College football season is flying by, with a third of the regular season now in the books as the calendar turns to October. Let’s breakdown come CFB Week 5 picks in my best bets cheat sheet.
I’m publishing five plays early in the week on Monday, and will update throughout the week.
Alabama at Mississippi State (Saturday – 12pm ET)
I had my doubts about Alabama this season, but the Crimson Tide have been a wagon, particularly on offense. Through four games, they’ve ripped off 48 points against ECU, 45 at Kentucky, 50 versus FSU and eventually 49 hosting South Carolina this past Saturday. That’s an average of 48 points per game, but maybe more importantly, so far just a floor of 45 points.
Alabama’s a tough offense to stop. Meanwhile, ‘Bama’s defense has been decent, but has been helping the cause when it comes to betting overs. The Tide also putting up so many points leaves wiggle room to play cushy defense late. Alabama is surrendering just over 20 points per on defense.
Enter Mississippi State, an unexpected and exciting 4-0. Why are the Bulldogs so exciting? Super Kamario! Kamario Taylor steps into this offense, and you can tell just by watching him throw the football that he’s a special prospect. His individual greatness has elevated the entire offense, with Taylor sitting third on the board in current Heisman odds.
Mississippi State is averaging 43 points per game, including nearly 37 points per game against Power Four competition. Yet, the Bulldogs are giving up an average of 29 points on defense, through two SEC games.
‘Bama is 4-0 to the over this season, with the overs cashing by an average of 17.3 points. Mississippi State has shown every inclination that it would be a willing participant in a shootout. This one has fireworks written all over it.
CFB Pick: OVER 59.5 (-112)
Florida at Missouri (Saturday – 3:30pm ET)
Let’s keep the SEC barnburners rolling. Florida isn’t perfect to the over like Alabama is, but the only game the Gators went under the total this season they managed 52 points. However, they held Campbell to just a field goal. That won’t be the case on Saturday afternoon against Missouri.
Florida’s offense has been machine-like during this 4-0 start, sitting at 3-1 to the over, and cashing overs by 16.5 points per game. The Gators have finished with 66 points vs. FAU, 52 vs. Campbell, 44 at Auburn and an impressive 52 in last week’s top-10 win over Ole Miss. Pretty similar and absurd stats to ‘Bama — 53.5 PPG, no fewer than 44 points in any game. Florida is also averaging 48 points in SEC play, against legit competition.
I don’t see this Florida offense slowing down anytime soon, particularly against an untested Missouri team. The Tigers got their first real test last week at Mississippi State, and despite a late lead, failed yet again in a ranked game. They gave up 31 points to the Bulldogs, after giving up 21 points to Kansas — the other games came against Troy and an FCS game.
Missouri just has to do its part at home here to be somewhat competitive, while the Gators do the heavy lifting.
CFB Pick: OVER 56.5 (-112)
Ohio State at Iowa (Saturday – 3:30pm ET)
Iowa got a signature win at the Big House last week, and in dramatic fashion. Now the Hawkeyes get to celebrate their buzzer beater walk off touchdown at Michigan by returning home to face Ohio State. Not an easy task. Now, if there’s a team disciplined enough to fall into a letdown spot, I suppose it’a Iowa.
Kirk Ferentz is a great coach and will do his best to motivate. At the same time, Iowa now has the Michigan win and a great looking schedule post-Buckeyes. It has to be in their heads that they can afford to let this one go and focus on the rest of the season, particularly with a short turnaround to a Friday night game at Washington on deck.
Ohio State cannot afford to let one go, following a complete collapse in Austin. If you’re ever going to catch Iowa off guard, this is the spot. But even if we take the Iowa letdown out of the equation, the Hawkeyes simply might not have the horses to keep up here. Of course, they’ll try to slow the game down, lean on defense and special teams and see where that gets them.
But if they Buckeyes are clicking offensively, Iowa just doesn’t have a shot to keep up. The Hawkeyes have played two Power Four opponents, winning both on the final play of the game, and averaging just 18 points in those games.
Gaging Ohio State is more difficult, but we know this is a national contender. We can toss out 50-plus point wins over Ball State and Kent State, but last week’s win over Illinois looked pretty solid. But to be honest, the most impressive thing the Buckeyes have done this season is the first three quarters they played at Texas.
Ohio State dominated the Longhorns … for about 45 minutes –it was 23-3 entering the fourth quarter. Julian Sayin was accurate, Jeremiah Smith was other-worldly, and the defense was punishing. I think that loss actually helps Ohio State finish games with margin the rest of the way, specifically putting an emphasis on not letting that happen again.
I’m expecting the Buckeyes to jump out to a big lead in this one, and between the memories that loss in Austin left, and Iowa not having much of an explosive offense, the margin should only continue to grow.
CFB Pick: Ohio State -13.5 (-110)
Baylor at Arizona State (Saturday – 10:30pm ET)
After falling short at the goal line in Atlanta and opening up the season with a loss to Auburn, Baylor has found its way to 3-1. Part of that is the competition, with Prairie View and Louisiana Tech on the schedule, but the Bears won their Big 12 opener at home on Saturday.
That said, it was a sloppy game, and Colorado made plenty of silly mistakes that prevented the game from being much closer. The Baylor offense has not been sharp against Power Four competition, and DJ Lagway still does not look healthy. The Florida transfer injured his ankle in the opener, and last week was 19-for-39 throwing the ball against a weak Colorado defense.
We’ve seen almost all good things from Arizona State in the early going. There was a lot of turnover with this team, but Kenny Dillingham liked the talent he brought in, specifically the explosive weapons on offense. I don’t want to put much, if any, stock into FCS games, but the Sun Devils hung 70 in their opener in much smoother fashion than when Baylor faced similar competition.
Arizona State’s loss at Texas A&M was tilted by a very misleading final score, in a game that the Sun Devils out-gained the Aggies by more than 100 yards. They won their Big 12 opener over Kansas a couple weeks ago in England, and then came home to a bye. So I think Arizona State enters this one with multiple key edges — an early season bye, a healthy QB, the better head coach and the more explosive offense.
Tie all that together with home field advantage for a night game, and I’ll lay the poitnts with the Sun Devils.
CFB Pick: Arizona State -4 (-110)
Stanford at Wake Forest (Saturday – 12pm ET)
Ohio State at Iowa (Saturday – 3:30pm ET)
Washington at USC (Saturday – 7:30pm ET)
Texas Tech at Colorado (Saturday – 7:30pm ET)
Been doing well lately with one moneyline parlay on the card the last few weeks, so we’ll let another one rip. Nothing fancy here.
I broke down the Buckeyes already. USC and Texas Tech feel like buy-low spots against underwhelming teams in their conferences. Wake Forest is off a big win as a road dog, but hosts Stanford, which has been dreadful coming east and is off a big win of their own.
CFB Pick: WF/OSU/USC/TT Moneyline Parlay (+125)
For more analysis check out our College Football homepage on DraftKings Network.
