College Football Betting Primer: What to Know Before Placing Week 4 Bets
Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images. Pictured: The Notre Dame Fighting Irish take the field before a game against the Tennessee State Tigers.
Week 4 of the college football season is loaded.
This week, there's nothing better than sitting back and enjoying a college football feast. Every conference has something meaningful happening, from some Mountain West Friday action to some critical Pac-12 clashes. And the biggest game of the day is a nonconference blockbuster between the bluest of blue bloods — Ohio State and Notre Dame.
This is the kind of week that dreams are made of. Enjoy the games, and let's get to the window.
Friday night features a late-night slate of two Mountain West contenders (Air Force and Boise State) as road favorites in tough spots. Get to know Mountain West champion sprinter Zac Larrier, Air Force's quarterback. He’s averaging 73 rushing yards a game and adds an explosive facet to the triple-option offense.
We love a service academy getting two touchdowns, don’t we? After opening the year with a horrifying effort at UL-Monroe (a 17-13 loss with five turnovers), the Black Knights suddenly look competent with their new shotgun offense. They're coming off a big win over UTSA last Friday night.
This is one of a handful of massive games on the slate. By the early afternoon, we'll know if Florida State has squandered its goodwill from the season opener win over LSU, or if Clemson’s dynasty is officially cooked.
Jordan Travis injured his non-throwing shoulder last week but is expected to play Saturday.
Oklahoma is now a two-touchdown favorite. Do we trust the Sooners in their Big 12 farewell tour more than Cincinnati playing host in its premiere as a Power Five program?
The Sooners have racked up some gaudy statistics against overmatched foes but will face their first tough road test.
Mike Calabrese laid out the case for the Western Kentucky moneyline (+150) in the Group of Five Deep Dive. Troy’s defense is still well respected in the market for the unit it was last year. The Hilltoppers will be fired up to exact revenge after the Trojans stole this matchup late last season.
Colorado and Coach Prime get their toughest test and travel to face a great team in a hostile environment. Oregon has a lot of advantages on paper, but the only paper that matters here is the tickets you’ll be ripping up if Colorado continues defying expectations. (Or the paper you’ll be making IF YOU BELIEVE!)
All-galaxy two-way star Travis Hunter is out for the Buffaloes. Of course, nothing has made sense about this Colorado season, so why would we expect that to change now?
This is an interesting live betting spot.
The Terrapins are favored by about a touchdown on the road but are also notoriously slow starters. If you like Mike Locksley’s team to cover on the road against what might be a dead-man-walking Michigan State team, why not see if you can grab a better number after the Terps invariably fall behind 10-0 or 14-3?
Will Lane Kiffin have a gnarly game plan for his old mentor? Can Alabama fix its quarterback crisis?
About two-thirds of the Pac-12 has their sites set on ending Utah’s conference championship streak, and UCLA is one of them. This should be a fun quarterback matchup as Utah’s Cameron Rising is expected to make his season debut and give Utah's offense a necessary jolt.
UCLA’s star freshman Dante Moore has been amazing through three games, but a game at Rice-Eccles Stadium is a different beast.
At 37, this is the lowest total on the board. That's an Iowa-Rutgers number and within spitting distance of a Commander-in-Chief’s Trophy game total. In its first year of FBS football, Sam Houston has already built an excellent defense and will face Houston, which has a penchant for playing down to competition.
LSU is up to a 17.5-point favorite, but the only thing I would bet on happening in this game is chaos. It feels like these teams get together and do something weird every year. Arkansas’s superstar running back Rocket Sanders is questionable with a knee injury that he suffered in Week 1.
The story in this one is not Luther Burden, Missouri’s explosive sophomore receiver. No, the story is his quarterback, Brady Cook, who battled through a knee injury to rally his team to a massive win over Kansas State last week.
Cook is a gamer (he played through a labrum injury last season), and this game is in his hometown (St. Louis). They’ll have to drag him off the field.
Mississippi State’s offense has struggled with transitioning from the Air Raid to a more balanced scheme, and South Carolina’s offense has struggled with not having any good offensive linemen.
Ohio State hasn't looked right on offense, which means this game could be a rock fight, just like the 2022 edition. Notre Dame’s new-look offense has been impressive in the early going. We polled our college football staff for a consensus play in this massive matchup.
We're split on the total but heavily favor the Irish against the spread.
This is a matchup of strength-on-strength. James Madison ranks second in the nation in Rush Success Rate allowed, and Utah State ranks 10th in Rush Success Rate. Both Taurus Jones and Jailin Walker, JMU’s excellent linebackers, missed last week’s win against Troy with nagging injuries, but both are listed on the depth chart this week.
UCF’s Big 12 debut comes in the Little Apple in a game that might not feature either starting quarterback. UCF’s John Rhys Plumlee is sidelined for a few weeks, and Kansas State’s Will Howard limped through an injury last week at Missouri. He's questionable for this week.
A massive 98% of the betting handle tracked by the Action Network app are on the Under for this one, bringing two questions to mind: 1) What do y’all know? 2) Who the heck bets the under in the late-night game?!
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