three of those games. They're now catching more points in games against Michigan, +12.5 up from 11.5; Ohio State, +7.5 up from 6; and Iowa, +4, up from +3.5. Their first big game of that run is in Week 4 at Michigan State. While that game looks like a toss up now, especially in light of the Spartan's weak effort against Furman in their opener, the line hasn't budged and is still MSU -3.

[Hit THE JUMP for sense in a senseless world.]