Thanksgiving is over and the long-awaited final college football Saturday in November is upon us.

Some call it rivalry week but around here, we call it the Black Friday of college football betting.

Put your legs up, it’s Week 4 of Sharpening The Edge.

Every week, I publish my three best picks of the week across all leagues but focused on college football until the final week -- which means, yes, next week you will get college basketball picks! Additionally, I post exclusive bonus picks on the Wolverine Den Saturday mornings.

Last week was our second-straight 3-0 week and our overall record sits at 8-1 for our article-only picks. Including the board picks, we are 20-6 overall the past three weeks including a late-night 3-team Moneyline parlay last week.

Folks, we’re on a heater but it’s all about staying consistent with your system and not getting flashy just because things are going better than usual.

I have something interesting in store for the board picks Saturday but for now, let’s knock out our three best bets of the week.

Let’s get things going with a total I love on Saturday.

Something I love to ask myself before betting overs on the final Saturday of the regular season is: Are both teams playing for something?

Texas A&M is 8-3 and trying to secure a spot in a major bowl game. LSU is 5-6 and needs a win to make a bowl at all. Not to mention, with a loss it would be Tigers head coach Ed Orgeron’s final game. Both teams will leave it all out there.

A&M plays excellent defense & lousy offense, and LSU plays really bad offense & above-average defense.

On paper, the matchup looks like a prototypical under. But anytime I can get a total of 47 points in a setting like this before the postseason, I’m liking it.

Lastly, there’s been a significant amount of sharp money on this over ... so much so the line has gone from its opening at 45.5 and now up to 47.

The tickets are coming in at 65-percent but the money is at an overwhelming 99-percent.

You can play contrarian to the money and the line moves here moving the same direction, but I’m sticking to the system.

We’ve got two edges. Let’s ride the over.

Pick: o47

We’ve been fortunate to pick BC the past couple of weeks. We’ve also picked against Wake Forest with success.

Nothing changes this week as I’m a fan of Boston College getting 5.5 points at home.

Despite Wake Forest’s successful 9-2 record, it sits 5-6 against the spread going into a road matchup to end the 2021 season.

I love the matchup for Boston College here.

At home, B.C. ranks 22nd in time of possession on offense and 38th on defense.

On the road, Wake Forest’s offense & defense each rank 127th in time of possession. Some of that can be credited to its explosive No. 3 scoring offense in the country, which relies heavily on the passing game. And while I don’t expect their offense to be completely shut down, I do expect it to be slowed down by Boston College’s No. 7 overall passing defense.

I don’t like Wake Forest ATS against any divisional opponent at the 5.5-point mark. It’s 2-4 ATS in its last six divisional games.

We’ve been riding Boston College in November, and that continues here.

Pick: BC +5.5

Ignore the name of the site you’re reading for a second. Take off your Maize & Blue goggles, I’ll take off the ones I’m sometimes accused of having (or not having), and let’s split this down the middle then come to a conclusion.

Michigan hasn’t lost at home. Ohio State hasn’t lost on the road.

Ohio State is coming off a top-10 matchup at home against Michigan State in which it covered the spread without a sweat from bettors backing it. And Michigan did much of the same on the road at Maryland.

Pretty even from a situational perspective.

I’m one that tends to bet against teams in back-to-back matchups of this magnitude but given what the Buckeyes did to the Spartans, you can choose not to consider it a factor and I wouldn’t blame you.

But something about that makes me like it. Ohio State hadn’t covered the spread the week before playing Michigan in nearly a decade before last week. Could that, in the weirdest way, play into Michigan’s favor?

Alright, take the tin caps off. Back to business.

The Wolverines are 9-2 against the spread and despite Ohio State’s recent hot streak, it’s just 6-4-1 against the spread this season.

Ohio State’s No. 1 overall scoring offense will have to face off against Michigan’s No. 6 scoring defense. The Buckeyes haven’t struggled much this season, but when they have the teams who challenged them all had one thing in common: a good defense that limited their explosive offense.

Penn State (3rd in scoring defense) lost on the road by 9. Minnesota (14th scoring defense) got a halftime lead on the buckeyes and inevitably lost by two possessions.

One team who shockingly covered against Ohio State, Nebraska, doesn’t have a stout defense -- 41st overall -- so how did they cover?

At home, the Huskers showed how pressure can get to Buckeye quarterback C.J. Stroud, who threw two picks in the game, was sacked twice, and hurried five times. But that was only enough to keep the Huskers close despite keeping Ohio State at a season-low 26 points.

Michigan’s defense is better than Nebraska’s. To some, aside from the numbers, it’s as good as any defense besides Georgia’s.

It’s especially good at getting to the quarterback and defending the pass … Michigan has two projected first-round edge rushers in Aidan Hutchinson and David Ojabo, and it has the 8th-best opponent completion percentage in the country.

Let’s ignore the Oregon game. Ohio State’s defensive unit is night-and-day different now than it was then.

But what does Michigan have that Nebraska & Penn State didn’t? Forget covering for a moment, is there a way to win?

The Huskers defense played great, but its offense didn’t show up. Penn State allowed 33 points to the nation’s best scoring offense but couldn’t keep up by putting up only 24 points.

So even when Ohio State's offense slowed down, its defense stepped up.

But what's interesting is Michigan’s total offense ranks 19th nationally, eight spots higher than Nebraska and lightyears ahead of Penn State’s 87th overall ranking -- Ohio State didn’t cover the spread in either of these games.

Does Michigan have the balanced attack that teams before it lacked to dethrone Ohio State?

According to The Action Network, there’s been a monstrous nine sharp money moves, moving the Wolverines from 9.5-point dogs down to 7.5 and as low as 7 at some books.

There’s 86-percent of the money on the Buckeyes so with all of that money on them, why is the line moving in Michigan’s direction?

Vegas, man.

Folks, our system(s) like Michigan, and we’ve been 8-1 with it. No bias here, I’m making a call off what I see.

In this world, the Wolverines don’t need to win for you to win. They just need to cover, and I think they will.

Pick: Michigan +7.5

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