Although sports betting is not legal in our great state yet, it is in almost every surrounding state. If you find yourself in one of those states and you want to add some entertainment value to week one, here are the plays I will be making.
As a reminder, this offseason there have been some rule changes to college football. The one that I believe will affect wagering the most is the new running clock rule.
Unlike in years past, the clock will no longer stop after a first down. The goal of this rule is to shorten game times and it will cut a handful of plays out of games this season. Although this will not make a huge difference in the wagering world, I do expect it to have some impact on teams that like to run the ball and can dominate even more of the clock.
Because of this rule, I expect there to be a slight edge on betting the under for games that will be in run-heavy game scripts. Vegas will eventually catch up, but these first few weeks will be the time to capitalize.
Week 0 Recap
I only played one bet for week zero and it was ultimately a win. I parlayed FIU to cover and for that game to hit the under at +256 odds. We only bet .5 units but being up on the season is always a great way to start!
Stanford vs Hawaii
We have the benefit this week of having seen Hawaii play already. They came into last week as 17.5 underdogs against Vandy and they were able to cover easily. Their game also hit the over, but it should be noted that they could not get their run game going at all and they were forced to sling the ball around more than they wanted to.
So far 87% of the money has come in on Hawaii to cover and I think that is a safe bet. However, I ultimately like what I saw last week from Hawaii, and I am willing to take the money line on them this week at +143. They also carry a 59 over/under and I will also be playing the under on that. They showed that they wanted to run the ball last week but were just unable to against an SEC defensive line. If we parlay the money line and the under, we get +362 odds which will make for a nice return.
Bet: Hawaii money line and under 59
Units Bet: .5
Odds: +362
Oklahoma vs Arkansas State
As we mentioned above, I am going to be looking for places to attack the under early in the season until Vegas catches up with the new clock rules. This is one of those games that I am targeting. The over/under is set at a healthy 58.5 which feels two or three points to high.
Arkansas State are 35.5-point underdogs and 67% of the money has come in on them to cover. I am not interested in guessing that big of a point spread but I do think Oklahoma will struggle early against them before running away with it. Oklahoma does not have the usual elite receiver on their team which will cause them to rely more heavily on the run game. On top of that Arkansas States best unit is their defensive line which hopefully neutralize some of the explosive plays and scoring early for Oklahoma.
Bet: Under 58.5
Units Bet: .5
Odds: -110
Louisville vs Georgia Tech
Louisville is -7.5 favorite with an over/under of 48.5. At this point, 58% of the money has been put on Louisville to cover and 74% of the money has been on the Louisville money line.
My gut tells me that Louisville covers this spread easily, but I don’t particularly appreciate relying solely on my gut. With so many question marks for both teams, I am going to wait until I have some data to go off before jumping fully into Louisville betting.
At this time there are no player props for this game, and because there was no depth chart released, we will probably not get any.
If we do, I will be hitting the Jawhar Jordan TD prop at whatever the odds are.
Bet: None
Honorable Mentions
Listed below are going to be bets that I am considering, but for this article, I will not be betting.
Florida money line: +169
North Texas money line: +220
Ohio State vs Indiana under 59.5
Texas vs Rice under 59
Baylor vs Texas State under 61.5
