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After getting a taste of college football last Saturday with Week 0, our long national nightmare is over here in the Tuley’s Takes home office as Week 1 is here with a full slate of games on Saturday.

Of course, we’re also excited because we started 1-0 ATS in these weekly CFB “takes” columns as we hit our first play with Georgia Tech +10.5 vs. No. 10 Florida State in the season opener in Dublin. It seems prophetic, as we wrote, “This isn’t the mismatch a lot of people are expecting from a ranked vs. unranked matchup,” as the early 8-0 deficit was the only time the cover looked in doubt. In fact, the Yellow Jackets actually led 14-11 in the second quarter and 21-14 after the first play of the fourth quarter before being tied and then winning 24-21 on a 44-yard field goal on the last play of regulation. My only regret was not going out on a limb and predicting the outright upset and cashing at +330 on the money line!

 

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But we’re hoping for a lot more of that from our “dog-or-pass” plays this college football season as we’re always looking for live dogs, especially those with a chance to win straight-up. Hopefully we have three such games this Saturday.

Eastern Michigan +2.5 at Massachusetts

Saturday, 3:30 p.m. ET (ESPN+)

UMass has been among the worst teams in the nation in recent years as an independent and will be joining the Mid-American Conference next season (so this game is a natural step in that direction as the Minutemen also face Toledo, Buffalo, Miami (OH) and Northern Illinois this season after going 0-3 vs. the MAC last year). So, even though UMass did improve to 3-9 in 2023, I’m surprised it’s favored here and will take the points with the middle-of-the LAC Eagles of EMU.

Notre Dame +3 at Texas A&M

Saturday, 7:30 p.m. ET (ABC)

Saturday kicks off with the marquee game of No. 1 Georgia vs. No. 14 Clemson, but this is a pretty good second billing with No. 20 Texas A&M hosting No. 7 Notre Dame. However, the Aggies are actually favored, which isn’t too surprising being at home on Kyle Field at College Station. Regular college football readers know how I feel about home-field advantage not being as strong as it used to be (and happy to take the added points when oddsmakers and the betting market give them to us when we feel it’s overinflated). The Irish might be a little over-ranked themselves (what else is new, right?), but they should be in this game throughout as they have the better defense. Most people would say A&M has the edge on offense with Connor Weigman (970 yards passing yards last year with eight TDs) vs. Notre Dame’s Riley Leonard (just 3 TDs at Duke last year), but he did throw for 2,967 yards and 20 TDs in 2022, so we very well could be saying after the game that the Aggies didn’t have an edge on offense after all.

Wyoming +7 at Arizona State

Saturday, 10:30 p.m. ET (FS1)

Wyoming has had a winning program under coach Craig Bohl, who retired last season, but it should be a smooth transition as longtime defensive coordinator Jay Sawvel takes over. This is far too many points for Arizona State, a mediocre team that went 3-9 in its last season of the Pac-12 and now moves to the Big 12, to be laying against a solid mid-major. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at an outright upset as the “cultures” of these two college football programs is certainly in favor of Wyoming right now.

For more College Football Week 1 predictions, visit the College Football Week 1 Hub at VSiN.com.

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