This Week's Best Spot Bet Opportunities
By Ben Burns
Covers.com
Letdown spot
The San Jose State Spartans got a free ticket to bowl season, regardless of their 5-7 final record. Normally, bowl eligibility kicks in at six wins but since this was an especially down season for qualifying programs with only 77 eligible teams, SJSU got the nod thanks to their Academic Progress Ratings. That’s right. The Spartans are playing in a bowl game because they’re smart.
That’s free money for the school and the free pass to the Autonation Cur Bowl may come with letdown implications. San Jose State could just be happy to be there, facing a Georgia State team that has more motivation than most bowl teams, playing in their first FBS postseason since making the jump from the FCS. San Jose State is currently a field-goal favorite in Orlando this Saturday.
Lookahead spot
The Green Bay Packers are picking up steam with the playoffs just over the hill. The Cheeseheads have won two in a row, knocking off Detroit with a miracle and putting it on Dallas last Sunday. That has them one game ahead of Minnesota in the NFC North heading into a possible lookahead spot against the Raiders as 3-point road chalk in Week 15.
The Packers haven’t traveled this far in six weeks and could look past Oakland and to next week’s road trip to Arizona, a possible NFC Championship preview, and a season finale against the Vikings at home. The Raiders played spoiler against the Broncos last Sunday, bumping Denver from the top of the AFC.
Schedule spot
The Milwaukee Bucks have had a few days to enjoy their 108-95 upset of the then-undefeated Golden State Warriors as 9-point home underdogs Saturday. Milwaukee has been off since, returning to the court on Tuesday to open a frantic four-game Western Conference road trip in Los Angeles. On the season, it is just 2-10 SU and 5-7 ATS as a visitor.
The Bucks take on the Lakers and Clippers in back-to-back nights on Tuesday and Wednesday, then travel to Golden State in what will be a huge revenge spot for the Warriors on Friday. That game also happens to be Milwaukee’s third game in four nights. The road trip concludes in Phoenix Sunday – the fourth game in six nights. The final two legs of this stretch are against offenses ranked No. 2 and No. 3 in pace, so they could run a tired Milwaukee team into the ground.