Week 4 college football odds, lines: Bruins, Trojans Pac-12 road favorites – CBSSports.com
Welcome to Monday Morning Oddsmaker, the Eye on College Football’s weekly first look at the coming weekend’s college football lines. While Week 4 doesn’t shape up to be quite as heavy on must-see-TV as a blockbuster Week 3, there’s still several intriguing games, particularly out in Pac-12 country.
Here’s this week’s breakdown, with all odds courtesy of our friends at SportsLine:
Lines you need to know
No. 9 UCLA at No. 16 Arizona (+3): In one of two top-25 matchups in the Pac-12 this Saturday, the Bruins are three-point road favorites despite needing a late comeback to edge BYU at home in Week 3.
Click here for SportsLine’s projection and pick on Bruins-Wildcats.
No. 3 TCU at Texas Tech (+7.5): A week ago the Horned Frogs’ visit to Lubbock might not have garnered much pregame attention, but after the Red Raiders’ upset of Arkansas and TCU’s struggles with SMU, this shapes up as arguably the first marquee matchup of the Big 12 season.
Click here for SportsLine’s projection and pick on Horned Frogs-Red Raiders.
Tennessee at Florida (-2): Neither the Vols nor Gators are ranked, but both fanbases will be fired up for this week’s SEC on CBS Game of the Week. Tennessee is desperate to end a 10-year losing streak vs. Florida, while Jim McElwain’s team will start dreaming of contending for an SEC East title with a win here.
Click here for SportsLine’s projection and pick on Vols-Gators.
BYU at Michigan (-4.5): By far the best game of the (now-standard) light early slate, Jim Harbaugh will look for the biggest win of his fresh-out-of-the-box Wolverines’ tenure against the Cougars, who by now seem incapable of playing anything but down-to-the-wire thrillers.
Click here for SportsLine’s projection and pick on Cougars-Wolverines.
No. 13 Oregon at No. 18 Utah (no line): Perhaps due to uncertainty over both teams’ quarterback situations — neither Vernon Adams nor Travis Wilson played in Week 3 — one of the Pac-12’s most fascinating cross-divisional games this season is currently off the board.
Click here for SportsLine’s projection and pick on Ducks-Utes.
Lines that may raise eyebrows
Boise State at Virginia (+2.5): No Ryan Finley, no problem? Even without their starting quarterback, the Broncos will go to Charlottesville for a Friday night special as road favorites.
No. 19 USC at Arizona State (+6): Speaking of road favorites, thanks in part to the Sun Devils’ heavy defeat to Texas A&M in Week 1, last week’s upset loss to Stanford hasn’t kept the Trojans from becoming a six-point favorite in Tempe.
No. 24 Oklahoma State at Texas (+4): Despite coming a missed extra point away from taking Cal to overtime, the Longhorns will be a home underdog of more than a field goal for the second straight week.
No. 25 Missouri at Kentucky (-3): Suffice it to say bettors don’t appear impressed by the Tigers scraping past Arkansas State and UConn by a combined 10 points.
Lines you may want to stay away from
ULM at No. 12 Alabama (-38): The Crimson Tide rarely bothers to cover vs. Group of Five opponents, but it may be in an ornery mood after losing to Ole Miss, and ULM has covered just once in its last five games* as an underdog of 21 points or more.
Kansas at Rutgers (-12.5): The Scarlet Knights are in total chaos off the field and just lost by 25 to Penn State … and they’re still nearly a two-touchdown favorite over the downtrodden Jayhawks. But David Beaty’s team is both coming off a bye and has to know this is their best (and possibly only) shot at avoiding a winless 2015 season.
Vanderbilt at No. 3 Ole Miss (-26): Yes, he has yet to win an SEC game straight-up, but Derek Mason is nonetheless 6-3 against-the-spread in league play since arriving at Vandy. But of course, backing him to continue that trend means going against a Rebels team that’s as hot as any in the FBS.
Rice at No. 5 Baylor (-33): One of the best bets in college football since the beginning of Art Briles’ tenure, the Bears nonetheless failed to cover in either of their first two games, both against weaker teams than the Owls. Do they get back on the spread-covering track in Week 4?
Lines you may** want to pick against
Ball State at No. 17 Northwestern (-18.5): Despite opening 3-0, the Wildcats are 124th in the FBS in yards-per-play, and Pat Fitzgerald is 11-22 against-the-spread over his 10-season tenure as a home favorite. Pick: Ball State +18.5.
Middle Tennessee State at Illinois (-6.5): The Illini got walloped in Raleigh, but that doesn’t erase their two impressive blowout victories to start the season at home against Kent State and Western Illinois. MTSU is a far better team than either the Golden Flashes or Leathernecks, but Bill Cubit’s team has looked too good in Champaign to think they can’t win this game by a touchdown. Pick: Illinois -6.5.
No. 21 Stanford at Oregon State (+15.5): David Shaw‘s team went on the road to score a huge (and hugely emotional) victory last weekend, and now has just six days to recover both mentally and physically before hitting the road again to face a Beavers team Gary Andersen will have believing it can pull its own sizable upset. Pick: Oregon State +15.5.
Bowling Green at Purdue (-1): IS there anything about Bowling Green’s performance so far (competitive loss at Tennessee, blowout win over Maryland, tight loss to Memphis) that suggests it can’t beat Purdue based on the Boilers’ performance so far (loss at Marshall, win over Indiana State, heavy home defeat to Virginia Tech)? Pick: Bowling Green +1.
*A number that very well could have been one out of six if their opening-week loss to Georgia — in which the Warhawks were down 51-14 when lightning forced the game to be called early — hadn’t been filed under “no action.”
**Given this column’s success rate so far, there’s a heavy emphasis here on “may.”
This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service – if this is your content and you’re reading it on someone else’s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php#publishers.
