College Football Betting: Three Things To Know Heading Into Week 6 of the 2022 Season

Saturday was almost a disaster for the Prospector household. The Georgia Bulldogs were in full swing meltdown against Missouri, doing their best impression of… well, the Georgia Bulldogs, and my third generation UGA grad wife was none too pleased. As I sat there praying to any higher power that they would win, it seemed like an almost helpless endeavor as the Dawgs refused to play anything even resembling good football.

Fortunately for me, and for anyone holding a UGA futures ticket, the Dawgs pulled off the comeback with some impressive adjustment on offense in the second half to counter the pressure Mizzou was bringing. It was a testament to survival, where Kirby had to make the right decisions to potentially save his team’s season, and you have to tip your cap to them for pulling it off. And, more importantly, I have to thank him for avoiding weeks of justified anger from Mrs. Prospector.

With that, we can move on to our three things to know, with a well designed transition to our first item…

1. Recruiting is Only Half the Battle

One of the things that makes it so hard to build a great college program is the fact that you have to excel at two entirely distinct jobs. You need to bring in the really good players, then you need to coach them well. And, while it might sound straight forward, good players don't necessarily make for good teams.

No man embodies that idea more than good old Jimbo Fisher, who has run top level recruiting at A&M into the ground (or lower, honestly, ground seems fairly nice) by being one of the dumbest human beings on planet earth. Venables also appears to be learning the same lesson at Oklahoma (though the jury is still out there, he needs time). Bringing in top level talent is a threshold to building a team capable of winning a title, but this isn't basketball where talent alone can carry you. Amazing recruiting can repeatedly fail to live up to expectations if you don't do the right things, and coaching makes all the difference (which is why Alabama has literally sold its soul to Nick Saban)

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2. The Herd is Thinning

No, I don’t mean UC Boulder firing their coach (because buffaloes move in herds, see what I did there?), but I suppose this headline is relevant for that reason as well. While the set of middleing teams with dreams are slowly tossing aside their chances (in the case of Kentucky, literally, as they fumbled in Ole Miss territory in their last three possessions), we’re left with a smaller number of programs with a real shot and a smaller set of “high likelihood” picks.

Now, there’s always room for things to go awry. I’m not ready to give up on UGA yet despite how horrible they’ve been the past two weeks, and they look primed for a disaster sooner rather than later. But, assuming Kirby gets things back in the right direction, it’s hard to see a lot of opportunities for teams outside of the top seven.

Clemson basically doesn't play a real team for the rest of the year, Michigan and Ohio State will settle that problem themselves, and I cannot tell you how confident I am that USC will manage to bungle everything. If that’s the case, we may already have a pretty good picture of where things are headed. That said…

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3. Embrace the Chaos

The one thing I’m positive WILL HAPPEN is something I don’t expect. These are still kids who are completely liable to do something inexplicably stupid (remember the Florida shoe throw from two years ago?) and one big program or two will collapse in spectacular fashion.

UGA almost gave us that moment last week, but Pitt losing to an absolutely abysmal Georgia Tech team was an inspirational moment of failure (for those looking to fail) while Washington provided another moment of wild underperformance.

Oh, and injuries will happen as well. Bama survived a Bryce Young scare, but most of these teams are one or two key injuries from going into a state of chaos and dysfunction. Who stays healthy over the next three months could easily decide the national champion.