Last week we concluded a very successful regular season with another winning week that brought our seasonal record to 25-12.  The key to this run was being extremely selective in our play selection (I took several weeks off where my leans were not very strong) and to try to find teams primed to go on either a positive or negative run (Thanks to Florida State for consistently struggling!).  There are still a handful of ACC games remaining, and I look forward to trying to find a way to profit on both the ACC Title game and the bowl games that feature ACC teams.  Most ACC plays will be posted here, and all of my plays will be posted to my twitter account.  As always, good luck to everyone and thanks for reading!

ACC Title Game

Florida State Seminoles -4 Risking 1.05 units to win 1 unit

Florida State Team Total Over 33 Risking 0.55 units to win 0.5 units

Florida State has really had an unbelievable season, it isn’t a great surprise with all that talent that they wound up going undefeated, but it is a great surprise the way they did it.  Florida State seemed content to do “just enough” each week to eek out a win.  Vegas obviously had a tough time adjusting their expectations for this team, as the Seminoles were a miserable 3-8 ATS this season, with all three of those ATS wins coming on very late frontdoor covers where they scored with under 5 minutes to go to get ahead of the number for the first time in the game.

In fact, FSU has spent very little time covering at all this season.  I did some quick math by combing through their box scores for their FBS games, and the Seminoles have only been covering the vegas number for 16 minutes and 9 seconds this year (in 660 minutes played).  That adds up to a team who has only been covering 2.44% of the time this year!

So why back them today?  I look at this match-up as a pretty decent one for the Noles.  They’ve already seen an option based attack this season (The Citadel) and though that wasn’t a very strong opponent it was a chance for the coaching staff to implement some of the principles that are necessary to succeed against the flexbone offense (namely, to stay in your lane and to remain dedicated to assignment football at all costs).  Georgia Tech has been a play-on team for me all season because the books have done a poor job adjusting to just how good this offense really is (my 8th ranked team in total offense) but I feel like they have finally gotten the line right and eliminated any line value for the Jackets.  We also could argue that this is a relatively flat spot for Georgia Tech today as they just beat rival Georgia for only the 2nd time in the last 14 tries (the last time they did it they went on to lose their bowl game 38-3).

The achilles heel of this Georgia Tech team has been their defense all season long.  The Jackets bring my 89th ranked defense into this game, and it’s a unit that has some scary rankings in what I think are some very key statistics.  While the Jackets overall metrics aren’t that bad they are heavily biased by their ability to control time of possession and limit opponents opportunities to make plays.   The Jackets rank 98th in defensive yards per play, 86th in explosive plays percentage & 117th in opponents 3rd down percentage.  My efficiency stats also point to a team who has struggled mightily on defense vs decent offenses; I rank them 70th against the pass and 92nd vs the run this season.  Florida State has struggled relative to expectations on offense this year, but by my math this is the lowest ranked defense they have faced all season. While it doesn’t help that FSU lost starting RB Karlos Williams to a concussion this week, running back is an extremely deep position for the Noles and I think this game sets up nicely for freshman sensation Dalvin Cook to have a big game.  I expect that FSU is going to be able to move the football all day long here.

Like I said before, this Georgia Tech team has been winning with offense all year.  That GT is a top 5 team in rushing efficiency is no surprise,but it may surprise you to know that they are also a pretty solid passing team (#36 by my numbers).  Georgia Tech has been excellent at ball control this season as they are the number one team in the country in 3rd down conversion % (58%) and are 3rd in TOP per game (averaging around 34 minutes and 30 seconds of possession a game).  Though they have been very good at controlling games this year I expect that they will have a hard time today, FSU has an very good run defense (#12 by my rankings) and will likely be greatly aided by the absence of GT wideout DeAndre Smelter.  While GT runs the ball most of the time when they do through it Smelter has been key (roughly 40% of the passing offense goes through him).  For Georgia Tech to be able to truly click on all cylinders offensively FSU has to be kept off balance by the threat of the passing game, and I just think that it will be very difficult for Georgia Tech to keep them honest.  Florida State has a massive edge in athletic ability, and if they don’t have to respect the passing game as much as they might have with Smelter it just makes it easier to creep up on the line and be in better position to win at the line of scrimmage.  Georgia Tech has to control the ball today to have a shot at winning, but I think they have a very difficult time doing this.

The non-stop comparisons to last season combined with Florida State’s miserable ATS performance this year has destroyed people’s perception of what this team really is.  This is still a very good team who have struggled with an unbelievable amount of distractions and have constantly found ways to win games where they struggled mightily.  Their QB has been very banged up through most of the season, but with the Seminoles finally in position to clinch a playoff spot today I expect them to be extremely focused and dialed in for what I believe to be a very good match-up for them.  Give me the much more talented (and well-rounded) team laying a small number in a spot where they can silence their myriad doubters and spend the next month getting their QB healthy for the play-offs.  I think they get it done today, and I don’t expect it to be that close.  FSU 38 Georgia Tech 14