Caleb Wilfinger
Show Bio
After a long and eventful college football regular season, the most wonderful time of the year is here. Bowl season has arrived and with it comes a myriad of interesting games between teams that we don’t often see paired up against each other in a neutral site setting. This year’s installment of the Valero Alamo Bowl features the Arizona Wildcats against the Oklahoma Sooners. Will the Wildcats finish a terrific 2023 season with a flourish, or can Oklahoma finish off what has been an up-and-down season with a victory? Here is my Arizona vs Oklahoma Same Game Parlay for Thursday’s matchup, which will be televised starting at 9:15 pm ET on ESPN.
Arizona ML (-115)
Over 59 (-110)
Tetairoa McMillan to score a touchdown (-158)
NCAAF Same Game Parlay odds: +483
One of the benefits of Same Game Parlays, of course, is that you can correlate the plays. That is the plan here, as Arizona winning correlates with Tetairoa McMillan finding the end zone. Let’s break down each of the legs.
Arizona Wildcats ML over Oklahoma Sooners (-115)
For starters, we have to look at the impact the transfer portal has had on this game, particularly for Brent Venables and this Oklahoma team. It’s worth mentioning that the Sooners will be without Dillon Gabriel at quarterback, so five-star recruit Jackson Arnold will step into the role for his first career start. He’ll be going up against an Arizona defense that greatly improved this season, going from outside the top 100 in most metrics in 2022 to inside the top 40 in 2023. This is a tall task for the young QB and I’m not sure how well he’ll be able to handle it early on.
Arizona has been a cash register for months, particularly since the insertion of Noah Fifita at quarterback. Not only did Fifita outperform all expectations after replacing Jaden DeLaura, but he has been one of the most efficient quarterbacks in college football this season, putting up 23 touchdowns to just only 5 interceptions on the year. He should be able to pick apart a Sooners defense that struggled against good passing attacks this season, including poor games against Kansas, Oklahoma State and Texas. I’d argue that Arizona’s quarterback and weapons on the outside are better than that of the Jayhawks and Cowboys, so there’s reason to expect that the Wildcats will see success in this one. Bear Down!
Be sure to check out our full Arizona vs Oklahoma predictions
Over 59
As mentioned previously, Oklahoma’s defense has good metrics on paper, but the Sooners did struggle with quality offenses within their conference. As it stands, Arizona’s offense is 19th in EPA per play, 20th in EPA per dropback and 9th in early downs EPA. That’s an extremely consistent unit that should see success all game long with Fifita at the helm. On the other side, Arnold will still have a majority of the Sooners offense playing in this game, including starting receivers Drake Stoops and Nic Anderson. That should give him and this Oklahoma offense a boost and I could certainly see Oklahoma generating some explosive plays en route to tallying 27+ points in this one. Let’s back the over now that the number has come down significantly.
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Tetairoa McMillan to score a touchdown (-158)
The Wildcats have a ton of weapons on this offense, but no receiver has been more productive when it matters than Tetairoa McMillan. The top Arizona wideout has 10 touchdowns on the season, including a touchdown in each of the last 5 games. He’s also proven it against top competition, having caught a pair of touchdowns against Washington, plus recording touchdowns against Oregon State, Utah and UCLA. Oklahoma should have its hands full with Arizona’s offense as a whole and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if the Wildcats scored 30+ points. Let’s back McMillan to haul in one of those touchdowns on Thursday.
