The hands of the Big Clock continue their revolution with Week Eight in the rearview mirror our focus is squarely on the battle against the oddsmaker and his numbers in Week Nine. Before we actually take aim on Week Nine we must review last week’s system and the qualifying contest. Last week our play ON team in the System of the Week was the Western Michigan Broncos minus the 23 points against the Eastern Michigan Eagles. The Broncos did win the game straight up but failed to cover the spread with a final score of 45 to 31.

With that loss our NCAA Football System of the Week record now stands at 5-1-1 ATS on the season. We look to shake off that loss and return to the winning side of the ledger this week with a system that has been 100 percent perfect against the spread since the beginning of our database in 1980. After all of our research and handicapping we narrowed the systems list and came up with two systems to choose from for last week’s System of the Week. One was used here playing on Western Michigan and the other qualified Penn State plus the points against their hated Big 10 rival Ohio State. In that game the Penn State Nittany Lions pulled off a major upset defeating the Ohio State Buckeyes 24 to 21 as nineteen point home underdogs. We used Penn State as one of our Late Phone Selections in their game versus Ohio State last Saturday. The reason we mention that game here it forms the basis of our system research this week. As we began our research on this week’s college card we wanted to know how teams respond after pulling off a major upset like Penn State did in their White Out. Would these teams continue to play at a high level or would the momentum and emotion from that win have completely dissipated by this week. Instead of a White Out this week they Black Out. What we found after pulling off a major upset as an underdog of at least two touchdowns, road favorites of less than three touchdowns have been physically and emotionally flat. The system increases in value when these road favorites are facing an opponent that is coming off a straight up loss. What happens in this situation these road favorites overlook their opponent and fail to cover the spread.

The system reads Play AGAINST a road favorite of 1 to 20 points coming off a SU win as an underdog of fourteen or more points in their last game and not a shutout SU win before that versus an opponent off a SU loss of less than forty-nine points in their last game. These road favorites have been very predictable posting a record of 0-20 ATS failing to cover the spread by an average of -11.53 points per game. This system has only been active twenty times since the beginning of our powerful database which dates to the 1980 college football season. The Penn State Nittany Lions at the Purdue Boilermakers matchup on Saturday is a qualifying contest in our system. We have already mentioned the Penn State upset of Ohio State and now the last part of our system states the opponent must be coming off a straight up loss in their last game. Purdue was on the road at Nebraska last Saturday and lost 27 to 14 as 24-point road underdogs. The loss by Purdue meets the final system requirement for it to be active. With the system parameters met this week’s Cajun Sports Wire NCAA Football System of the Week calls for a play against the Penn State Nittany Lions on the road at the Purdue Boilermakers. The oddsmakers opened Penn State as a 10.5 point road favorite and the public jumped on that number and bet it up to Penn State -13.5. We have not seen any buy back momentum during the week in fact there are a few shops with Penn State -14.0 as late as Friday. This could be a situation where you wait closer to game time and possibly get another point or we could see some buy back momentum closer to game time. We highly doubt that with all indicators projecting this line closing in the current price range. We will take the points with the Boilermakers as they force a Black Out on the Lions in West Lafayette on Saturday. Have a great weekend and as always good luck.