Under stand: Winners and losers from an NFL and college football betting standpoint

A football league presumably never wants to draw parallels to the original XFL season of 2001, but at least one anecdote from the first iteration of the alternative spring league applies to the 2022 NFL campaign. 

Sportsbooks were confounded setting game totals. The XFL over/under lines were almost never low enough to match the offensive struggles of 2001 XFL games.

Heading into Week 7, NFL unders hit in 61% of all contests, a staggering mark that the Action Network reports marked the highest win percentage for the league since 1994. 

While unders cooled somewhat in Week 7 games through Sunday, going 7-6 after a remarkable 10-4 mark in Week 6, bettors leaning on the under remain ahead. And those contests ending below the number in Week 7 were mostly well short of the point total. 

More than half of the seven fell at least two touchdowns short of the over/under at FoxBet:  

• Miami Dolphins 16, Pittsburgh Steelers 10 (O/U 45) 
• Dallas Cowboys 24, Detroit Lions 6 (O/U 49.5) 
• Carolina Panthers 21, Tampa Bay Buccaneers 3 (O/U 39.5) 
• New York Jets 16, Denver Broncos 9 (O/U 37) 
• Tennessee Titans 19, Indianapolis Colts 10 (O/U 43

The offensive ineptitude of the Buccaneers and Broncos has become staggering.

Not only are those betting unders exclusively on either team 6-1 for the season, but Tampa Bay is an average of 12.6 points below the total in its six under outcomes. And none were closer than 8.5 per Caesars odds. 

Denver games are scoring an average of 16.3 points under per game via Caesars, and none of the six have come closer than 10.5 points below the number.

Movement with McCaffrey?

The San Francisco 49ers lost a 20-17 heartbreaker in last season’s NFC Championship against a divisional rival, the Los Angeles Rams, that beefed up its roster midseason with bold moves. Perhaps following that template, 49ers brass went all-in on 2022 with a package of 2023 and 2024 draft picks traded to Carolina for running back Christian McCaffrey. 

McCaffrey’s debut was promising, producing 38 yards rushing and a pair of catches for 24 yards just three days after the deal. However, a defense that came into Sunday’s matchup with the Kansas City Chiefs allowing just 14.8 points per game surrendered 44. After holding each of their first five opponents to a combined 61 points with none posting more than 19, the 49ers have allowed a combined 72 in the past two weeks. 

San Francisco now sits a game below .500 and at the bottom of the NFC West, even with the Arizona Cardinals.

The margin is negligible, however: the division-leading Seattle Seahawks are just 4-3.

Should McCaffrey work into the offense as hoped and the current defensive dip prove temporary, the 49ers’ +1600 odds for the Super Bowl at PointsBet -- a minor bump from the +1700 at which they were prior to Thursday’s trade -- the 49ers offer serious value. 

Big men on campus 

Week 8 proved a good time to be among the top-ranked teams in college football -- for bettors, at least. 

Squads ranked No. 14 or better in the Oct. 17 AP Top 25 finished 8-3 against the spread in Week 8, with two of those losses coming against other highly ranked teams. In those instances, 7-point underdog and No. 9-ranked UCLA failed to cover the spread at No. 10-ranked Oregon in a 45-30 loss, while No. 5 Clemson’s second-half comeback to beat No. 14 Syracuse, 27-21, was not enough to cover the Tigers’ 14-point number. 

The only other top-ranked team that failed to cover in Week 8, Ole Miss, was one-point under in its 45-20 loss to LSU. But Oklahoma State -- 11th-ranked and an underdog in its own right vs. No. 20 Texas -- more than covered the 6.5-point spread; the Cowboys rallied from down two touchdowns to win outright, 41-34. 

Fellow Big 12 Conference championship contender TCU mounted a similar comeback from down 28-10 to Kansas State. The Horned Frogs’ 28 unanswered points didn’t just power still-undefeated TCU to a win on the scoreboard; it was also a win for Frogs bettors who had Sonny Dykes’ team at 3.5-point favorites. 

After knocking off quick-starting Kansas, TCU is now among favorites to win the Big 12, ranging from +115 via Caesars to +250 via BetMGM. 

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