Who 2 Bet On? Monday Noght Football's Game of the Year

Virginia Tech and UCLA fell from the ranks of the unbeaten on Saturday, leaving just USC, Texas and Alabama without any losses. After a five-week stretch that saw just two top-10 teams lose to an unranked opponent, No. 9 Florida State joined No. 7 UCLA (lost at Arizona 52-14!), losing 20-15 to NC State. With Va Tech's loss (27-7 at home to Miami), it's clear sailing for a Rose Bowl showdown between USC and Texas, assuming those schools both win-out. Alabama, the nation's only other unbeaten, still has LSU (the early line has them a small home underdog to the Tigers this Saturday) and Auburn left on its regular season schedule. Even if the Tide beats both of those schools and either Georgia or Florida in the SEC title game, they won't catch USC or Texas. Can you just here the screams coming from the SEC if, for the second consecutive year, the conference sees one of its schools finish 12-0 but once again gets left out of the BCS title game?

Home teams entered Week 9 on a record winning pace, having gone 78-38 or .672. However, road teams won EIGHT of Sunday's 13 games! Home 'dogs' entered Week 9 11-14 SU and 15-10 ATS but did very little 'barking' on Sunday, losing all SEVEN games and going just 1-5-1 ATS! Speaking of home 'dogs'. You may have heard that the Colts are playing the Patriots tonight. The Pats have won three of the last four Super Bowls and including playoff games, have won 22 of their last 23 home games. In six games of Manning versus Brady, the Pats are 6-0 SU (5-0-1 ATS), winning by an average score of 31.8-17.5. Brady has thrown 10 TD passes with just four interceptions (98.0 QB rating), while Manning has nine TD passes and 10 interceptions (QB rating of 73.3). So why are the Colts favored? If you've seen the two teams play this year, you KNOW why? That being said, it remains to be seen if the Colts are up to the task of beating their long-time nemesis. The Colts opened a three-point favorite with a total of 46. The Colts are four-point favorites as of this morning and the total is as high a 49.