Say goodbye to the offseason. Say goodbye to sifting through transfers, injuries and fall camp notes, there will be real college football games played this weekend. And while there are only two FBS vs. FBS games — one of which is played in Ireland — they’re real and I couldn’t be more excited.
Real games means there are games to be bet on and while Week 0/1 markets have been up for a long time, my college football projection model still thinks there is a little bit of value on the board. And depending on how things move later in the week, I may add a play in the game across the pond so stay tuned.
Because there are a small number of games this week, I’m also adding in some game of the year lines as well. For those of you that don’t know, some sportsbooks offer markets on the biggest games of the year well in advance. I think there a quite a few that are worth taking stabs on so I’ll get into those below.
All bets are to win one unit on favorites and risk one unit on underdogs unless noted otherwise. I’ll also be posting a “worst price to bet” which is the last number that I would bet before the game no longer has enough value to make a bet. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out in the comments or on X/Twitter (@amock419).
Week 0 best bet
SMU at Nevada under 57.5 (-110)
My model pegs this about a field goal too high and a large part of that is Nevada grading out as a bottom-five offense in college football. Nevada’s offense isn’t projected to be good and points will be hard to come by. As for SMU, the Mustangs trended towards playing slower at the end of last season. With them being over a three-touchdown favorite, I don’t expect them to be playing with that much pace here. I didn’t forget about the two-minute warning as I’ve done my best adjusting my scoring environment to pick up the change, but in an expected blow out, I don’t expect it to factor in as much here.
- Worst price to bet: Under 57 (-110)
Week 0 score projections
SMU 38.5, Nevada 14.5
Florida State 35.8, Georgia Tech 22.3
GO DEEPER
The Athletic 134: Ranking every team from No. 1 Ohio State to No. 134 Kennesaw State
Best bets on look-ahead lines
Iowa State moneyline (+116) at Iowa
I’ll believe it when I see it when it comes to Iowa’s offense improving. Reports out of fall camp haven’t been super favorable to their offense and while the defense will, again, be top notch, a team with this bad of an offense cannot be trusted. Iowa had one of the luckier seasons in history last year and I think regression is coming their way.
Oklahoma +8.5 (-110) vs. Texas
This is a steep price to be laying for a team which lost elite talent at wide receiver and on the interior defensive line. Quinn Ewers is good, but I’m not sure he’s great and I have too many questions about Texas’ returning production to be laying more than a touchdown and two-point conversion in the Red River Showdown.
Penn State +3.5 (-102) vs. Ohio State
I’m not sure if this is the year that Penn State finally takes down Ohio State, but they’ve shown that they can keep it close against the Buckeyes (Ohio State has won 11 of the last 12 in the series, but six of the last 10 were decided by single digits). I think Penn State upgraded at both coordinator positions and if it wasn’t for questions along the offensive line, I think this would be a true coin flip. In the current state of the teams, I don’t think Penn State should be getting more than a field goal — at a cheap price! — in Beaver Stadium.
(Photo of Preston Stone: Chris Leduc / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
