Conference action is in full swing in the 2025 college football season, and this week features more than a few massive conference tils, including Vanderbilt at Alabama and Miami visiting Florida State.
SportsLine college football expert Bruce Marshall, the longtime executive editor of The Gold Sheet, has gathered information on Saturday’s top games and shares everything bettors need to know about Week 6 of the college football season. For those who are interested in college football betting, be sure to check out Marshall’s plays, as he’s 19-15-1 (+267) across his last 35 college football against-the-spread picks.
Air Force at Navy
It’s really fun whenever both of the teams in the Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy games are having good seasons, but having lived through a long-ago era in which the service academies used to be grouped as the “Pentagon” in the weekly Bottom 10 as penned by the legendary Steve Harvey for the LA Times, we’re OK as long as just one of the entries is bopping along nicely. This year, that would be Navy, which is still unbeaten into October and owns a schedule suggesting that could still be the case into November, when the Mids will face some higher hurdles (including Notre Dame). Though we haven’t seen quarterback Blake Horvath move up the “Heisman watch” as we were thinking might happen in the summer, the Annapolis option, with the Wing T elements introduced last season by offensive coordinator Drew Cronic, who moved north from FCS Mercer, is still operating at full capacity. Navy is again leading the nation in rushing (353 yards per game, plus 6.5 yards per carry), with Horvath and submarining fullback Alex Tecza both on course for 1,000-yard rushing campaigns.
It’s not going as well for Air Force, however. In fact, things have veered wildly off course at the foot of Pike’s Peak as Troy Calhoun’s time-tested ball control recipe with his own version of the option simply isn’t impacting games as is normally the case. It took a while last season for the Force to switch gears, too, which finally happened when Calhoun wisely gave the keys to the offense to quarterback Quentin Hayes, who would emerge as the near-perfect option pilot down the stretch last fall as the Falcons closed fast, winning their last four. More than anything, Hayes played within himself and allowed Calhoun’s option to slow the pace and tempo and play effective ball control; with Hayes, the Force was able to dictate the flow of the game. Unfortunately, Hayes left the academy in the spring, and while the next man up in Calhoun’s QB room, Liam Szarka, has posted some very decent numbers, he’s also been prone to mistakes (including three picks) and has not been able to control the tempo as did Hayes…or as Calhoun would like. That’s important, because this Falcons defense needs to be kept off of the field as much as possible. That unit has surrendered 49, 49, and 44 points over the last three weeks, all losses to Utah State, Boise State and Hawaii, respectively.
That brings us to the real intriguing angle of Commander-in-Chief’s games…the total. These service academy battles between dueling options have been consistently landing Under for a generation, and how. Across the past 20 years, Unders are 46-13-1 in Commander-in-Chief games. That would figure, as the respective options keep the ball on the ground, throwing few passes and fewer incompletions to stop the clock. Drill a bit deeper, and we find that for a generation, C-in-C games have averaged about 109 snaps per game (though last year it rose to 112), compared to a normal college game being in the low 140s. With roughly 25% fewer snaps, that’s also 25% fewer chances to score, which, in recent years, served to gradually suppress the totals to the point the Army-Navy game two years ago dipped as low as a subterranean 28. In fact, the C-in-C totals had lowered so much into a year ago that two of the three service academy games landed Over, but it’s worth noting that there hasn’t been a Commander-in-Chief’s scoreline land above this weekend’s currently-posted 51.5 since the 2019 Air Force-Navy game that ended 34-25.
The question we have into this weekend is if the explosive Falcon scorelines of the past few weeks, which are a main reason this total is roughly two touchdowns higher than most C-in-C games in recent years, are more a function of a fundamental change in the way Air Force is now pacing its games, or more the result of simply running into a trio of up-tempo teams (Utah State, Boise, Hawaii) that want 75-80 snaps and not 45-50. For the moment, we opt for the opponent angle, that the recent Air Force foes were able to speed up the pace because that’s what they wanted to do in those games. The Mids don’t have to play that way. In fact, Navy will be content as usual to slug it out in the pits, then have Horvath sneak a long pass downfield. It’s a Navy recipe as familiar in Annapolis as the sandwich menu at Chick & Ruth’s in downtown by the waterfront.
We’ve seen too many Commander-in-Chief’s games play out at a similar tempo to expect this one to be too much different on Saturday, so expect another Under and a likely comfy Navy win.
The pick: Navy 30, Air Force 14
Vanderbilt at Alabama (-10.5, 55.5)
All is apparently well in the pundit class, which continues to act as if it has an investment in the brand names of college football. Many of those sorts seem almost relieved that Alabama is apparently back on its feet after getting sucker-punched by Florida State in the opener and are reminding the masses that the Tide are still capable of rolling as they did to a win ‘tween the hedges at Georgia last week. One very good half of football on national TV by quarterback Ty Simpson has also suddenly thrust him to the near the top of the Heisman race; many outlets had him listed as high as the second choice (behind the new apparent leader, Oregon quarterback Dante Moore) on the new odds boards this week. Others are suggesting that now the Tide have a “clear path” to the SEC title game. Except we haven’t even played a game in October yet, and anyone who has been keeping tabs on the SEC knows that there are mine fields to avoid every week.
Even some of Nick Saban’s title teams couldn’t get through league play unscathed, and the conference, now swelled with the additions of Texas and Oklahoma, has a stronger top-to-bottom look than ever. Part of that is because longtime doormat Vanderbilt is no doormat anymore. The Tide should know; last year, Bama, then ranked on top of the polls, lost to the Dores for the first time in 40 years (40-35), and after the game, the delirious Vandy fans carried the goal posts all of the way to the Cumberland River…not a short walk, mind you. Indeed, it’s not business as usual in Music City, or for Vandy, whose lot in the SEC was best summed up by an old friend, Memphis sports talk host Brett Norsworthy, some years ago at SEC Media Days: “Someone has to lose in this league.”
Things have dramatically changed the past two seasons under head coach Clark Lea, however, who mined the unlikely outpost of Las Cruces to convince several members of a brief New Mexico State renaissance — quarterback Diego Pavia, offensive coordinator Tim Beck, and then, after he had retired from the Ags, their head coach Jerry Kill, now filling an important advisory role on staff. An unsung hero in the revival is football general manager Barton Simmons, now in his fourth year at the school, who is credited with much of the talent upgrade and whose deft use of the portal has upped the roster’s talent level beyond just the addition of Pavia. So, presto, Vandy is now 5-0 for only the second time in 80 years.
Bama might still be wondering what hit it from a year ago in Nashville when it couldn’t contain Pavia, whose playmaking and escape prowess allowed the Dores to sustain drives and keep the ball for over 42 minutes of possession in the 40-35 upset. Vandy is also scoring these days at an unheard-of-in-Nashville 49 points per game pace, ranking fourth nationally, with Pavia already passing for 1,211 yards and 13 TDs and, for good measure, leading the Dores in rushing, too. Another of the New Mexico State brigade, tight end Eli Stowers, already has a team-high 22 catches and has emerged as Pavia’s favorite target.
We’ll find out a bit more about the Dores’ defense this week, as the improving Simpson looked like a different quarterback for the Tide at Georgia than he did in the Florida State opener, especially on third downs, converting 12 of 19. It’s also worth noting that the five banana peels the Tide have found since Kalen DeBoer arrived from Washington last year have all come away from Tuscaloosa, where Bama has now covered six in a row. Speaking of covers, it would be hard to top Vandy’s 10-2 mark as an underdog since Pavia arrived a year ago, another indicator of the fighting spirit that he has helped infuse within the Dores. It’s palpable. The days when the Dores used to lose games like this by wipeout margins (like when Saban ran up a 55-3 win for the Tide over Lea three years ago) are now a good way back in the rearview mirror. The new-look Dores have already beaten Bama and can make the Tide sweat again on Saturday.
The pick: Alabama 34, Vanderbilt 27
Mississippi State at Texas A&M
Football can be a game of inches, and one play here-or-there than can alter perceptions and change the course of a season. Take Texas A&M, a new flavor of the month and all of the way up to the sixth spot in the polls, fueled by that stirring 41-40 win at Notre Dame back on Sept. 13. How close, however, did the Ags come to falling just short at South Bend? It took quarterback Marcel Reed pulling one more rabbit out of his hat on a fourth-and-goal try from the Domers’ 11-yard-line, lobbing a desperate jump-ball pass into the end zone that tight end Nate Boerkircher pulled away from a Notre Dame linebacker Drayk Bowen for the winning touchdown with just 13 seconds to play. Without Boerkircher turning into LeBron James pulling down a rebound in traffic, A&M loses that game and becomes an afterthought into October.
The Ags might also still be on a spread losing streak that could have reached nine by now after once again falling short vs. the number last week versus Auburn. That win over Huge Freeze’s Tigers, however, showed that Mike Elko’s defense, which has been a bit spotty in early-season efforts, could rise up to the challenge after that ping-pong match beneath Touchdown Jesus in South Bend. The Ags turned the Tigers one-dimensional, completely shutting off the pass (which Jackson Arnold apparently can’t do very well) and putting the Auburn offense into a strait-jacket in the second half. The Tigers’ only score after intermission came after a fluky 70-yard interception return off of a tipped pass by Xavier Atkins, who took it all of the way to the A&M 2-yard line before Arnold would score on the next play. It would be an unfortunate non-spread cover, however, for the 6.5-point favorite Ags, who flashed uncommon offensive balance all afternoon, evenly splitting their 414 yards of offense between runs (207 yards) and passes (another 207 yards). Reed, under pressure himself most of the day as he was sacked four times by DJ Durkin’s solid Tiger defense, at least limited mistakes (the aforementioned interception was on a tip) and found his new favorite target, NC State transfer wideout KC Concepcion, seven times for 113 yards. There’s another way this A&M can move the ball, too, as running back Le’Veon Moss (139 yards vs. Auburn) is doing considerable damage via the overland route,
Before getting involved in that defensive battle last week, A&M had also scored 41+ in its first three games. So, shouldn’t A&M be able to move comfortably to 5-0 when hosting the Bulldogs, who haven’t win an SEC game since 2023, and none yet for second-year head coach Jeff Lebby? Well, as Lee Corso might say, “Not so fast, my friend,” as MSU is unfortunate not to be 5-0 into Kyle Field on Saturday. The Bulldogs looked to be in position for a second landmark win of September (after earlier taking out defending Big 12 champ Arizona State in exciting fashion back on Sept. 6), last week vs. 15th-ranked Tennessee, but the Vols would convert a pair of turnovers into defensive scores, tie the game inside of two minutes to play and eventually win in OT when MSU’s last possession ended at the UT 4-yard line. The efforts vs. the Sun Devils and Volunteers, however, suggest the Bulldogs are not out of their depth as they might have been a year ago when they went winless in SEC play.
By this point last season, quarterback Blake Shapen was already down for the count, but into this October, he’s in the lineup and firing away, already over 1,000 passing yards with eight TDs. All-Name South Alabama transfer running back Fluff Bothwell is well on his way to a 1,000-yard rushing season, while portal wideouts Brenen Thompson (via Oklahoma) and Anthony Evans III (via Georgia) have already combined for 46 catches and five touchdowns. Most of all, MSU keeps covering numbers…after rarely getting embarrassed last season in the SEC despite the big donut in the win columns, it’s now five straight spread W’s to begin 2025 and MSU is now on an 11-2 spread run since early last season. Compared to an A&M side that seems to find ways to not cover spreads (even as it usually wins outright), our preference vs. the spread is clear.
The pick: Texas A&M 34, Mississippi State 26
Miami at Florida State
There was a time a generation ago (think late ’80s into early ’90s) when this might have been the featured annual matchup in all of the nation, as both teams were often ranked in the top five (even 1-2 once in 1991) and able to generate its own nicknames like “Wide Right I” and “Wide Right II” to note late field goal-tries by Bobby Bowden’s Seminoles that would veer slightly off course at the end of those respective games, which still gnaws at old-time Seminole fans because those field-goal misses were from manageable range. With both ranked into Saturday, and Miami all of the way up to the No. 3 spot in the rankings, this one has some of the elements of the old Bowden-Jimmy Johnson/Dennis Erickson matchups with national title consequences.
Canes supporters can’t help but look ahead to the rest of the schedule and what seems a straight line to the ACC title game and College Football Playoff, likely with a protected top four seed (and effective home game in the second-round Orange Bowl played at their home Hard Rock Stadium), This one vs. FSU might indeed be the toughest test the rest of the way — though Louisville, Miami’s next foe on Oct. 17, might argue that just a bit.
The Canes have been hitting on all cylinders from the outset this season, looking to improve every week since the nailbiter over Notre Dame in the opener; expected in-state challenges from South Florida (a 49-12 loser) and Florida (vanquished 26-7) never materialized the past two games thanks to an aggressive and hostile defense that ranks 13th nationally, allowing only 244 yards per game. Meanwhile, ballyhooed Georgia transfer quarterback Carson Beck has looked his old self, and running back Mark Fletcher is off back-to-back 100-yards games vs. the Bulls and Gators. After some disappointments in recent seasons, it looks like Mario Cristobal has assembled all of the pieces he needs to make a deep playoff run.
As for FSU, some of the gloss of that opening-week upset of Bama have dissipated after last week’s bitter OT loss at underdog Virginia, which has caused some of the recent Noles cheering section in the pundit community to reassess their earlier all-in approach with FSU. Still, some of the excuses being offered in the media (certainly not head coach Mike Norvell) for the loss at Charlottesville don’t hold much water, such as the Noles were “looking past” the Wahoos to this game vs. the Canes. To that, several savvy regional observers aren’t biting, reckoning a team that went 2-10 last season has no business overlooking anyone. The gaudy offensive numbers posted by the Noles in the first month (including a nation-leading 600 yards per game) are in good part due to Gus Malzahn’s offense running roughshod against a pair of completely outmanned foes, East Texas A&M and Kent State, who together allowed a whopping 143 points. Among a rather large group of non-believers are also a faction that looks as the Bama upset as more of a one-of. While signifying grand improvement from last season, DeBoer’s Tide have shown the inclination to lay those sort of eggs, especially on the road.
That Virginia, with a sore-handed quarterback Chandler Morris, could move the Cavs attack through the FSU defense like a hot knife through butter both on the ground and in the air, suggests the Noles might simply have been exposed by Tony Elliott’s crew. Meanwhile, BC transfer quarterback Tommy Castellanos, who is providing a vocal leadership dimension, still owns a bit of an unorthodox sidearm delivery on his throws, one of the reasons his performances tended to be erratic the past two years with the Eagles. We hate to sound snarky, but we need a bit more evidence before a full buy-in with FSU; let’s see the Noles prove that win over the Tide wasn’t simply a one-off.
The pick: Miami 31, Florida State 22
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