Week 1 college football betting, odds: 2 early bets to make right now

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The numbers hanging on opening weekend are built off what these offenses looked like last November, plus an attempt to project what they’ll be in the next few weeks. In a striking number of cases, the men who built them have already packed a moving truck, making the early season a difficult time for sportsbooks to price games. That’s the thread I keep pulling on this board.

Lane Kiffin is at LSU. Alex Golesh is at Auburn, and he took his quarterback with him. Pat Fitzgerald is running Michigan State, Mike Jacobs is at Toledo, Jim Mora is at Colorado State and Brian Hartline inherited a South Florida team that lost its coach, its quarterback and 18 starters in one offseason.

The market has priced the rosters, but I’m less convinced it has priced the philosophies. A scheme change doesn’t show up in a returning production spreadsheet, and in Week 1, it’s the only thing on the field that hasn’t been tested.

Here are three early Week 1 college football wagers that I like:

Baylor vs. Auburn (-7.5, 59.5)

Alex Golesh dragged South Florida’s offense from irrelevant to genuinely good in two years, and Auburn hired him to do it again. He brought QB Byrum Brown with him, which means the man taking the snaps already knows the system.

On the other side, DJ Lagway looks like the real deal after his run at Florida. Tempo, two quarterbacks worth watching, two teams desperate to prove last season was a fluke — that’s a compelling argument for points, and the market has been making it since this line opened.

Here’s the half I think is being underweighted: A total isn’t one offense against air, it’s both offenses against what’s in front of them. We grade Auburn’s defense No. 13 in the country and fifth in the SEC. Baylor’s defense grades No. 97, which is a big reason this number is in the high 50s at all. But someone still has to score on Auburn, and the side of the equation nobody is discussing is a Baylor offense that has to move the ball against the best unit on the field.

The other piece: Golesh was hired because Auburn’s offense graded 56th last season. A coach arriving to fix a broken unit is a bet in November, not the first Saturday in September. New line, new receivers, first game together. Brown knowing the playbook doesn’t mean the eleven men around him do. I’m also in the camp that if you’re buying or selling Golesh as a coach, this might be the time to sell high after a strong G5 tenure – especially considering he had one of the better NIL setups at South Florida to build rosters that often outmatched opponents.

Both of these teams went 5-7. Both are rebuilding into something. Games between two teams in that spot tend to land closer to the 40s than the 60s. Take the highest number you can find here: 59.5.

Bet: Under 59.5 (-112)

Wyoming at Colorado State (-3.5, 47)

The 118th Border War, the Bronze Boot on the sideline and a debut for a coach who has built a career out of walking into wreckage and coming out the other side. Jim Mora took over a 1-11 UConn team and had the Huskies in bowl games in three of his four years, and now he opens at Canvas Stadium with Colorado State starting life in the rebuilt Pac-12.

The bull case for the over is straightforward, and it deserves its due: rivalry games get frantic, Mora’s debut will have the building loud and a field goal spread means both teams should be in it to the end — which usually means more possessions than a blowout produces.

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Colorado State’s problem is the offense, though. The coach they just replaced was the offensive one, which is the part of this hire nobody in Fort Collins wants to say out loud. Our model docks the Rams’ offense for exactly that reason while giving the other side of the ball a small bump. Wyoming has never been the team that talks anyone into a track meet.

Then there’s the series itself, which keeps producing the same kind of afternoon: Wyoming won 28-0 last October and 24-15 in 2023. We’re at 45.8, and 47 is still hanging at a handful of shops, which creates a small edge. Directionally, this feels like a number that will fall off the key mark soon, so it’s worth getting in early.

Bet: Under 47 (-110)

Two of the biggest disagreements on this board belong to games I didn’t bet. Boise State at Oregon sits at 51.5, and Marshall at Penn State at 53.5, and our projections lean over in both. Oregon is laying 24.5 and Penn State 24.5, which is where I get hesitant.

Once a favorite is up three touchdowns, the total stops being a football question and becomes a question of when the starters come out, whether the backup can move it and how much clock a running team is willing to burn with a lead. That’s something a projection built on two offenses playing each other struggles to answer. So, with a thin card of quality matchups, we end up playing the less talked about games.

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