Baylor Bears vs Colorado Buffaloes Prediction, Odds and Picks for Tomorrow, 09/21/24

Big 12 conference play gets started in Boulder for the newcomer Buffaloes, but Baylor and Colorado are no strangers to one another. We have your Baylor Bears vs Colorado Buffaloes prediction for the former conference foes who are now reunited as conference foes. I am not a big believer in what Coach Prime is building in Boulder, personally. It looks to me like a program built around a couple of star players, but there are glaring weaknesses in the places where football games are truly won—the unglamorous places like the offensive line. That said, I am not sure that Baylor is in a position to exploit the Colorado deficiencies, and thus my Baylor vs Colorado pick is Colorado to cover the very short spread.

Colorado’s problems are widely known at this point. The question is how do they match up against the Bears? Baylor has some impressive defensive metrics right now, but they also haven’t been forced to prove it against top teams. Sure, they played Utah on the road, but Cam Rising left with an injury in the first half, and Utah was ill prepared to do much in his absence. The Baylor pass rush is not great, and thus I am not expecting them to exploit the holes in the Colorado O-line the way that, say, Nebraska did. On the other side of the ball, Baylor will almost certainly be playing with their backup QB. They survived against Air Force last week, but mostly on the ground. I expect Baylor will still be able to move the ball okay, but maybe not enough to keep pace with the Buffs in this one. On the one hand, it would not be shocking to see Colorado drop this conference opener, but I think the most likely outcome is Colorado outscores Baylor while Baylor is playing with a backup QB and a subpar pass rush.

Baylor vs Colorado Prediction: Colorado -2 (-110) available at the time of publishing. Playable to -2.5.

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As part of our Baylor Bears vs Colorado Buffaloes prediction, let’s also weigh in on the point total. On the one hand, Baylor has been an under team all season, and that has largely been powered by their solid defense paired with an offense that has been conservative on purpose. I think a matchup with Colorado will force the Bears to speed up and keep up, and therefore my pick in this one is over 51.5.

This line opened several points higher and has been pushed down over the past few days. Some of that is being driven by the QB situation for the Bears, but honestly, there shouldn’t be a huge drop-off in production, and it’s not like Colorado plays great defense outside of Travis Hunter. Part of the line movement is also because of the reputation and metrics for the Baylor defense. Personally, I think those metrics are a little noisy right now, and they will come back down rapidly in conference play. Without a significant pass rush to force Sanders into mistakes, Baylor will likely give up points. Likewise, Colorado’s defense is plenty vulnerable too. Both teams should push the ball in this one, and I think we can pretty easily get this game into the upper 20s or low 30s, the kind of game where both teams just keep trading scores. My Baylor vs Colorado pick is on the over.

Baylor vs Colorado Prediction: Over 51 (-110) available at the time of publishing. Playable at that number.