Week 4 Card: 4 Games, 4 Plays
(4-0 last week — 12-5 YTD) We swept the board in our Week 3 Free Play article, brining us to 12-5 on the year. Let's carry that momentum into this Saturday's card.
Four games this week and four plays. Let's get into it.
1. Notre Dame at Purdue
2:00 pm Eastern · Peacock · Ross-Ade Stadium · (Notre Dame -27.5 / 58.5)
Over 58 -110 Fanatics · (Still good at 58.5) MY FAVORITE PLAY OF THE DAY
Purdue games are track meets and nobody has adjusted to it yet. 63 points in the opener, 74 against Wake Forest, then 90 last week at UCLA. Three games, three overs, and the number keeps climbing.
The Boilermakers have scored at least 36 every time out while giving up 19, then 38, then 52. The offense keeps producing and the defense is going the wrong way, which is exactly the combination you want on an over.
Notre Dame is laying nearly four touchdowns, so they're going to be scoring. And take that seriously for a second: a 58.5 total with the Irish laying 27 implies Notre Dame around 43 and Purdue around 15. Purdue hasn't scored fewer than 36 all season. The market is asking you to believe this offense gets held to a third of what it's done every week so far.
History: Purdue is 3-0 to the over. Their three games produced 63, 74 and 90 against closing totals of 56, 50.5 and 52.5 — an average of nearly 76 points against numbers averaging 53. Last week's 52-38 at UCLA cleared the close by 37.5.
The risk: Purdue hasn't played a defense like this one. Wake Forest and UCLA are not Notre Dame, and the Irish have been the best defensive team on my board all year. If Notre Dame holds Purdue to 17 and wins 38-17, that's a comfortable cover, a blowout, and an under — all at once. Every number in that history block was produced against opponents who couldn't stop anybody.
2. South Carolina at Alabama
7:00 pm Eastern · ESPN · Bryant-Denny Stadium · (Alabama −12.5 / 54.5)
Alabama team total OVER 33.5 -122 Fanduel
I like the Alabama half of this number better than the game total. South Carolina's offense is the part I'm not sure about — they hung 57 on Kent State and 45 on Towson, then managed 34 against the first real defense they ran into. I don't want my ticket depending on them showing up.
Alabama I'm sure about. 48 against East Carolina, 45 at Kentucky, 50 on Florida State last week. Their worst offensive day of the season is still 11.5 points clear of this number. And South Carolina has been there to be scored on — the one time they faced a real offense, Mississippi State put 41 on them.
History: Alabama has scored 45 or more in every game — 48, 45, 50. The team total is 33.5. South Carolina has allowed 0, 9 and 41; the 41 came from the only SEC offense they've seen.
The risk: I flagged this game in Tuesday's column as the biggest total move on the board — DraftKings took it from 46.5 on the 16th to 54.5 by Sunday night. Eight points. So I'm not buying a stale number here; I'm buying after the market has already agreed with me, and buying a team total instead of the game total is how I'm trying to get some of that back.
3. Ole Miss at Florida
3:30 pm Eastern · ABC · Ben Hill Griffin Stadium · (Florida −3.5 /58.5)
Over 58.5 -112 BetMGM
I'm expecting a shootout. Florida just went to Auburn and won 44-39 — 83 points — and opened the season hanging 66 on Florida Atlantic in an 87-point game. Two of their three have produced 83 or more.
Ole Miss started the year in a 41-38 game with Louisville that went 79. A close SEC game between two teams separated by a field goal is exactly the spot where both of these teams have already shown they'll get into a track meet.
Take the 58.5 at BetMGM rather than the 59.5. That full point matters on a number this size.
History: Florida is 2-1 to the over with games of 87 and 83. Ole Miss opened with a 79-point game against Louisville — 24 clear of the close.
The risk: I'm cherry-picking Ole Miss and I should say so. Their opener went 79. Their other two went 50 against Charlotte and 56 against LSU — and I wrote that LSU game up as an under at this exact same 58.5 last week, and it cashed. One shootout out of three isn't a track-meet team; it's a team that had one track meet. What I'm actually betting is Florida's pace plus a close game, and if Ole Miss plays the way it did against LSU, I'm on the wrong side of my own argument from seven days ago.
Also worth knowing: this total has already climbed three points since September 16, per Tuesday's board.
4. Wisconsin at Penn State
5:00 pm Eastern · Peacock · Beaver Stadium · (Penn State -10 / 44.5)
Wisconsin +10 -105 BetMGM · ONLY AT +10 OR BETTER
This is the first test Penn State has had all year, and I want the double digit before the number gets away. Marshall, Temple and Buffalo is the schedule so far, and the Temple game was a 27-9 grind. Nothing about those three afternoons tells you what this team is when somebody hits back.
Wisconsin has won two straight by a combined 71 points. The number opened at Penn State −11.5 and it's already down to −10, which tells you which way this is drifting.
History: Penn State's three wins came against Marshall, Temple and Buffalo. The spread has come down a point and a half since it opened, moving toward Wisconsin the whole way.
The risk: Wisconsin's schedule deserves the same scrutiny I just gave Penn State's. Two wins by 71 combined is a real number only if it came against real teams, Western Illinois & Eastern Michigan aren't it, and this is a program that scored 12.8 a game last season. There's also a version where Penn State has been bored for three weeks and this is the game it wakes up for.
Jake Novakovich is a contributor to Bettor Day. You can follow him on X @CashOnSaturdays. Lines move: re-check before you play. Check out our FREE ODDS PAGE
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