Caleb Wilfinger
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It’s been a long and eventful college football season, and now the best time of the year on the calendar has finally arrived. The inaugural 12-team College Football Playoff has already delivered plenty of action and excitement, but before we can play the quartet of fantastic quarterfinal games, there are plenty of bowl games for bettors to enjoy in the meantime. Action picks back up post-Christmas with a plethora of games on Saturday, December 28, including the Alamo Bowl, Pinstripe Bowl, Pop-Tarts Bowl and Military Bowl, among others. Kickoff can’t come soon enough!
With that said, it’s time to dive into Saturday’s slate of bowl games with my college football best bets column. I’m on a 15-6 best bets run and bowl season has been kind to me in the past, so let’s keep that momentum going this year! Let’s take a look at my top college football picks for Saturday’s games.
BYU Cougars +4.5 over Colorado Buffaloes (-110)
Odds available at Caesars Sportsbook at time of publishing. Playable to 3.5
While BYU was a team that was obviously a little worse than its record this season, the Cougars are still one of the better teams that Colorado has faced all year long. Therefore, it’s hard not to lean the way of the underdog Cougars heading into this game, especially given all of the uncertainty surrounding the Buffaloes at the moment. We’re in the era of bowl opt-outs and large swaths of the roster hitting the transfer portal, but Colorado head coach Deion Sanders has indicated that his best players — quarterback Shadeur Sanders and two-way superstar Travis Hunter — will play in this game. While that indicates that the Buffaloes will certainly care about playing at their best on Saturday, but with the NFL Draft looming, it would be hard to expect that Sanders and Hunter will play for the entire game. After all, it’s already a pretty big surprise that both players are suiting up for this contest.
On the other side, while BYU is going to be missing some pieces on the offensive line in this game, I still have a hard time believing that the Cougars won’t be fired up to perform well on a national stage against this Colorado program. Quarterback Jake Retzlaff leads a Cougars offense that is 24th in EPA per play and 3rd nationally in points scored per quality possession, so if BYU gets in the red zone, you can expect the Cougars to cash in with touchdowns. We have seen this Colorado defense struggle on multiple occasions when its had to step up in class this season, and that could be the case against an unfamiliar opponent in this one. The BYU offense has quietly been a very strong unit on the ground all season long, sitting at 29th in rushing success rate and 22nd in EPA per rush per College Football Insiders. That’s exactly where this Colorado defense can be attacked, as we saw against the likes of Nebraska, Kansas State and Kansas at earlier points in the season. The Buffaloes are outside the top 50 in rushing success rate allowed and EPA per rush (College Football Insiders), so there should be avenues for BYU to score in this game. While Colorado has the top end talent that its opponent doesn’t, the gap between the teams is smaller than the spread would indicate on Saturday. With that in mind, I’ll take the Cougars to keep this one close.
Read our full BYU vs Colorado prediction
East Carolina Pirates +7.5 over NC State Wolfpack (-115)
Odds available at FanDuel Sportsbook at time of publishing. Playable to East Carolina +7.
One of the more underrated games of this bowl season slate comes in the form of an in-state showdown in the Military Bowl between East Carolina and NC State in Annapolis, Maryland on Saturday. East Carolina was a team that I bet on consistently down the stretch of the regular season, to mostly positive results. The same can’t be said for NC State, a very mediocre team that I ended up being extremely wrong about in my preseason predictions over the summer. The Wolfpack do have a few pieces to build on, including starting quarterback CJ Bailey, but they will also be without a number of key players in this game, along with longtime defensive coordinator Tony Gibson. Gibson has long been one of the better defensive coordinators in the nation, and his absence alone would steer me in the direction of an East Carolina ticket. On top of that, my belief in the Pirates is strong considering how they finished out the season, and now that interim head coach Blake Harrell — who took over midseason — has recently been named full-time head coach, I expect the team to be fired up and play hard for their new head coach against an in-state rival from a power conference.
On the other side, NC State’s offense doesn’t do much well, with the Wolfpack sitting at 82nd in success rate, 85th in EPA per play and 110th in 3rd and 4th down success rate (College Football Insiders). The East Carolina defense is going to be without a starting cornerback and linebacker, but it’s worth mentioning that the Wolfpack are going to be without star wideout KC Concepcion, so that evens things out a bit on the outside. East Carolina is 10th in rushing success rate allowed and 43rd in Early Downs EPA, which suggests that NC State could find itself in obvious passing situations more often than you’d think. Both teams have shown an ability to create (and surrender) the explosive play, so there should be plenty of variance in this game. With that in mind, I’ll gladly take the underdog on Saturday.
Find out our East Carolina vs NC State prediction
