Week 4 college football best bets: Is revamped LSU worth a wager?
Every Thursday during the college football season, Doug Kezirian (0-1 last week, 1-1 overall), Bill Connelly (2-2, 5-2), Preston Johnson (0-1, 1-3), Seth Walder (1-1, 3-1) and David M. Hale (3-0, 4-2) will provide their top plays across the college football landscape.
Here are their best bets for Week 4 of the college football season.
Note: Lines from Caesars Sportsbook by William Hill as of Wednesday afternoon.
Thursday's game
UAB Blazers (-6, 47.5) at South Alabama Jaguars
Hale: Sure, South Alabama has seemed frisky this season, beating Southern Miss (and getting a coach fired in the process) before blowing a big lead in the second half against Tulane. But this is still a team that finished 2-10 last season and lost to UAB 35-3. ESPN's Football Power Index and SP+ both rank UAB well ahead of South Alabama, and if anything, the Blazers' loss to Miami on Sept. 10 now looks like a relatively impressive showing. Plus, it's Thursday, and it's the only college action there is. Might as well make it interesting.
Pick: UAB -6
Saturday's games
Mississippi State Bulldogs at No. 6 LSU Tigers (-16.5, 56.5)
Hale: Hey, Mike Leach is involved and is going to make Mississippi State's offense fun, right? And look at LSU, a shell of the team that won last season's title with Joe Burrow and Clyde Edwards-Helaire gone to the NFL and and Ja'Marr Chase opting out of this season to focus on the draft. Don't buy it. LSU is still going to move the football, still has a terrific defense and is still going to blow the doors off Mississippi State. Yes, there's some unknown on exactly what this next group of Bayou Bengals will do, but here's guessing we'll look back at this line in two months and wonder why anyone thought this would be a remotely competitive game.
Pick: LSU -16.5
Kezirian: I am going to respectfully disagree with David, which does concern me, but I have to stick with my initial assessment. I would be more likely to envision a blowout later in the season, but the season opener favors Leach and the Bulldogs. LSU won the national championship with arguably the greatest offense the sport has ever seen. However, the Tigers return only two starters and lost offensive mastermind Joe Brady to the NFL. I just think the fact that LSU lost both coordinators and so many starters, rightfully enjoyed the spotlight of winning the title and limited fans at Death Valley all points to a more level playing field Saturday.
Leach is a wizard. Coaching changes typically take time to develop, but Leach's track record speaks for itself. He also brings in a veteran quarterback in Stanford transfer K.J. Costello, who should find success against Bo Pelini's new defense. A major reason for that is Leach's "Air Raid" offense and the wider gaps between offensive linemen, which forces defensive linemen to start farther from the QB. That enables Leach's quarterbacks to stay clean, which is why he has won both prior meetings with Pelini when Pelini was Nebraska head coach.
Pick: Mississippi State +16.5
No. 23 Kentucky Wildcats at No. 8 Auburn Tigers (-7.5, 49.5)
Kezirian: I am pretty surprised at how little respect Bo Nix has received. I realized we've been overwhelmed recently with some superstar freshmen quarterbacks such as Trevor Lawrence and Tua Tagovailoa, but Nix played quite well in his debut season. He set Auburn freshman passing records in yards and touchdowns and owns the nation's second-longest current streak with 191 passes without an interception. I have the utmost confidence in Tigers coach Gus Malzahn's ability to develop him further and build off that freshman campaign.
Meanwhile, Kentucky returns senior QB Terry Wilson, but he missed 11 games last season with a knee injury. I anticipate rust when having to face a top-10 team on the road, albeit with reduced capacity at Jordan-Hare Stadium. Plus, UK lost do-everything player Lynn Bowden Jr. to the NFL and could have a difficult time maintaining scoring pace with an Auburn team that has the potential to light it up.
Pick: Auburn -7.5
Iowa State Cyclones (-2.5, 44.5) at TCU Horned Frogs
Walder: Often when FPI has a major disagreement with the betting market, it's because of a circumstance -- usually involving a quarterback -- that it doesn't know about. FPI's prior on TCU is based on an assumption that Max Duggan was the likely starter for the Horned Frogs this season. That might be the case for future games after Duggan returned to practice following discovery of a heart condition, but it won't be the case on Saturday, as Horned Frogs coach Gary Patterson named Matthew Downing the starting quarterback against Iowa State. Normally a QB situation like that might cause me to hesitate, but in this case, we're talking about a 13-point difference between FPI and the line. I'm honestly not sure if I've ever seen a difference that high before. Plus, both QBR and our college football real plus-minus models consider Duggan to be about average, so we aren't expecting a crazy drop-off.
Pick: TCU +2.5
Connelly: SP+ isn't as far off in its disagreement with the line, but it still projects TCU to have a 3.2-point advantage. I know nothing about whether Downing is good enough to engineer some improvement over last season's offense, but I do know that Iowa State's receiving corps was mostly dominated by Louisiana two weeks ago (and suffered drops when it did find open space), and TCU's secondary should be nasty once again. I hate picking an underdog at +2.5, but I got away with it with Miami-Louisville last week, and if neither SP+ nor FPI thinks of TCU as an underdog, I'm in.
Pick: TCU +2.5
Kansas Jayhawks at Baylor Bears (-17, 62)
Connelly: I thought for a moment that I had copied this down wrong. Kansas is getting only 17 points on the road against last season's conference runner-up? Granted, we know next to nothing about Baylor this season -- the Bears have a new coach, new offense and lots of new defensive personnel. They are a potential regression candidate, and that's before we start to think about the effects of the positive coronavirus tests they've been working through in recent weeks.
We do know Kansas, however. You know, the team that lost at home by 15 points to Coastal Carolina two weeks ago. SP+ projects a 45-15 Baylor victory, and while it obviously doesn't take the above unknowns into account, that's more than enough cushion for me. Bears roll.
Pick: Baylor -17
West Virginia Mountaineers at No. 15 Oklahoma State Cowboys (-8.5, 51.5)
Connelly: It's a Big 12-themed week of picks! SP+ and Vegas disagree with the oddsmakers quite a bit here, and that continues with this matchup. West Virginia is one of three Big 12 teams that actually looked good in their debuts, even if it was against only Eastern Kentucky. Oklahoma State, meanwhile, labored to put away Tulsa, and quarterback Spencer Sanders is questionable with an ankle injury.
After watching the Cowboys' offensive line struggle with the Golden Hurricane, I like what the Mountaineers' defensive front might be able to do. If the West Virginia can render Oklahoma State somewhat one-dimensional like Tulsa did, the Mountaineers might be able to keep things interesting even if their own offense finds that moving the ball against a physical, aggressive Big 12 defense is more difficult than moving it against Eastern Kentucky.
Pick: West Virginia +8.5
Duke Blue Devils at Virginia Cavaliers (-6, 46)
Hale: The Blue Devils' biggest strength is a ferocious defensive front, and it has shown up in each of the first two games. Duke has gotten pressure on nearly half of opponents' dropbacks this season and ranks fourth nationally in sacks despite playing against two of the top O-lines in the country (Notre Dame, Boston College). Now the group gets its shot at a Virginia unit that has yet to play a game, wasn't particularly effective last season and is blocking for a first-time starter. The Duke D should have a big day.
The question is whether the offense can manage anything. The terrible performances in the first two weeks might be a bit overstated, though. Duke has just one touchdown on six red zone drives so far, and against Boston College last week the Blue Devils had two fumbles, two interceptions and a missed field goal on drives deep in Eagles territory. Duke is better than the scores suggest, and Virginia isn't what it was in 2019.
Pick: Duke +6
Johnson: David nailed this game. For starters, Bryce Perkins graded out as one of the most valuable quarterbacks in the country last season relative to the personnel he shared the field with on offense. Perkins got the most out of a Cavaliers offense that lacked weapons at the skill positions and an offensive line that ranked 97th in sack rate. Perkins' mobility bailed UVa out time and time again. I don't think the market is accounting for his impact correctly to start the season.
The other side of this is Duke's recent performance against Boston College. The scoreboard shows the Blue Devils scored only six points, but mishaps for the offense in Eagles territory were the story of the game. Duke threw two interceptions, on the BC 27- and 33-yard lines. It fumbled on two different occasions on the BC 4-yard line. The Blue Devils attempted a field goal inside the BC red zone on another trip as well -- and missed. They even added a third fumble on their own 12-yard line to hand the Eagles seven points for good measure.
I project this game closer to Duke +3, and having two games against Notre Dame and BC behind it while UVa hasn't seen the field yet certainly can't hurt either.
Pick: Duke +6
Florida International Panthers at Liberty Flames (-6.5, 59)
Johnson: I laid -13 with Western Kentucky last week against Liberty and never even sniffed a chance. The Flames absolutely dominated the game offensively against a Hilltoppers defense that ranked top 25 in opponent yards per play and top 50 in opponent-adjusted success rate in 2019. WKU returned every major piece of that defense this season. In fact, it held Louisville in its opener to fewer yards than the Miami defense did on a similar number of plays. Liberty embarrassed WKU to the tune of 487 total yards and 354 on the ground. You read that right. Auburn transfer QB Malik Willis is going to be a force for the Flames all season.
Florida International is one of the least experienced teams in the country playing in its first game after dealing with COVID-19-related issues throughout fall camp. Not only that, but it will be the Panthers' first game without QB James Morgan, whom the Jets selected in the fourth round of the NFL draft. It's rare for a team in Conference USA to roster an NFL-caliber quarterback, and historically in these instances the drop-off the following season is overwhelming. This point spread should be on the other side of the key number 7, and I'm laying it before it gets there.
Pick: Liberty -6.5
