Will Cardale Jones take Ohio State back to the College Football Playoff? (USATSI) Hi, I’m Jerry. My against-the-spread Expert Picks for the 2014 season were, to put it politely, terrible. In the interest of making some unlikely picking improvement — and, hopefully, learning something along the way — I’ll preview a preseason top-25 team each Tuesday until the 2015 season kicks off … but do so from a spread-picking, win-total-guessing angle. First up: the reigning champs. Ohio State Buckeyes 2014 records: 14-1 (9-0 Big Ten) straight-up, 10-5 (5-4) against-the-spread 247Sports’ 5-year average recruiting rank: 4.8 nationally, 1.0 Big Ten 2015 personnel in a paragraph: Having maybe the most loaded depth chart at quarterback in the history of college football is nice. Having arguably the nation’s best running back, five returning starters on the offensive line, an All-American defensive end, a future linebacking superstar in Darron Lee and three returning starters in the secondary is nicer. If Urban Meyer can find Michael Thomas some help at wideout, on paper there just aren’t any holes. Was last year’s team as good as — or better than — its record? It’s awfully hard to go 14-1 and have the numbers say “yeah, they were that good,” but the Buckeyes managed it; only four times in those 15 attempts did they fail to win by fewer 12 points, and the final three times they did (vs. Penn State, Minnesota and Alabama) they had substantial yard-per-play advantages that argued they should have won by double-digits. When they weren’t playing secretly-not-all-that-close games, of course, they were doing things like gaining 8.5 yards per-play at Michigan State and beating Wisconsin 59-0. After the Week 2 Virginia Tech loss — even there, a game where the box score was friendlier to the Buckeyes than the final score — this was hands-down the best team in the country. Three against-the-spread trends worth watching: 1. The Buckeyes are 5-10 under Meyer as a double-digit Big Ten favorite. Meyer’s enjoyed no shortage of blowouts in his three seasons with Ohio State, but in conference play they haven’t always been big enough blowouts to cover the bookmakers’ frequently sizable spreads. (Surprisingly, that goes double vs. Indiana; the Hoosiers have covered vs. the Buckeyes each of the last four years.) 2…
Continue Reading: Pickin’ Previews: Ohio State aims to build on towering 2014 finish
