Ohio State Football: Picking against the spread week 9

The Ohio State football team has given me grief picking against the spread recently but that won’t be an issue this week.

Once again I missed on my pick on last week’s Ohio State football game. Not only didn’t the Buckeyes cover the spread but were defeated soundly.

Since they have a bye week, and are not ranked in the top ten, I can’t lose on an Ohio State game for the fifth consecutive week.

I was picking games correctly about 60 percent of the time going into week 8 but a 2-5 record last week brought my overall record down to 33-26-2.

I certainly have to do better this week and I’m confident I will.

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Here are my week 9 picks against the spread of games involving top ten teams. Point spreads are from Bovada.

Clemson (2) by 17 over Florida State:  At first glance this point spread seems to make sense. Florida State is having a down year (5-3 record), Clemson is playing at a high level and ranked No. 2. However, Seminoles’ head coach Willie Taggart’s team needs to have a statement game, not necessarily a win but at least compete hard against a top-tier team.

I think that will happen this week so I’ll take Florida State and the points.

Notre Dame (3) by 24 over Navy: Why would there ever be a 24 point spread against Navy. That funky offense will give Notre Dame fits. I’ll take the Midshipmen and the points.

Texas (6) by 3.5 over Oklahoma State:  Texas is playing well but Oklahoma State has a high-powered offense and is playing at home. Cowboys and the points.

Georgia (7) by 7 over Florida (9):  When these two teams are playing well you don’t know who will win this rivalry game. So I will take Florida and the points.

Oklahoma (8) by 24.5 over Kansas State:  Even though Oklahoma is playing at a high level I won’t lay 24 points to a Bill Snyder coached team. I’ll take Kansas State and the points.

Hopefully this weekend’s games will play out like in week 7 because I picked all underdogs. If the underdogs cover like those two weeks ago did, I will back to something close to 60 percent picking against the spread for the season.