Alabama vs. Texas A&M Opening Spread: Tide Huge Favorites in SEC Primetime Game

Top-ranked Alabama heads to College Station on Saturday to face a disappointing Texas A&M team.

The game will start at 8 p.m. ET and will air on CBS.

Alabama opened as a 17.5-point favorite, though the vig on that line has since moved from -110 to -105. This seems like a solid teaser candidate, though perhaps wait until the line moves to the key number of 17 to slap on a 7-point teaser here.

The Crimson Tide are ridiculous -900 favorites to win outright, which shouldn't be bet on in any circumstance.

The Aggies, meanwhile, are +600 underdogs. They opened the season ranked No. 5 in the country, but losses against Mississippi State and Arkansas — and just a three-point win against Colorado — have plummeted them out of the AP Poll.

The total on this game is 51.5. The juice has also shifted from -110 both ways to -115 vig on the over and -105 on the under.

The total opened 49.5 before bettors started hammering the over.

Alabama has about 94% of the total bets on its spread as of Monday morning.

Alabama Reaffirms Position As Best Team In The Country

Alabama is rolling, as it always does, though it did hit a small snag last month when the Tide skirted by then-No. 11 ranked Florida on the road, 31-29.

Still, that win was a good one, and a dismantling of No. 12-ranked Ole Miss last Saturday reaffirmed Alabama's firm position as the best team in the country.

The Crimson Tide have now won 18 straight games dating back to 2019.

Alabama went an undefeated 13-0 in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, including a 52-46 win against then-No. 7 ranked Florida; a win in the College Football Playoff semifinal against No. 4 ranked Notre Dame; and a dominant 52-24 win over Ohio State in the national championship game.

Nick Saban's squad is currently tied for third in the country in points per game (45.0), only behind Coastal Carolina — which plays in the lowly Sun Belt Conference — and Pittsburgh, which won 77-7 against a non-FBS team and also lost 44-41 to Western Michigan.

All roads point toward another SEC Championship Game matchup with Georgia, which has by far the nation's best defense according to every advanced metric.

If both teams remain undefeated heading into that game, it could prove moot — both teams will likely make the College Football Playoff semifinals regardless of who wins the Southeastern Conference.

The only tough games on Alabama's schedule are an Iron Bowl matchup at Auburn and two home games — one against unranked LSU and another against No. 13-ranked Arkansas.

Texas A&M Reeling After High Preseason Ranking

Are the Aggies frauds?

After two straight losses to an unproven Arkansas team and Mississippi State, it's hard to argue that they aren't — especially after having come into the season as the fifth-best team in the country, according to the Associated Press.

The first sign of fraudulence came in Week 2, when the Aggies needed a late fourth-quarter drive to beat lowly Colorado 10-7 in Boulder.

Colorado, by the way, is 1-4, including a 30-0 shutout loss to unranked Minnesota and a 37-14 dismantling at home against unranked USC.

Had this game taken place in September, you could've very well expected the Aggies to be just single-digit underdogs at home.

Now, they're firmly 17.5-point 'dogs, a line that might move closer to 20 as the week moves along, if the betting trends are any indication.

As it stands, Alabama at -17.5 is a fantastic teaser opportunity. I'm pairing it as a 6.5-point teaser with Michigan -3 at Nebraska, and Stanford +10.5 at Arizona State for a total +160 value.

The Tide have ripped off eight straight wins over the Aggies, by an average margin of 22.5 points.

The only loss Alabama's suffered against A&M since 1968 came in 2012, when Johnny Manziel was at the helm in College Station.

The must-have app for college football bettors

The best NCAAF betting scoreboard

Free picks from proven pros

Live win probabilities for your bets

DOWNLOAD NOW