Baylor vs. UCF
Three games are on the college football card for Friday night, headlined by Baylor vs. UCF. Both teams are in very difficult spots here, as the Knights just upset BYU at home in overtime last week and the Bears fired head coach Dave Aranda after losing at home to Kansas. On a night with the MAC, American, and Big 12, we have Kent State as a rare home favorite, a mediocre Tulane team laying double digits, and then the coin flip in Orlando.
Despite the tricky circumstances with Baylor and UCF, that’s the game of the night and the game that deserves the most attention.
Odds from Circa Sports as of October 28, 1:20 p.m. PT; check out our Circa Betting Splits and DraftKings Betting Splits. See all of our Week 9 College Football Picks and Predictions.
Baylor at UCF (-1, 48) Prediction
Friday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ESPN)
Pick: UCF -1
Baylor invades the Bounce House this week and we’ll see if interim head coach Joe Klanderman can put some more pep in the steps of the Bears. It felt like Aranda was simply holding on for dear life with this gig for a while and it finally came to a head this past week with a blocked field goal that led to a loss against the Jayhawks. I watched Klanderman’s media availability this week and he comes across as a very honest, very poignant guy who isn’t going to BS this team about what’s going on. I appreciate that. In this day and age, I think the players do as well.
Klanderman will continue to call the defense, while longtime up-and-comer Jake Spavital has creative freedom on offense. The 41-year-old Spavital was Texas A&M’s OC by the age of 30 and even was Texas State’s head coach for four rough seasons. But he’s always been pretty highly-regarded in the coaching world and now he has free reign of the offense. By no means has the offense been good, but Aranda was kind of a passive guy and there wasn’t a lot of explosiveness or aggressiveness to Baylor’s offensive profile. With a lot of money invested in DJ Lagway, let’s see if Spavital can unlock something.
Lagway has only completed 52.1% of his passes and only has 26 carries for 19 yards, so it’s been a struggle to get him free. Leading rusher Dawson Pendergrass only has 3.5 yards per carry. The Baylor offensive line needs to be better, but we should see an improvement in effort and focus for this week.
UCF head coach Scott Frost brought in Keyone Jenkins as an insurance policy behind expected starter Alonza Barrett III from James Madison. Instead, it has been Jenkins, the FIU transfer, who has carried this team in Barrett’s absence. He sports an 11/3 TD/INT ratio and a completion rate butting up against 70%, while transfer RB Duke Watson has rushed for 6.8 yards per carry.
While Baylor’s defensive numbers stand up a lot better, as the Bears are 17th in the nation in yards per play allowed, it should be noted that Jeff Sagarin has a strength of schedule gap of 30 spots between the two teams, as UCF has already played three top-30 teams per Sagarin and Baylor has not played any. The Knights rank 27th in SOS and the Bears are 57th, with a big difference in Big 12 opponents. UCF has played TCU, Houston, Oklahoma State, and BYU. Baylor has played Colorado, Arizona State, TCU, and Kansas. Of that group, Arizona State is the only one with a winning record and the only one without a losing conference record.
It’s a tough spot for UCF coming off of the BYU win, but they aren’t traveling, they don’t have the internal tumult, and Jenkins has definitively outplayed Lagway this season and even done so against better competition.
Pick: UCF -1
Other Friday Games
Tulane (-10, 47) at Charlotte: This is a hefty number for Tulane, a team that ranks 99th with -.51 net points per drive per Brian Fremeau of BCFToys. Of course, Charlotte is 134th out of 138 teams, so we’re talking about one of the worst programs in the nation. The Green Wave have not gotten good QB play out of either Kadin Semonza or Trace Johnson, with 18 total sacks and a 5/5 TD/INT ratio. Even though the Green Wave have a great running game and maybe that will be enough, winning by margin requires taking care of the football and avoiding negative plays. Charlotte has poor run defense numbers, but it should be noted that they’ve allowed 4.55 YPC to FBS opponents and allowed 5.36 YPC in the loss to The Citadel.
Kent State (-10, 46.5) at Sacramento State: Historical outliers are scary and Kent State being favored like this on the road hasn’t happened since 2022. That could be part of the reason why we’ve seen money come in on the Hornets and against the Golden Flashes. It’s also just ludicrous to think about Kent State facing these kinds of expectations, but Sac State might be the worst FBS team we’ve ever seen. If Kent wins and covers, that might solidify it, but that’s an enormous ask and the market seems to think it’s too big of one.
Check out picks from VSiN hosts and guests on this game and all of the Week 9 games on our Pro Picks Page.
