Some are licking their wounds, some are enjoying the fruits of their labor, and some were content to get out of Week 1 with their bankroll about the same as it was. Every college football season is a crapshoot at the outset because of all the personnel movement, but like I’ve continued to say, the higher the variance in the market, the better it can be for us if we find the mispriced teams.
With the NFL in full swing this week, attention will be divided between the two for most people, but make sure you spend a good amount of time on the college game, as there are likely to be way more inefficiencies in that market than the NFL, even as that season gets underway. College football has a lot of overreactions from week to week and some of those create betting opportunities.
Here are my favorite Week 2 college football picks.
Eastern Michigan vs. Michigan State Prediction
Pick: Michigan State -17
It was a Sparty Party in East Lansing last week with a 10-point win over Toledo, as Pat Fitzgerald began his Michigan State tenure with a hard-fought win. Eastern Michigan, meanwhile, failed to capitalize on the momentum from the Week 0 win over Sacramento State by losing at home to San Jose State in a pretty tough spot for the Spartans with the long travel after playing in blistering heat against USC the week prior.
EMU is a team that I was down on over the summer, as I wrote them up for the College Football Betting Guide, and as I look at them now. Based on Game on Paper data, Eastern Michigan’s two performances thus far rank in the 27th percentile and 9th percentile in EPA/Play. They were downright terrible on offense against San Jose State, mustering just 4.13 yards per play and just two explosives.
Michigan State was something of a box-score loser against Toledo, getting outgained by nearly two yards per play, but the Spartans ran 82 scrimmage plays to just 41 for the Rockets. Fitzgerald leaned heavily on the run because he could, as MSU had 49 rush attempts and 34 pass attempts.
When called upon, Alessio Milivojevic was solid, completing 26-of-34 for 247 yards. Some of those shorter gains against Toledo, who lost a ton from last season, but did have a top-10 defense, could be much more explosive gains against a far worse Eagles team. San Jose State ranked in the 70th percentile in yards per dropback against this EMU defense. I’d expect Michigan State to start fast and spend the rest of the game leaning on the run to salt it away.
Buffalo vs. FIU Prediction
Pick: FIU -10.5
This is a big number for FIU and a game that I discussed in the Opening Line Report on Monday. The Panthers are deserving of it, though. For starters, Buffalo was awful in the 21-17 win over Albany. Over 77 plays, the Bulls only mustered 351 yards and had under 4.6 yards per play. Albany had more explosive plays and Buffalo QB Elijah Holmes was just 26-of-47 for 189 yards.
Now the Bulls head from Western New York to hot and humid Miami to take on a Panthers team that deserved a better fate last week. FIU held South Florida and first-year head coach Brian Hartline to just 208 yards of offense. The difference in the 19-9 loss was that FIU was -3 in actual turnovers and then had four turnovers on downs, so they were effectively -7.
QB JJ Kohl was 31-of-50 for 301 yards. While FIU didn’t have any success running the football, they comfortably found 15-to-30 yard gains through the air, but squandered their drives. The Panthers had 5.08 YPP to USF’s 3.71, so it was a truly spectacular defensive effort from a Panthers bunch that held the Bulls to 26.1 yards per drive, despite being at a severe disadvantage in average starting field position. The Bulls averaged their own 45-yard-line for starting drives. FIU started on average at their own 20.
While Buffalo head coach Pete Lembo often has strong special teams units, I’m not sure he has much to work with on offense here. With FIU having a lot of positives to build off of from the first game, plus the heat and humidity on their side, I believe they can win and cover this big number.
Texas Tech vs. Oregon State Prediction
Pick: Oregon State +26.5
JaMarcus Shephard’s head coaching debut was pretty admirable, as the Beavers went down to Houston for an 11 a.m. local time kick in the heat of the day and were within one score early in the fourth quarter. All things considered, it was a pretty decent data point, as there are some who believe Houston could be a team capable of making waves in the College Football Playoff discussion.
QB Braden Atkinson, who was the starting QB for a borderline top-10 FCS offense at Mercer, threw for 376 yards and completed better than 60% of his passes. Last season at Mercer, he threw for just shy of 3,600 yards and had a 34/11 TD/INT ratio. With some more NIL investment into the Oregon State program now that they are back in a conference it seems like they just might have a fairly robust offense. The Beavers did gain a lot of yards, but only ended up with 20 points, so they have things to work on, but the building blocks might be there.
Texas Tech only had two explosive plays against Abilene Christian in Week 1, as it was a pretty measured 33-10 win. Will Hammond did what he needed to do to get some work in after the team expected Brendan Sorsby to be the starting QB.
This is not a great spot for the Red Raiders, though. They have to trek up to Corvallis and then have a massive Big 12 game on Friday night at home against Houston. I’m not sure that they’ll be looking to make a statement or anything and Oregon State’s pass-happy offense under Shephard should benefit the Beavers in the second half. Covering a number like this feels like a big ask.
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