These Saturday night “Game of the Year” type of games have somehow been exceeding the hype. Georgia went to Tuscaloosa a couple weeks ago and gave us a rollercoaster of a game against Alabama. This past Saturday night, Ohio State visited Eugene and played Oregon right down to the wire.
The Buckeyes were short road favorites, but ultimately it was the Ducks that barely escaped, 32-31, in a game that game down to the final second of the final play. The loss dropped Ohio State to 5-1 on the season. Oregon improved to 6-0, and sits in the driver’s seat in the Big Ten — which is good for the future I put out over the summer on Oregon to reach the Big Ten Title Game.
Now it’s time to buy low on the Buckeyes, and bet on them to come back and win the conference.
Big Ten Conference Championship Game Winner: Ohio State (+155) 1.5-units
So what’s Ohio State’s path to reach the title game following a loss? Well, presumably the game will be a rematch against Oregon, but the Ducks are just one of three teams that are a perfect 6-0 overall and 3-0 in conference. That list includes Penn State and Indiana, both of which the Buckeyes will face.
Unless Penn State completely implodes, this is going to come down to Ohio State winning out, and I think they can do that. The rest of the schedule is games against Nebraska, Northwestern, Purdue and then finally Michigan. I expect Ohio State to pound the Wolverines after the way that rivalry has played out the last few seasons. Indiana is at home, which makes the crucial game here a road trip to Beaver Stadium.
It’s not that PSU can’t win that game, the lookahead line was 3.5 last I saw of it, but it hasn’t happened much lately. Penn State has beaten Ohio State just three times since 2005, compared to 15 wins for the Buckeyes. OSU has taken 11 of the last 12 meetings, including seven in a row. James Franklin hasn’t exactly thrived in this matchup over the years. To make matters worse, this is going to be a desperate Ohio State team given the loss, and it just proved to us that it can handle playing in a tough road environment.
So if this portion of the handicap is correct that OSU can run the table and reach the Big Ten Championship, we have a great ticket sitting in hand. The Buckeyes were just favored by three points at Oregon, so you’d figure they’d be about a touchdown favorite in Indianapolis in December. OSU would figure to have a great crowd on hand given the location, as well as some revenge on their minds for the tough loss earlier in the season.
If they Buckeyes slip up again, this ticket is almost certainly dead, although there are other ways to keep it alive. But I’ll back them to get to 11-1 and get revenge on the Ducks in Indy at a nice plus-number.
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All views expressed are my own. I am an employee of DraftKings and am ineligible to play in public DFS or DKSB contests.
The contents contained in this article do not constitute a representation that any particular strategy will guarantee success. All customers should use their own skill and judgment.
