College Football Betting: Duke vs. Alabama

By BetOnline August 29, 2019

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Judging from the NCAA football futures odds, the Alabama Crimson Tide and Clemson Tigers are once again on a collision course for the National Championship. Clemson will get their season underway on Thursday night against overmatched Georgia Tech and Alabama gets things started on Saturday night against overmatched Duke.

DUKE VS. ALABAMA
LINE: ALABAMA -32.5

This game is being played at the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta though Alabama starting their season at a neutral site is nothing new. Nor is Alabama dominating their first game of the season. The Crimson Tide have won 17 straight opening games and have covered 9 of their last 11. Alabama has won and covered their last four openers in downright impressive fashion, outscoring Wisconsin, USC, Florida State and Louisville by a combined margin of 162-44!

Alabama’s propensity to blow teams out early in the season has led to a perfect storm where sharps and public bettors are both on the Tide, which prompted the big line adjustment. The perennial dominance is always pushing the odds for this team, and we have seen it easily cover the last four season openers. The Tide opened as a -30.5 favorite on June 1 and was bet as high as -35. There has been some buyback on Duke today which has pushed the line back to -32.5. If there’s any team in the country comfortable in the role of the favorite it’s definitely Alabama. They’ve been favored in 55 straight games!

The case for Alabama is pretty obvious but what about Duke? One thing Duke has done consistently under David Cutcliffe is put very capable quarterbacks on the field. Daniel Jones went to the NY Giants in the first round and while it’s tough to replace a NFL caliber talent Duke will go with 5th year senior Quentin Harris who is very adept at running the offense. Cutcliffe’s Duke teams have also been money in the bank as an underdog and enter this contest on a 25-12-1 ATS run when getting points and a 7-4 ATS run as a double digit dog.They’re also 23-6 ATS in non-conference action in the same timeframe. Cutcliffe has also won and covered 7 straight openers. Overall, Duke is 9-4 SU/10-2 ATS as an underdog during the last three seasons.

The question here is not whether Alabama is capable of beating Duke by 5 touchdowns–they most definitely are. The more salient question is *will they* beat Duke by this huge margin or more specifically what is their motivation to do so? For one thing, Alabama coach Saban has a ton of respect for his Duke counterpart Cutcliffe and that could make him reticent to let this game get out of hand. It’s also doubtful that he’ll want to leave quarterback Tua Tagovailoa in the game for longer than necessary. Tagovailoa suffered a leg injury on this field during the SEC title game and no reason to risk ‘deja vu repeating itself’. Alabama is just 3-5 as a favorite of 31+ during the last three years and going back further are on a 11-23 ATS run in that role. That strongly suggests that at some point you’re paying a premium for the ‘Alabama’ name on the marquee. We’ll call this one Alabama by 24 and take the points with a well coached Duke side.