Name: Paul Stone's Best Bets: Army vs. Navy, CFP Round One, & LA Bowl
Uploaded: 2025-12-11T15:38:03-05:00
Duration: 9 min 28 s
Description: Paul Stone delves into the battle for the Commander-in-Chief trophy, highlighting player opt-outs and the benefits of early betting for strategic insights.

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Paul Stone delves into the battle for the Commander-in-Chief trophy, highlighting player opt-outs and the benefits of early betting for strategic insights.

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Paul Stone's Best Bets: Army vs. Navy, CFP Round One, & LA Bowl

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Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid. The great Paul Stone joins us now to break down some college football, and Paul will be very active over the next couple of weeks, getting some leans in and, uh, you know, talking about the college football playoff and bowl season. Paul, you know, before we get to this, uh, Army-Navy game, I, I know from a handicapping perspective, Uh, this really can be awesome, or you could get hurt a little bit this time of the year like no other, just because of the amount of sheer opt-outs there are of the college football, uh, schedule. And I'm guessing when these lines come out, Paul, you have to sort of take that under consideration here. You may end up taking a team that a player opts out, a quarterback or some other, or you may be able to get ahead of a line if you have a feeling that some of the best players aren't gonna play in the upcoming bowl season. Yeah, I'll tell you historically, Craig, my approach as a handicapper has been just to, to try to get into the marketplace early, uh, when the openers come out, attack, um, you know, use point spread differentials between my number and the house's number, uh, to, to try to take advantage of potential opportunities, but. In today's climate, especially when you get to the bowl games where you have the, the potential of not only opt-outs, but late opt-outs. Some of them you don't even know until the ball goes in the air on game day, you know, you have to tread more lightly in, in my opinion. And whereas during the season, it's still a matter of the number, trying to get the best number, really, to me during the bowl season is about trying to get the best information. Uh, you know, it's not, it's a big deal during the regular season if it opens at 3.5 and you miss it and you like the favorite, and now it's 6. I'm probably not gonna lay 6 if 3.5 was once available, but in the bowl season, it's not that big of a deal. There'll be more variants in the results, and it's more about information, uh, than point spread, uh, value. A lot of work going into Paul, uh, for the next couple of weeks here for sure. All right, so, uh, this is usually one of those games, Paul, where you just blindly bet the under. It's come through so many times between Army and Navy, but they keep setting the number lower and lower every year. This one is 38.5. Navy is clearly better than Army going into this matchup, but You never know, Paul. It's almost like the team that has the ball last is the team that usually covers the spread between these two teams, Army and Navy. A lot of running, obviously in this one. I think the number that I see here is 17-2 on the under since 2006. Wow, that's a fantastic trend over the last, uh, 20 years. Yeah, I think we had a closing total a couple of years back, maybe like 28, 28.5, it seems like. I don't think I dreamed that, but, but I think it's about the familiarity, you know, obviously, when Army and Navy, first of all, when they face non-service academies, you know, many of those. Opposing defenses have varying degrees of difficulty defending the unique option offense because they only see it once a year, or they maybe only see it once in a blue moon, and there's just so much, it's unfamiliar. There's so much motion, there's so much eye candy. Uh, it's assignment-based football. You have to play your keys, you have to stay in your position. Uh, so those teams sometimes have great difficulty, non-service academies. Defending that unique option offense. But when Army and Navy play one another, it's something that they pretty much see every day in practice. There are certainly some unique twists, uh, that both throw at the other, but the, uh, core principles are the same. You look at the quarterbacks and that's what it's all about in both these attacks. Blake Harbath for Navy, uh, he surpassed. 1000 yards rushing this year for the second straight season. He's rushed for a total of, uh, 1040 yards so far this regular season. 6 yards a carry. He's known for another 1390 yards, 10.6 yards per attempt. On the other sideline, Army quarterback Cal Hellams, uh, maybe not quite as productive. Harbath, but still quite productive. Uh, he's rushed for 1,078 yards, only 4.1 yards per carry, and he has been a workhorse down the stretch, uh, for the cadets. In their last five games, Hellams has averaged 31 carries a game, so he is toting the load for sure. You know, last year, uh, Army looked like clearly the superior team. They were favored by 6.5 points. They got upset by Navy 31 to 13. Uh, this time around, we're seeing Navy pretty much today as a consensus six-point favorite. The dog in this series in the last 14 meetings, 10 and 4 against the spread. I'm gonna take the underdog. I like Army plus 6 over Navy. It'd be a fun game, always historical, every, uh, every year, and that's what's on deck this week. All right, historical amount of coaches bailing here before the college football playoff, James Madison, Ole Miss, Tulane, I, I mean, so many of these are, and that's the matchup you wanna look at, Paul, today. Mississippi, of course, losing Lane Kiffin. Tulane about to lose their head coach in summer, total 56.5. It's the second game next Saturday of a Saturday filled with college football playoff games. And certainly, Ole Miss has had one of the best offenses in the country, virtually unstoppable all season. Uh, Paul, will Tulane do anything to change that next Saturday? Uh, you mentioned the, the fact that both these teams, uh, head coaches will be at, uh, new schools, uh, at the beginning of next season. And one of those coaches, uh, Lane Kiffin, the former head coach at Ole Miss, uh, already has packed his bags for Baton Rouge, not by his, Uh, on, uh, volition. He did ask to, uh, to be able to remain on and, and, and coach the Rebels in the playoffs, uh, but had that request denied by the, uh, Ole Miss administration. Uh, Ole Miss former, uh, defensive coordinator, Pete Golding, he has been appointed as the, uh, permanent head coach. Uh, so he's going to lead the Rebels into the playoffs. Uh, offensive coordinator Charlie Weiss Junior, who's going to LSU with Kiffin, uh, he's been allowed by Kiffin to, uh, remain at Ole Miss and call plays for the Rebels throughout the playoffs, which is a huge plus for Ole Miss. And along the coaching, Uh, into this whole, uh, situation. Ole Miss got more good news this past Monday when 4, assistants who have joined Kiffin in, uh, Baton Rouge came back to Oxford and they're gonna coach in the playoff games, uh, through, you know, Until Ole Miss's season is over, those being tight ends coach Joe Cox, wide receiver coach George McDonald, quarterback coach Dane Stevens, and slot receiver coach Sawyer Jordan. So that's a huge bit of good news for Ole Miss. I think it really, I don't want to say that it totally eliminates the coaching issue, but it really helps the fact that they're not going to have to consolidate, uh, a bunch of different responsibilities among a smaller number of coaches. Just about everybody with the exception of Kippin, uh, will be on board. They won't have to be using gradual assistants to take more prominent roles and things like that that sometimes happen in the bowl games. So, they're going to be pretty much at full tilt. I don't think it's gonna, Affect their performance whatsoever. And what concerns me most when handicapping this game, looking at these two teams is just Tulane's ability or inability to defend a, uh, SEC offense in the first meeting between these teams. Ole Miss coasted to a 45 to 10 victory. They outgained Tulane by almost a 2 to 1 margin, 548 yards to 282. Their quarterback, Trinidad Chambliss, he had just taken over at quarterback. He came up big against Tulane, 307 passing yards, 11.4 yards per attempt. He rushed for another 112 yards. Tulane this year, they gave up 31 points to South Alabama. Gave up 48 points to Texas San Antonio, 32 to Memphis, and of course, 45 in that first meeting to Ole Miss. I think Ole Miss puts up another 45 against them, maybe even 500 or more. I like Ole Miss minus 17.5 over Tulane in that first-round playoff game. A lot of folks watching Mississippi to see how they perform without Lane Kiffin as the head coach. Uh, believe it or not, Paul, we've got a bowl game coming up this Saturday. We get a break for a couple of days and then Tuesday is game two. Saturday night, it is Boise State and Washington in what they're calling the LA Bowl. I know Boise State, generally speaking, pretty good in bowl games. They've had a tough season though, some blowout losses on their schedule. Washington got blown out by Oregon to finish their campaign. You get 6 wins, you're in the bowl game this year, Paul. I mean, we got 3 teams already opting out of this thing, so we're gonna get some unusual spreads, I would guess. Is this any lead on this one at all between these two teams? I'll tell you, bowl games, Craig, so much are about motivation, which team wants to be there more than the other. Uh, you would think that, that Boise might have the edge in the motivational, uh, category based on the fact they have the opportunity, uh, to to, to upset or knock off a Big 10 school. But I'm just concerned about whether they have the class to play this type of game. Uh, they failed at South Florida and Notre Dame against their better two opponents on their schedule. It's gonna be a pass for me, but I'll, I'll definitely be watching. All right, we'll see you next week, Paul. Thanks again.

Paul Stone's Best Bets: Army vs. Navy, CFP Round One, & LA Bowl

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