FiveDimes recently released over/under regular season win totals for college football teams.
Here is an early-season look at Baylor in the Big 12.
Over/Under
FiveDimes has Baylor at 10 wins. Last year, Baylor was 11-1 in the regular season. The line features a more favorable over to betters at +120, while the under is set at -160.
The upside
Baylor came up just short of making the inaugural college football playoff in 2014 with 11 wins and share of the Big 12 title. Now, this year, the Bears enter 2015 as one of four teams with an over/under set at double digits.
Oddsmakers are heavily favoring the Bears to go under at -160, but bettors backing the Bears shouldn’t have to worry about the first part of the season. Baylor starts with at SMU, Lamar, Rice, Texas Tech, at Kansas, West Virginia and Iowa State during the first seven games. Use a pen to mark in seven wins.
Then, the meat of the schedule happens, and projected new quarterback Seth Russell will be tested for the first time during the 2015 season.
The downside
The next part of the Bears schedule will determine whether Baylor can get over 10 wins. Already with seven wins, Baylor will then have to face at Kansas State, Oklahoma, at Oklahoma State, at TCU and Texas.
There’s no doubt that Baylor will be a hot name going into the game at Kansas State. And the Bears have had good showings against Kansas State recently, beating the Wildcats three consecutive years.
It’s not just Kansas State, though. The final five games include three road games, the Bears will likely be favored in two of them (at TCU would be the likely game the Bears won’t be the favorite), but the edge will only be slight at Kansas State and possibly Oklahoma State, depending on how well the Cowboys bounce back from last year.
And the two games with Oklahoma and Texas won’t be easy, either, and the fact that those five games happen in a short amount of time, shows there’s plenty of reasons why oddsmakers chose to juice the under at such a high rate.
The Verdict
There’s no doubt the safest pick is to go with the under. Sure, the Bears will get seven wins right away, but believing Baylor will escape that final five-game stretch with only one blemish may be too unrealistic. There’s not near as much money in the under, but that’s by far the safest pick.
