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Before The Snap: College football predictions, picks against the spread for top Week 3 games

Before The Snap analyzes the top games of the week and adds some predictions.

Welcome to Before The Snap, For The Win’s college football series where we’ll break down the sport’s trending storylines, examine each week’s biggest matchups and track the College Football Playoff and Heisman Trophy races.

Early in the college football season, blowouts are expected, and Week 2 had plenty of those.

But for the more competitive games, last weekend did not disappoint with Notre Dame sneaking away with a win over Toledo, Texas A&M surviving Colorado, Arkansas rocking Texas and a couple big upsets — like Oregon beating Ohio State and Stanford taking down USC, which led to Clay Helton’s overdue firing.

Plus a rescued cat!

There’s no guarantee Week 3 will be just as exciting, but there are a handful of good matchups to watch, including three games between top-25 teams.

Here’s some key info about the games we broke down with predictions in the latest episode of Before The Snap, with betting info provided by Tipico Sportsbook as of Wednesday.

Stream live college football games every week this season from conferences across the country on ESPN+.

No. 1 Alabama at No. 11 Florida

When: Saturday, Sept. 18, 3:30 p.m. ET
Where: Gainesville, Fla.
Channel: CBS
O/U: 59.5
Spread: Alabama -14.5

No. 22 Auburn at No. 10 Penn State

When: Saturday, Sept. 18, 7:30 p.m. ET
Where: University Park, Penn.
Channel: ABC
O/U: 52.5
Spread: Penn State -6.5

No. 19 Arizona State at No. 23 BYU

When: Saturday, Sept. 18, 10:15 p.m. ET
Where: Provo, Utah
Channel: ESPN
O/U: 51.1
Spread: Arizona State -3.5

Virginia at No. 21 UNC

When: Saturday, Sept. 18, 7:30 p.m. ET
Where: Chapel Hill, N.C.
Channel: ACCN
O/U: 65.5
Spread: UNC -8.5

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Gannett may earn revenue from Tipico for audience referrals to betting services. Tipico has no influence over nor are any such revenues in any way dependent on or linked to the newsrooms or news coverage. See Tipico.comfor Terms and Conditions. 21+ only. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ), 1-800-522-4700(CO).

Before The Snap: Latest Heisman odds with Alabama QB Bryce Young as the favorite going into Week 3

Before The Snap breaks down the latest Heisman odds with Bryce Young’s stock on the rise.

This week, Before The Snap was joined by Caroline Darney, the managing editor for our newly launched site, BetFTW, For The Win’s home for sports betting and fantasy coverage. So this week, we’re all about the odds.

Specifically, let’s look at the 2021 Heisman Trophy race. Now, it’s early in the season, but that’s never stopped the college football world from speculating and debating about anything really.

Going into Week 1 of the season, Oklahoma quarterback Spencer Rattler was the Heisman favorite — followed by Clemson quarterback D.J. Uiagalelei and Alabama quarterback Bryce Young — but as FiveThirtyEight previously noted, just once in the last 12 years has the player favored in the first week ended up winning it.

Stream live college football games every week this season from conferences across the country on ESPN+.

After the first two weeks of college football, Rattler has dropped to the third-best odds to win the Heisman (+900), as of Wednesday according to Tipico Sportsbook.

And ahead of him are now-favorite Young (+185) and Ole Miss passer Matt Corral (+450), and the top-3 players are followed by Liberty quarterback Malik Willis (+1300), Cincinnati quarterback Desmond Ridder (+1500) and Uiagalelei, Georgia quarterback J.T. Daniels and Ohio State quarterback C.J. Stroud — all at +2000.

Here’s a brief look at how the top-3 favorites have played so far this season.

Bryce Young +185

Week 1 Heisman odds: +750
Completion percentage: 70.8
Yards/pass: 8.8
TDs: 7
INTs: 0
Sacks: 2

Matt Corral +450

Week 1 Heisman odds: +2000
Completion percentage: 66.2
Yards/pass: 10.2
TDs: 6
INTs: 0
Sacks: 4

Spencer Rattler +900

Week 1 Heisman odds: +550
Completion percentage: 76.9
Yards/pass: 8.4
TDs: 6
INTs: 2
Sacks: 2

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Week 1 fantasy football studs, duds and sleepers: Is Elijah Mitchell really going to be the 49ers’ RB1?

Our starts and sits for Week 2

Week 2 of the 2021 NFL season is about to kick off on Thursday with a matchup between the New York Giants and Washington Football Team.

As always, we’re here to help with your weekly decisions with our fantasy lineup advice. Each week, we give you the studs (players with plus matchups due to the defense they’re facing or their team situation), duds (players with tougher matchups or who are in muddled roster situations at the moment) and sleepers (a player you might consider starting who could be in for a big week).

Here are the names we’ve got for Week 2, and as we always say, good luck!!

Soccer bettor amazingly turns $66 into $11,250 on 12-leg soccer bet

Wowwwww!

We just saw a 14-leg parlay full of unders on a bunch of college football games hit last week.

And now? Here’s 12 legs, all money-line round-robin bets on a group of soccer games, with some MLS contests, some from the USL Championship league and more.

The bettor on Tipico Sportsbook took (deep breath) the Revolution, Inter Miami, Club America, Charlotte Independence, Phoenix Rising, Pittsburgh Riverhounds, Indy Eleven, Orange County Soccer Club, El Paso Locomotive, Tampa Bay Rowdies, Orlando Pride and Union Omaha.

The payoff? After an investment of $66, the bettor won $11,250. A seriously impressive performance that deserves a reward like that.

Gannett may earn revenue from Tipico for audience referrals to betting services. Tipico has no influence over nor are any such revenues in any way dependent on or linked to the newsrooms or news coverage. See Tipico.com for Terms and Conditions. 21+ only. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (NJ), 1-800-522-4700 (CO).

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49ers bettors suffered the worst bad beat with the Lions coming back for a backdoor cover

Oof.

If you bet the San Francisco 49ers would cover what would end up being a pretty large spread against the Detroit Lions — ahem, some of us thought it would be a blowout — my apologies.

Because, oof, what happened in Week 1 on Sunday to Niners bettors — who might have had the spread at -9.5 — was rough as heck.

With two minutes left in the game, San Francisco was up 41-25. It was all over, right? An easy cover and an easy win.

But not quite! With 1:53 left, Jamaal Williams found the end zone to make it a 41-25 game. There’s no way an onside kick could be recovered, not in today’s NFL, right?

Oops. The ball went off of George Kittle’s facemask:

Still fighting 😤#Lions with the onside kick recovery#SFvsDET | 📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/sRxAvkwTtb

— Detroit Lions (@Lions) September 12, 2021

And then? They scored again and nailed a two-point conversion:

We have our first absolutely ridiculous backdoor cover of the season. Lions (+9.5) recovered an onside kick, scored this TD and made the 2-point conversion vs. 49ers.

16 points for Lions in last 2 minutes. pic.twitter.com/frjjrzkJHU

— Jeff Eisenband (@JeffEisenband) September 12, 2021

The final score: 41-33. If you bet Niners -9.5 … I’m so sorry.

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A fantasy football guide to the messy Ravens running back group after Gus Edwards’ injury

Who’s going to be the RB1 here?

First, it was J.K. Dobbins going down for the year with a torn ACL.

Then it was Justice Hill who tore his Achilles.

On Thursday, we learned Gus Edwards tore his ACL. Geez.

After a few RB signings, there’s a whole lot of chaos and uncertainty surrounding the entire Baltimore Ravens running backs group. So although you’ve probably already made your waiver moves to grab some of the names now on the roster, I’m going to take a try at figuring out how this is all going to shake out, mostly in case you want to trade for/away some of the guys in this situation.

The 6 best darkhorse AFC bets to make before the 2021 season

Some underrated picks for a Super Bowl appearance.

As NFL opening day — THURSDAY NIGHT! — approaches, we’re running through some of the best bets you can make on players and teams this season before Week 1 so you can maximize value.

After our Super Bowl picks, MVP choices and NFC darkhorse selections, we’re focusing next on the underrated AFC teams who could pay off big for you, with odds courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook.

Our list of possible squads who could surprise and reach Super Bowl LVI includes one squad with a second-year QB and yes, we had to go with the Patriots as another one.

Here’s our breakdown of our favorite picks:

NFL picks against the spread, Week 1: Can the Browns cover against the Chiefs?

Here are our Week 1 picks.

We’re on to Week 1 in the NFL (!!!!), with the first game of the 2021 season being played on Thursday between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Dallas Cowboys. That means it’s time once again for our weekly look at the point spreads in order to help you win some money.

Last year, Charles Curtis went a dismal 111-124-7, and this year, we’re bringing in Charles McDonald to make some picks too.

We now go to each of them for comments before their picks.

Charles C: It’s an all-Charles picks party! Maybe that means people won’t actually know how bad I am this year because they’ll be so confused by all the Charleses (or is it Charlesi?).

Charles M: I’m coming for souls this year. One Charles to rule them all!

(All bets courtesy of Tipico Sportsbook.)