Week 11 college football: point spreads and picks for several top-25 matchups

Several top-25 college football teams face close betting lines in Week 11, with point spreads set for each game. Top-ranked Georgia is a 16-point home favorite over Missouri, Alabama is a 17.5-point favorite at Vanderbilt, and UCLA is a 10-point home favorite over Illinois on Friday. No. 2 Utah is a 2.5-point road favorite at No. 23 Arizona, which has beaten Utah in each of their last two meetings. Other lines include No. 8 Tennessee favored by 2.5 at Texas A&M, No. 12 Texas Tech favored by 3.5 at No. 25 Oklahoma State, and No. 18 USC favored by 8.5 at No. 9 Indiana. Separately, a 24-team college football playoff was finalized this week and will begin next season.

Left-leaning sources, represented here by The New York Times, cover the week as a betting preview. Their excerpt says staff have picks against the spread for the biggest games. Alternative sources, including Yahoo Sports and CBS Sports, also center on predictions and odds. Yahoo predicts two top-10 teams will lose and stresses that upsets have been the theme of the season. CBS features a SportsLine model pick of South Carolina as a 7.5-point favorite at Arkansas, along with promo-code links. The right-leaning New York Post takes a critical opinion angle, saying the playoff expansion will damage the sport and water down the regular season. It highlights LSU, ranked 21st, as 0-3 against ranked teams and needing to win out for a playoff chance. It contrasts that with Texas, ranked sixth, which is 4-0 against ranked opponents, including wins at Tennessee and Missouri. The left and alternative excerpts do not mention the playoff or LSU, so the right side is the only one emphasizing those points.