Model: Week 14 Saturday Plays

Let's take a quick look back at a successful week 13 for the Model and look ahead to some top plays identified for our final regular season Saturday (tears forming)...

As usual, we like to start with a disclaimer. This Model, now gaining some experience, is still young. We still have a lot of forming to do to make it what we ultimately want it to be (which is a consistent winner over the course of full weeks). We are getting a lot of data and making some tweaks, but we certainly would not advise you putting your life savings on these plays. That said, if you sprayed the board with these picks the last few weeks, you’d have a little more spending money…

We’ve been waiting for that ‘breakout’ week from the Model and we got it. Helped by a really solid late-evening action record.

You can view the blow-by-blow picks here »

Again, we don’t celebrate until this happens consistently - and it certainly has not hit like this all season. So, we turn our attention to week 14, which is underway and off to a decent start.

The big hit was on Thanksgiving, when Memphis upset Tulane and that game went over. We went +7 UNITS on that game alone. Bringing in yesterday’s action, we shrunk that a bit and are sitting +5 UNITS with plenty of games to play here on Saturday. Speaking of…let’s take a look:

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|||||| 3-UNIT PLAYS

Memphis is the only 4-UNIT play this week according to the Model. And we lost a 3-UNIT play by .5 last night as Colorado State couldn’t quite get over the hump against Utah State. We have five them to propose to you today…

• UConn (-10.5) at UMass

  The Minutemen came to play last week at Georgia and covered that spread. In fact, they have been playing relatively well since the dismissal of Don Brown as head coach. The Model has consistently liked the Huskies this year based on their talent level being higher than may be perceived. Similarly, the Model has gone against UMass almost every week. This is one on the surface, I’d suggest staying away from, but, as we like to say here — the Model doesn’t have feelings or hold grudges. It simply likes UConn to RUN UMass out of their own high school stadium. The biggest edge (according to our handy ‘Game Card’) is in the trenches on the offensive line. UConn grades out well here and while they have played a pretty darn easy schedule overall, they have held their own in most games against opponents with a pulse - including Syracuse on the road last week. Model says…

• West Virginia at Texas Tech OVER 64.5 — view full ‘Game Card’ »

  There are plenty of reasons to like this over and not the least of which is just the fact that the Red Raiders are giving up massive amounts of chunk plays. They then run their own fast-paced offense to make up for it. Last week against Oklahoma State, they gave up 48 points. That same offense put up a goose egg against Colorado yesterday. Sure, there are some injury concerns on offense for the Mountaineers, but they have plenty of fire power to keep this one going back-and-forth to create a big-time, high-scoring affair. This line should be set in the 70’s - so the Model says to jump all over it…

• Arkansas at Missouri OVER 53 — view full ‘Game Card’ »

  Another OVER play here for the Model that sees this one becoming a bit of a back-and-forth affair with the Tigers coming out on top. What is interesting here is that we still have the Tigers’ defense ranked overall in the top 30. Mainly, because they have the talent, they just haven’t been tackling effectively and are giving up big plays. Bobby Petrino’s offense has begun to blossom with Taylen Green really taking a big leap forward (even getting to 17.0 rating at the site, putting him in the upper echelon of quarterbacks). The Razorbacks can stop the run if they sell out to do so but there are a couple playmakers on the outside for Mizzou that will then take advantage in Luther Burden III and Theo Wease. Ultimately, the game script will determine if this one actually hits — it needs to be a pass-heavy attack and avoid a slugfest like we saw with the Razorbacks a couple of weeks ago against Texas. If it complies…

• Texas at Texas A&M OVER 48.5 — view full ‘Game Card’ »

  Yet another SEC OVER and third in a row for the Models’ top plays here. This showdown rivalry continues and the Model sees it becoming a bit of a shootout. The primary reason is the propensity of A&M to give up explosive plays (ranked 101st) and Texas’ ability to generate them (17th). That should create a couple of quick scores and we also see Colin Klein’s A&M offense clicking and finding room against a really good Texas defense. One big injury to look at here is A&M CB Will Lee III who missed last week and is questionable to go in this one. Without him, these Texas wide receivers should show up and out all evening long. QB Quinn Ewers does have an injury concern, though he is probable to play - those ankle injuries can limit mobility in the pocket. Though, with that top-ranked pass protecting offensive line in front of him, he won’t need to do much scrambling, even with an opposing pass rush ranked 12th by our metrics. Again, game scrip willing…

• Virginia Tech (-7) vs. Virginia — view full ‘Game Card’ »

  The Model is picking on the ‘Hoos again here. This is another running theme and it paid off last week as Duke not only covered, but beat the Cavs straight up. Rivalry games tend to bring out the best in schools, as we know, but the Model does not put a lot of stock into that. It just sees a more talented Hokies team that would like to extend their season by reaching Bowl eligiblity — and force that team from Charlottesville to pack up their things and end the season. One note to watch is that both quarterbacks are banged up - Kyron Drones and now Collin Schlee - and questionable to play. If they have to go to the third-stringer in redshirt freshman William “Pop” Watson III, we could use a couple more points swing in our favor before locking this one in…

We have plenty of other 2-UNIT plays featured on our full “Tracker” and if you are a paid subscriber, you’ll see a link to that tracker to see all of the plays for this week here…