College football Week 1 bad beats

It took only one Saturday for college football bettors to experience gut-wrenching bad beats. From Oregon's last-second touchdown to a 25-point underdog defeating an SEC team outright, we recap the bad beats from Week 1.

Stanford 17 Northwestern 7

Bad beat: Northwestern +6

This game played out exactly like everyone thought it would: a low-scoring, defensive struggle that came down to the final minutes. Despite being outgained and outplayed, Northwestern was covering the 6-point spread, trailing just 10-7 late in the fourth quarter.

The Wildcats stopped Stanford on third down and got the ball back with 20 seconds to go and trailing by three. Barring a disaster, Northwestern backers would cash their +6 tickets. Then, disaster struck.

Northwestern quarterback Hunter Johnson got crushed and the ball went rolling into the end zone. Stanford's Jordan Fox jumped on it to give the Cardinals a 10-point win and an improbable cover.

It was a stunning loss for Northwestern bettors, as it took only a few hours on college football's first full Saturday to produce what looked like the worst beat of the season. That is, until ...

Auburn 27 Oregon 21

Bad beat: Oregon +4

As horrifying as Northwestern's loss was for bettors, an even worse beat happened just a few hours later when Auburn defeated Oregon 27-21 to cover the 4-point spread.

The Ducks dominated the first two quarters and went into halftime leading 14-6. After tacking on a touchdown early in the third quarter, Oregon took a commanding 21-6 lead. It's unlikely any Auburn bettor thought they were going to cover the game at that point.

Yet, somehow, a lifeless Auburn grabbed momentum and scored two touchdowns to cut the fourth-quarter deficit to 21-20. The Tigers got the ball back with 2:14 remaining and freshman quarterback Bo Nix led Auburn into field-goal range. No problem, a field goal would give the Tigers a 23-21 win and Oregon would still cover.

Then this happened ...

Instead of playing for the field goal, Nix hit receiver Seth Williams for the game-winning touchdown, giving Auburn backers the cover. Oregon was covering the spread the entire game until the final nine seconds.

If you had Northwestern +6 and Oregon +4 on Saturday, go ahead and take the rest of the season off.

Georgia State 38 Tennessee 30

Bad bet: Tennessee ML -4000

Raise your hand if you had the Georgia State money line at +1400? That's right, Tennessee got beat at home as a 25-point favorite and -4000 on the moneyline. You don't see that every day.

One of the underrated aspects of sports betting is parlays. People love putting big favorites in moneyline parlays and that was the case Saturday with the Volunteers. Tennessee certainly won't lose to Georgia State, right? The Panthers won just two games last season, after all.

Not only did Tennessee lose, it was dominated at home by the Panthers. Georgia State racked up 213 rushing yards and 24 first downs on the Vols' defense. It will likely go down as the biggest upset of the college football season and at least one bettor thought it would be a good idea to take Tennessee on the moneyline. At least he has a story to tell the grandkids.