> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.bettorday.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Wednesday, November 11th, 2026 - URL: https://www.bettorday.com/wednesday-november-11th-2026/ - Published: 2026-11-11T11:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-11T11:00:01.000Z - Author: Scott Seidenberg - Tags: Newsletter ## NFL Trades & New CFB Playoff Rankings *Scott Seidenberg and David Bearman react to the NFL Trade Deadline and the latest College Football Playoff Rankings with a look at this weekend's games.* [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3d/8b/3d8b18a7-5597-46d3-a5fc-54ba849c80c9/content/images/2026/11/bettor-days.jpg)](https://bleav.com/shows/bettor-day/?ref=bettorday.com) Listen to today's Podcast episode and don't forget to subscribe! [Listen ](https://bleav.com/shows/bettor-day/?ref=bettorday.com) # πŸ”„ KIRK COUSINS GOES BACK TO MINNESOTA **The Raiders sent Cousins to the Vikings, reuniting him with Kevin O'Connell.** **Why Minnesota had to do it:** they have one of the best defenses in recent memory and the league's most frustrated star receiver, and they were wasting both. The offense was dreadful in the losses and dreadful in the wins β€” they beat Miami on **five field goals**, and that was with Kyler Murray healthy. Monday night was the breaking point. **Bearman's read:** Cousins probably isn't the best quarterback who was available, but he's the familiar one and the safe one. He knows the terminology, he's run this offense before, and the division has become an arms race where Detroit, Chicago and Green Bay all have real quarterbacks. > **"KOC is going to be out of excuses."** **He starts Sunday at Green Bay.** A short week after a trade sounds like a problem, but Cousins is 38, he's already played in this system, and there's no learning curve on terminology he's used before. **And the market has soured hard on Minnesota after Monday night β€” which is exactly why Scott thinks the Vikings may be a play this week.** **Bearman's framing: the Raiders are 4-5, and they don't have five losses because of Kirk Cousins.** He said and did everything right while the No. 1 overall pick stood behind him. --- # 🎰 FERNANDO MENDOZA TAKES OVER **The No. 1 overall pick gets his first start Sunday against Seattle.** Bearman pushed back on the idea that there's no soft landing here β€” **this is about as soft as the NFL gets.** Mendoza has had nine weeks to learn the offense, his teammates and the coaching staff, and he's inheriting a 4-5 team rather than being thrown in cold and watching his confidence get shredded on the way to 1-7. > **"If you'd set an over/under on when Mendoza would take over, the over would have hit. I'd have had him in there by week six at the latest."** **The realistic goal:** Bearman doesn't think Las Vegas makes the playoffs β€” the wild card picture ahead of them includes the Bengals, the Chiefs and the Browns–Patriots tiebreaker winner, and the Raiders are a game back. **But that's not the point.** Eight games, no pressure, and Mendoza is the 2027 starter regardless. Win two or three, play spoiler against the Chiefs and the Broncos, and the season has done its job. --- ## πŸ“ˆ THE SUPER BOWL MARKET AFTER THE DEADLINE | Kalshi | Yes | | ----------- | ------------------------------------- | | **49ers** | **Still the favorite** | | **Bills** | **14Β’** | | **Bears** | **12Β’** | | **Jaguars** | **11Β’** | | **Vikings** | **4Β’** *(up after the Cousins trade)* | **Jacksonville's deadline haul moved them up the board**, and notably they did **not** trade Brian Thomas Jr. A $100 position on the Jaguars at 11Β’ returns about **$855.** --- # ⭐ BEARMAN'S PLAY: DOLPHINS +3.5 AT INDIANAPOLIS **He wrote this up before the Colts spent deadline day selling the roster off β€” and the selloff only helped.** **The thing he couldn't explain:** Indianapolis was favored by more than a field goal, trading at **65% on Kalshi**, and he didn't understand it even before the trades. Quenton Nelson, DeForest Buckner and Josh Downs are all gone. The receivers who remain are names you haven't heard. **Daniel Jones and Jonathan Taylor stayed, but everyone in that locker room knows what's happening.** **He is not pretending Miami is good.** They're 1-7 for a reason, good teams win those games, and **Malik Willis going on IR is partly why they're 1-7 β€” he's been downright awful.** Moving to Kyle McCord is a downgrade on paper, from a quarterback who's been bad to one who's barely played. **But look at how the Dolphins lose.** They've been within a field goal of the Vikings and the Lions. They were winning at halftime against the Chiefs. They've competed with Detroit, San Francisco, Kansas City and New England. Young receivers, young running backs, and a defense that has kept them in essentially every game. **And look at how the Colts are losing.** They were 2-2\. They've lost five straight, badly. They lost to the Titans. Now they've lost half their roster. > **"This game simply means more for them than a Colts team that's already looking to the offseason."** --- # πŸ† THE SECOND CFP RANKINGS | | | | | | ------------------ | ------------- | ---------------- | ------------------- | | **1\. Georgia** | 6\. Texas | 11\. Kentucky | 16\. Oregon | | **2\. Utah** | **7\. Miami** | 12\. Texas Tech | 17\. South Carolina | | **3\. Alabama** | 8\. Tennessee | 13\. Wake Forest | 18\. USC | | **4\. UCLA** | 9\. Indiana | 14\. Houston | 19\. Ole Miss | | **5\. Notre Dame** | 10\. BYU | 15\. Iowa | 20\. Ohio State | **Notre Dame jumped from 11th to 5th. Miami fell from 1st to 7th. Ohio State sits 20th and is almost certainly finished.** ## ⭐ Bearman's objection is sharper this week, and it isn't about who's ranked where > **"What is the point of the first ranking, if all you're going to do the second time is admit you were wrong the first time?"** **His evidence is four teams that moved for reasons that have nothing to do with football:** | Team | What happened | Movement | | ------------ | -------------------------------------------- | ---------- | | **Indiana** | **Had a bye. Didn't play.** | **Down 5** | | **UCLA** | Won a Big Ten game they were supposed to win | **Up 4** | | **Kentucky** | Got blown out | **Down 5** | | **Miami** | Lost a one-score game to the No. 5 team | **Down 6** | **Read the first and third rows together:** Kentucky got blown out and dropped five. Indiana didn't play at all and dropped five. That's not a ranking responding to results β€” that's a committee quietly conceding it had Indiana too high to begin with, and that Miami's thin resume should have disqualified them from No. 1 under the exact standard being applied to UCLA, Notre Dame and Utah. > **"Instead of the committee actually having to explain things, they just make a new ranking the next week and embarrass themselves from the week before."** **His bottom line:** they'll course-correct every week until they pick the twelve, we'll hate it then and we hate it now β€” **"I'd rather the computers do it."** He also thinks Ohio State shouldn't be ranked at all, let alone 20th, and the same for LSU at 21st. --- # πŸ—³οΈ THE 24-TEAM PLAYOFF β€” AND A FIX WORTH READING **The SEC is scrapping its conference championship game**, on the logic that an expanded playoff makes it meaningless. > **"They know nobody wants this. They've admitted nobody wants this. Other than money and greed, there's no reason. You just lost the only fun thing."** **And next year we'll be arguing about the 24th team instead of the 12th, with four-loss SEC teams in the field.** ## ⭐⭐ SCOTT'S SOLUTION: PICK THE FIELD *AFTER* THE BOWL GAMES **This is the idea worth taking seriously, and Bearman endorsed it on air.** **How it works:** 1. **Play the conference championship games.** They stay, and they matter. 2. **Play the traditional bowl games** with their traditional tie-ins β€” Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Orange, etc. 3. **The bowls are elimination games.** Big 10 Champ in the Rose Bowl on New Year's Day vs whoever: the winner is in the playoff, and the loser is done. SEC champion vs. Big 12 champion in the Sugar Bowl, winner advances. 4. **After New Year's Day, select four teams** for a semifinal and a final. Or even just two. **What it fixes:** - **The bowl games become relevant again** β€” which means players stop opting out and the ratings come back - **Teams get eliminated on the field instead of in a hotel ballroom** - **No three- or four-loss teams backing into a playoff** - **The season doesn't get any longer than it already is** > **Bearman: "I've heard thirty-five different dumb ideas over my time listening to college football people. I think that works. I like it."** --- # 🏈 SATURDAY'S BOARD ## ⭐⭐ TWO SYSTEM PLAYS **A reminder of what the System is:** two ranked teams, and **the inferior-ranked team is favored over the superior-ranked team.** | Game | Line | | ------------------------------------------ | ----------------------- | | **#21 LSU over #6 Texas** | **LSU βˆ’4** | | **#25 Oklahoma State over #12 Texas Tech** | **Oklahoma State βˆ’3.5** | | The System since the start of 2021 | | | ---------------------------------- | ----------------- | | **Straight up** | **67-26 β€” 72%** | | **Against the spread** | **58-34-1 β€” 63%** | **Scott is considering backing both. Bearman prefers Oklahoma State:** he doesn't think Texas Tech is as good as an 8-1 record suggests β€” they should have lost a couple of games already β€” and Oklahoma State is a good home team laying only a field goal and a hook. **On LSU–Texas, he wants it and can't quite commit.** He's been wrong on Texas repeatedly this season, in both directions. He had Missouri last week and lost, though as he points out, Missouri led late in the second half before deciding not to play the fourth quarter. > **"Do I have faith that Arch Manning is going to go into Death Valley and beat LSU at night? Not really."** ### πŸ“Š And the supporting number: LSU at home in primetime | LSU, home, 7 p.m. kickoff or later | SU | ATS | | ---------------------------------- | -------- | --------- | | **Since 2021** | **23-3** | **13-13** | **Read that carefully, because it cuts both ways.** Winning in Death Valley at night is genuinely hard β€” the straight-up number is overwhelming. **But the ATS record is a coin flip**, which means the market already knows. If you're playing LSU here, you're playing them because of the System and the matchup, not because of the primetime record. ## Georgia βˆ’15.5 vs. #22 Missouri β€” **not on upset alert** **Bearman is unambiguous: Georgia is the best team in the country.** The Auburn loss was a hiccup, and in the modern expanded-conference era, good teams simply lose a game β€” undefeated seasons in the SEC are close to extinct. **What's different about this Georgia team versus the last two that lost their first playoff game: the defense.** > **"Last year's Georgia team gave up forty-plus to Ole Miss in the regular season and again in the playoff. This Georgia team shut them out last week."** **Best defense in the country, paired with an offense scoring more than anybody's.** He'll decide on the 15.5 later in the week, but he's not worried about the result. ### πŸ“Š Scott's database pull on the new No. 1 **Four different No. 1 teams have already lost this season** β€” Ohio State to Texas, Texas to Oklahoma, Georgia to Auburn, Miami to Notre Dame. So the question is fair. **The answer is that the first week at No. 1 is historically very safe:** | Teams in their first game as the new No. 1, since 2016 | | | ------------------------------------------------------ | -------- | | **Straight up** | **18-2** | | **ATS** | **15-5** | **The only two losses in a decade: Georgia to Auburn this year, and Alabama to Vanderbilt in 2024.** **Georgia already used theirs.** ## Utah at #23 Arizona β€” **the game Bearman is most curious about** **The new No. 2 team goes on the road to a ranked opponent and lays less than a field goal.** No play yet, but he flagged it as the most intriguing spot on the board: the No. 2 slot has been trouble all season, and this is the kind of game that decides whether Utah's rise is real. ## Miami βˆ’13.5 vs. Duke β€” **pass** The Darian Mensah revenge game? **Bearman expects Miami to win** β€” more talent, and they did win the second half against Notre Dame β€” but Duke has outperformed expectations and 13.5 is a lot. **"I wouldn't want to lay the thirteen and a half."** Not an upset alert, just not a bet. --- ## πŸ“… Coming Up **Betting with Bearman** publishes a double edition this afternoon β€” the **NFL Week 10 lookahead**, the **Thursday night Giants–Commanders pick**, and a look at the **futures portfolio.** Friday brings the full NFL prop, side and total board plus the college football card. **He's on SportsGrid Saturday morning, 10 to 12.** Everything at **BearmanBets.com.** ### πŸ—“οΈ College Basketball HQ launches November 16 for Feast Week **NBA HQ** is live with the new matchup analysis on player props. **BettorDay Fall Special:** $25 off your first month of Premium. | πŸ‚ The Fall Special πŸ‚ $25 off your first month of Premium Every sport in season, every pick, every HQ. 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