Friday Night Lines: Conference Championship Weekend

By Chris Marler

Conference Championship weekend is just hours away from starting with nine total games on the slate. While there are nine games that will crown champions across the country, we are going to focus on the ones most important to the region, the College Football Playoff and the 12-team playoff field that will be officially announced on Sunday December 8.

As we do every week here is a detailed look at where the Las Vegas betting lines currently stand versus where they originally opened earlier in the week.

AAC Championship

Army at Tulane

Opening Line: Tulane -4

Current Line: Tulane -4.5

MWC Championship

UNLV at Boise State

Opening Line: Boise State -5.5

Current Line: Boise State -4.5

Big 12 Championship 

Arizona State at Iowa State

Opening Line: Iowa State -1

Current Line: Arizona State -1.5

SEC Championship 

Texas at Georgia

Opening Line: Texas -1.5

Current Line: Texas -3

Big 10 Championship

Penn State at Oregon

Opening Line: Oregon -3

Current Line: Oregon -3.5

ACC Championship 

Clemson at SMU

Opening Line: Clemson -1.5

Current Line: SMU -2.5

Biggest takeaways from the line movement? Let’s start with Friday night and the Mountain West Championship Game. This is a rematch of a game played against these two earlier in the season. In the first meeting, the spread was Boise St -4, and the Broncos won by five points. Vegas always knows, am I right? I think the line is interesting because it’s always hard to beat a team twice. UNLV comes into this game winning six of their last seven. Boise State comes in winning 10 straight games and an 11-1 record with their only blemish being a three-point loss to No. 1 ranked Oregon. They have however failed to cover in three of their last four games. The line feels right even though this is a home game for Boise State.

Now let’s shift to Saturday, and let’s start in Charlotte with the ACC Championship and the biggest line movement we’ve seen of any game. Clemson opened as the favorite but a four-point shift to ACC newcomer SMU took place shortly after. That is shocking to me, not because I don’t believe in the ponies from Dallas, but because Dabo Swinney and Clemson have been an absolute wagon in this spot.

Clemson is 8-4 outright and 9-3 against the spread under Dabo Swinney as a neutral site underdog. Not only that, but they have covered the spread in those games by an average of 11 points per game. The thing that is most surprising to me here though is the brand that Clemson is versus SMU and the lack of sharp money on the Tigers. As of Friday, over 53 percent of the bets were on the Mustangs.

Finally, let’s head to the city that I am currently writing this in, Atlanta. Once again, we are seeing a rematch from a game played earlier this season. One interesting stat in spots like this is that teams average over 7.7 points more per game in the second meeting versus the first meeting in a rematch. I’m still not completely sold on Texas, and let’s not forget that Texas was a similar favorite in their initial meeting (-4) and lost by 15.

That being said, while Georgia has been great in the win-loss column overall they have been horrible against the spread. Georgia is 3-9 on the season against the spread and 2-8 in their last 10 games overall. I still like the Dawgs in what should be a bit of a home crowd in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.