College Football Season Win Total Best Bets + Week Zero Picks

What’s up fam. Welcome back. I am unbelievably excited for this college football season. Here’s to hoping the greatest sport in the world is unaffected by covid.

If you are new here, I post my favorite college football picks every week. At least five picks per week. In 2018 my college football picks were 62.5% against the spread. In 2019 they were 59.5% against the spread. Find me literally any other blog or online personality consistently over 60% with receipts, you can’t. I don’t want to talk about last season. We had little to no data coming in to the season and covid messed it all up. We’ll be back to our profitable ways this year.

My proprietary formula will be back with a vengeance. It’s a secret, but it is very simple. I weigh 6 stats that I feel are the most important and come up with my own fluid power rankings and pick which ones have the biggest glaring differences to the spreads that Vegas offers. Also, I am human, and I fall in love with some teams and players and bet them religiously but I will let you know when I’m doing that and not following the formula. Bo Nix lost me a lot of money last season.

Alright alright alright lets get to the season win totals and week zero picks.

BEST SEASON WIN TOTAL BETS

Indiana under 8 wins

This one popped out to me right away. Indiana had an absolutely magical season last year, and it was a once in a decade type year for a program like Indiana. They had some fluke wins, and they will probably never go 9-3 again while in this conference. This number was obviously inflated because people think they’re smart when they bet Indiana. But we will be back on earth this year, Indiana will be fine, but they aren’t winning more than 7 games. When looking at their schedule, I barely see six wins.

Iowa under 8.5 wins

This one is all about how I see their schedule. This is not an Iowa team of the last decade that had a chance at the conference, they are just good. Even if they overachieve they will be at 8 wins. It’ll take a miracle to get to 9 with Iowa State, Wisconsin, and Northwestern on the road and Minnesota, Penn State, and Indiana at home. Do you see fewer than three losses in there? They could also blow another random game.

Only thing I don’t like is that Iowa plays Indiana, my other pick, in week one. I think you should root for Indiana in that game if you bet both based on how close I think they’ll be to their totals.

Ohio State over 11 wins

I don’t care who the new QB is or who they are replacing, Ohio State is not losing in the regular season. This is the year they easily walk into the College Football Playoff, especially if they beat Oregon at home in week 2. Partially based on talent, partially based on schedule. The Oregon game may be their biggest threat until they play Michigan the final week of the season, and we all know how that rivalry is going.

If they beat Oregon it is a win. If they somehow lose, they will still push the win total on their way to losing to Alabama in the College Football Playoff.

Oregon over 9 wins

For any new readers, I am an Oregon State grad and I hate the Ducks more than anything. But I also like winning money. I think Oregon loses to Ohio State but then cruises through the Pac-12. They got lucky and avoided USC and Arizona State from the south, and get to beat up on the north and the weaker south teams. Oregon could even lose to Washington or another team (Civil War again?) and hit the over. You could even push if they lose two conference games. There are so many outs, and that is with the assumption they lose to Ohio State. They are not losing to more than one team on their conference schedule, and they play two high school teams outside of Ohio State in the non-conference.

Mario Cristibal is building this program in a way that terrifies me as a Beaver. I hate it I hate it I hate it. But they are going to play like an SEC team with great offensive and defensive line play and they will run the ball. I hate it. I am going to bet it.

North Carolina under 10 wins

How many times have we seen this movie? Scrappy underdog program gets a coach and a QB and makes some noise, and then the following season the expectations are in the sky. Look, UNC will be good, but exactly like my Indiana pick, last season was an outlier for this program. They are a better program than Indiana for sure, but they aren’t a program that wins 11 games. I know the QB is awesome, and Mack Brown could talk his way into the heart of any woman, but they just aren’t going to win 11 games and essentially play their way into the College Football Playoff. That’s what you’re suggesting if you bet over 10 wins.

What if they lose to Virgina Tech the first week? Who knows, weird things always happen there. They play Duke, Florida State, Miami, and Notre dame in consecutive weeks. You think they win them all? NOPE. They won’t even be favored in them all.

I love this team. They are good. New Years Day Bowl worthy. But they just aren’t winning 11 games.

UConn over 2.5 wins

I looked at every team’s schedule. Every single one. UConn plays Holy Cross, UMass, and Yale. They are winning all three. I don’t want to hear about UConn’s program.

BYU under 6.5 wins

They lost Zach Wilson, and they play five Pac-12 schools, Boise State, Baylor, and Virgina. Good luck winning 7 games. Not happening. Last season with their star QB, they lost weird games and played one of the worst strength of schedules in the country.

If you can’t see my theme, it’s teams falling back to earth this year.

WEEK ZERO PICKS

I will give more elaborate explanations/analysis of my picks after this week. I’m just picking from my gut here with a lack of data and some truly terrible games on the board. I’ll just give you a pick for all five games, whatever. Ride with me.

Illinois +7 (vs Nebraska)

UConn @ Fresno State under 63

Hawaii @ UCLA under 68

UTEP @ New Mexico State under 60

San Jose State -23.5 (vs Southern Utah)

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Edited at end of week: 5-0 this week, 5-0 on the season