With two wins and a push last week, we cashed our first parlay of the season, albeit at the reduced payout of +260.
But as the famous investor Barnard Baruch once said: “You never go broke taking profits.”
This week, we set our sights on a bigger payday in the hope of keeping this green dot train rolling.
Three road teams caught my attention in Week 5.
One is facing my favorite fade in all of college football, and another is hoping that a pair of paycheck games has it prepared for a run in the AAC. Finally, we close things out with a MAC-Sun Belt tussle against a coach who just loves to lose (ATS) at home.
Here's my three-leg college football Group of 5 parlay for Week 5.
Mike Calabrese's College Football Group of 5 Week 5 Parlay
- Navy -3.5
- USF +165
- Western Michigan +3
Parlay Odds: +887 (BetMGM)
Navy vs UAB Pick
I’ll go out on a limb and assume that my audience doesn't regularly attend “Coffee With Coach,” a weekly press conference with UAB’s head coach Trent Dilfer.
As someone who loves fading the former Elite 11 coach and TV talking head, I usually tune in to hear one of Dilfer’s cringe-worthy expressions. These range from “fire breathers only” to banal platitudes about humans being at their best when they’re “climbing mountains.”
One byproduct of hate-watching Dilfer on a weekly basis is that I get insight into his game plan and shockingly candid evaluations of his own team. Through gritted teeth, I will admit that Dilfer “knows ball,” and his penchant for brutal honesty also provides me with clear insight into when to fade his team.
He took about 10 minutes this week heaping praise on Navy. This is the same Midshipmen team that dominated UAB last season, 31-6. It was the only game last fall that UAB failed to score 20 or more points.
Dilfer believes that this year’s Navy team is even better. He’s used this analogy before when diagnosing opponents, but it remains appropriate when discussing a Service Academy. Opposing offenses are either surgeons or butchers. A surgeon’s nicks, in strategic locations, can cause you to bleed out. Whereas a butcher, in this analogy, can lop off limbs in one fell swoop.
In previous seasons, Navy’s option offense was surgical. You think that you’re stopping its offense by holding to it to three to five yards per play, but before you know, it Navy has strung together 10 straight short gains and punched it into the end zone.
The rub, in 2024, is that Navy has added a “butcher” element to its offense, according to Dilfer.
Navy leads the nation in plays of 40+ yards per game, with three per contest.
A big reason for this has been the addition of Drew Cronic at offensive coordinator. He’s added Wing T elements to Navy’s traditional option attack, and it’s freeing receivers up in the secondary.
How masterful has Cronic’s play calls been? Blake Horvath, Navy’s junior quarterback, is leading the nation in QBR while averaging 12.5 yards per attempt.
The Mids just torpedoed Memphis’ College Football Playoff chances by laying a 50 burger on the Tigers.
And now here comes the UAB defense.
Dilfer admitted that the Blazers’ run defense remains its Achilles' heel. And he confided in the local press (and me) that the one thing that's crystal clear on tape is that Navy has only gotten faster year over year.
“Navy has great team speed, not good, great,” a forlorn Dilfer said on Monday.
So, Navy is going to shred this UAB defense.
And when UAB has the ball, P.J. Volker and the Navy defensive coaching staff have a game plan to squeeze the “Checkdown Merchant,” Jacob Zeno.
The UAB offense requires Zeno to hit close to 75% of his short attempts to move the chains. Last season, Volker walked his entire defense closer to the line of scrimmage and dared Zeno to beat them over the top. He did not, finishing with just 206 passing yards and two interceptions.
I trust in Navy’s new offense and defensive game plan to win comfortably in the Magic City.
Leg 1: Navy -3.5 (Play to -6)
USF vs Tulane Pick
Another noon kick, another road 'dog.
South Florida has dealt with a top-10 month in September. The Bulls looked like they belonged on the field with the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Miami (FL) Hurricanes in the first half of each game.
But injuries mounted, opportunities were missed through the air and both top-10 opponents pulled away from USF in the second half.
The market is overreacting to these second-half swoons, and that’s why I’m grabbing USF on the moneyline in the Big Easy.
Byrum Brown and the passing attack never got going against the Tide and Canes, and a big reason for that is the physicality of those secondaries they faced.
Tulane doesn’t have the personnel to duplicate that. In fact, Tulane’s made Avery Johnson and Jackson Arnold look like all-conference performers in the pocket. Tulane gave up 34 points to both Oklahoma and Kansas State, while allowing Johnson and Arnold to consistently beat it with their feet.
Since those tilts with Tulane, Arnold has been benched and Johnson is coming off of a brutal performance against BYU.
Tulane also struggles with its defensive fundamentals. The Green Wave grade out 128th in tackling, per PFF, and haven’t gotten a single stop in the red zone this season against an FBS opponent (13 trips for those FBS opponents, 13 scores — eight TDs, five FGs).
This is the kind of defense USF has been waiting to play.
Now, I mentioned Brown’s struggles at the top, but let’s not forget what he did in AAC play a season ago. He led the conference in total yards during conference play with 2,834, threw 19 touchdowns and ran for six more.
This Veer-and-Shoot offense victimizes mediocre defenses, and Tulane fits that bill. Brown has been given a full medical clearance entering this game, so I expect him to run it more than he has the entire season.
Tulane’s running back Makhi Hughes will get USF’s full attention here. He's a future pro and has been special, despite playing two Power Four opponents already.
Luckily, USF’s strength on defense is defending the run. Pro Football Focus ranks the Bulls 46th against the run, and despite being outgunned against Alabama and Miami (FL), they’re giving up just 3.75 yards per carry.
I would play this moneyline down to +150, but if gets below that, just take the points.
Leg 2: USF +165 (Play to +150, Then Points)
Western Michigan vs Marshall Pick
Three road teams, what could go wrong?
I said earlier in the week that I thought the wrong team was favored here, and the market seems to agree with me.
Western opened as a six-point 'dog and has been bet down to +3 as of writing. There's still value on WMU because Marshall is nearly an auto-fade as a home favorite.
Since taking over in 2021, Charles Huff has consistently fallen short of expectations at home. As a favorite in Huntington, Marshall is 4-10 ATS under Huff.
Of teams with at least 10 spots where they were favored at home, there are only three worse coaches over the past three and a half years.
I also bristle at laying points when the favorite struggles to create big plays through the air. Marshall remains shaky in the passing department, despite moving on from Cam Fancher in the offseason.
Stone Earle has a 4-to-1 TD-to-INT ratio, but his QBR is 29.1 on the season, 118th out of qualified passers. If you want to beat the Broncos, you need to do it through the air, but Marshall is ill-equipped to do so.
What that leaves Marshall with is its running game. The WMU gameplay will be built around bottling up A.J. Turner. He already has runs of 80 and 69 yards on the season, flashing his explosive second and third gears.
But unlike its pass defense, this is where Western shines. The Broncos have only given up one run of 30+ this season, despite playing Ohio State and Wisconsin.
On the offensive side of things, the question mark here is the availability of star running back Jalen Buckley.
Western, under head coach Lance Taylor, is a cloak-and-dagger operation when it comes to the injury report. We won’t know until the first series if Buckley is back. If he does go, he gives WMU the best offensive player in this game. But if he doesn’t, Western has a Plan B.
Jaden Nixon, the Oklahoma State transfer, is averaging just about seven yards per carry in Buckley’s stead. He killed Bethune-Cookman last week for 189 yards and two touchdowns.
He'll make Hayden Wolff’s job a lot easier. According to CoachesByTheNumbers, Marshall surrenders a play of 15 yards or more on a 25.7% of play-action calls against it. If the Herd have to respect this rushing game with Buckley and Nixon, it could be a big day for Wolff.
I would play this down to even money on the moneyline, but I prefer to take the three or three-and-a-half on the spread.
Leg 3: Western Michigan +3
