By Marc Lawrence — As we’ve emphasized on this report, Playbook Expert Joe Nelson insists that glancing at the scoreboard won’t tell you the whole story in most games. There are some of the games that went down to the wire relative to the spread in the fourth quarter last week in the first weekend of October in college football. Each week there are several teams that cover despite not necessarily deserving it, as well as other teams that played much better than the final score shows, such as: SMU went from the underdog to the favorite in this game and that shift appeared accurate with a 24-3 edge early in the second quarter. However Memphis would rally with back-to-back long touchdown drives and a 56-yard field goal before halftime to trail by only four. The Tigers eventually led late in the game and were driving with under three minutes to go but QB Brady White fumbled on a sack. SMU recovered and was able to convert a 3rd-and-11 to set-up a game winning field goal with nine seconds left. To read more on Saturday’s 4Q covers click here.
Trending Today
Safe to say the Cleveland Browns offense has caught fire with 118 points in its last three games. Cleveland delivered one of the most impressive offensive performances in franchise history, pounding out– with star RB Nick Chubb sidelined for almost three quarters.. They also put up 31 points in the first half, their most before halftime since 1991. With three touchdowns, including a game-clinching TD run, Odell Beckham was electric. Quarterback Baker Mayfield was efficient and avoided mistakes. However, as coach Kevin Stefanski noted, there is a lot of season left to play. Still as the title of one of my favorite Bruce Springsteen tunes goes, the theme song in the Browns lock room these days is surely “I’m On Fire.”
Grinding Out The Profits
From this week’s PLAYBOOK FOOTBALL NEWSLETTER: The Carolina Panthers will bring some gaudy stats into Sunday’s contest at Atlanta, including this gem from our well-oiled machine: The Panthers are 18-3 SU and 17-4 ATS as underdogs when coming off an underdog win, including 8-0 SUATS in the last eight games. Whew!
