Welcome back to another college football season—the last season before things look a lot different around here.
Although change can be fun and exciting with something brand new for us to play with, it saddens me to see the college football conference realignment become a reality. Maybe I’m just a romantic about the whole thing, but college football revolves around tradition, and a lot of these traditions are seeing their final moments.
“I wish there was a way to know you were in the good old days before you actually left them.”—Andy Bernard.
In tribute, let’s come out of this season on top and take every last penny from the sportsbooks.
Before I begin, here’s a plug to use PFF’s fantasy football tools for your drafts this weekend. In our Mock Draft Simulator and Live Draft Assistant, our algorithms suggest your next pick using rankings from the best analysts in the game and determined by your unique situation.
Utah St. @ Iowa -24
To begin, and for probably the only time this year, I’m going to add Iowa to my list. I have reasons for keeping them off this list each week—reasons that helped avoid a lot of shame last season. But this week, I think there’s early value in the spread.
Iowa was 3rd-from-last nationally in EPA per play last year. Their offense was incredibly bad, and we were warned early as they began the season with a 7-3 victory over SD State.
This year, their offense has the missing pieces. Cade McNamara finally gives the offense a chance, bringing with him, Erick All, a very good pass catching tight end.
On Pardon My Take, Tom Fornelli said, “They're going to score 31 points per game.” And that’s good, because Brian Ferentz’s amended contract calls for his firing if he doesn’t get 25 points per game.
I’m going to believe Fornelli because it’s better that way, and Iowa’s offensive line has improved with the return of Connor Colby, a projected top interior offensive linemen in 2024 NFL Draft.
To me, the 24 point spread is low, probably due to last year’s offensive performance. But even so, the Hawks beat Nevada 27-0, another Mountain West school like Utah State.
Ohio State -30.5 @ Indiana
Let’s jump on Ohio State early this year. They’re still figuring out their quarterback situation and we’ll probably see two play this Saturday, but they’re both very capable of getting the ball into the hands of the best receiving corps in the country.
Ohio State will have no problem moving the ball down the field comfortably against Indiana, a team that allowed 280.5 passing yards per game last year and ranked 5th-from-last in PFF coverage grade.
Wide receivers, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Emeka Egbuka were first-team All-Americans for Ohio State and are projected first-round draft picks—Marvin Harrison at number 2.
Along with the best two wide receivers returning, they’re also returning their top-6 receivers from last season, along with top-10 tight end, Cade Stover.
A noted question-mark is their offensive line, as they lost three stars to the NFL last year. CJ Stroud averaged just under 3 seconds time-to-throw in 2022, and although we can't expect McCord/Brown to have that much time, the wide receiver mismatches are too great against Indiana’s coverage to matter.
Texas Tech -14 @ Wyoming
To quote PMT and Tom Fornelli again, this is “Game of the year territory,” and the spread is, “Short by a touchdown.”
I’ll take any excuse to jump on an alternate spread, so I’m going with -19.5 Texas Tech at +152. But I also think Fornelli’s right.
Texas Tech is way better than this line suggests. They beat a really good Texas team last year and put up 37 points. They Beat Oklahoma and put up 51 and they racked 42 against Ole Miss in their bowl game.
Tyler Shough is entering his third season starting for the Red Raiders. He’s struggled with injury in the past, but he came back mid-November last year and won their last four games. He had a career high 436 passing yards against Oklahoma and was MVP of the Texas Bowl after throwing 240 yards and running for 111 against Ole Miss.
North Carolina @ South Carolina +2.5
Drake Maye is the center of the North Carolina offense. He’s also everything else.
Drake Maye, a redshirt sophomore, is the second-best quarterback in college football, behind Caleb Williams. He led the country in big-time throws—10 more than the next guy—and threw 4,293 yards and 37 touchdowns, while rushed for 899 yards and 7 touchdowns.
Unfortunately, UNC lost its two best receivers from 2022 to the NFL draft, and they are a mess defensively. They ranked 16-from-last in the country in EPA per play last year, allowing 31.3 points per game and 270.7 passing yards per game.
South Carolina’s Spencer Rattler is either great or bad, so we’ll see which version we get, but he really shouldn’t have a problem slinging the ball against this defense.
I’m taking the over and South Carolina +2.5.