Caleb Wilfinger
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College football is back in earnest, and Week 3 certainly delivered plenty of excitement, upsets (hello Georgia State!) and games that came down to the wire. How will Week 4 deliver an encore? We’re just a few hours away from finding out.
With the chaos of Week 3 in the rearview mirror and the fourth week of the college football season already underway, it’s time to get into the Week 4 slate with my weekly best bets column. Friday night’s slate isn’t the biggest, but it features a couple of important games in the Big Ten and ACC, as well as a pretty fascinating matchup in the Pacific Northwest. I’m expecting a pair of competitive games on Friday, so let’s take a look at my college football picks for these Week 4 matchups.
San Jose State Spartans +14.5 over Washington State Cougars (-110)
Odds taken from game preview published on September 16. Still playable at +13.
This number has taken significant money since opening at over 2 touchdowns, but this is one of my favorite situational spots of the week for a reason and I’d still play the underdog at the current number. This edition of “Pac-2 After Dark” will feature Washington State — fresh off a terrific win in the final seconds of the Apple Cup against in-state rival Washington — hosting San Jose State at home on a short week. This is an interestingly placed game for the Cougars against a mid-tier Mountain West opponent, with a road game against Boise State on deck. That’s a pretty difficult sandwich spot to handle for a team that will likely still be riding off the high of last weekend’s result, and San Jose State could give the Cougars a real scare as a result.
This San Jose State team has quietly exceeded expectations to this point, as the Spartans enter this game with a 3-0 record straight up and against the number. San Jose State has found an offense, as quarterback Emmett Brown has racked up 9 touchdowns and nearly 1,000 passing yards through 3 games. However, the real star is wide receiver Nick Nash, who already has 6 touchdowns this season and is coming off a dominant 17-reception effort in a Week 3 victory over Kennesaw State. As for the hosts, Washington State has gotten off to an impressive 3-0 start as well, thanks to quarterback John Mateer and some opportunistic plays from its defense. However, the Cougars lost the box score pretty convincingly to Washington and benefited massively from turnover luck against Texas Tech. This is still a team that is 85th in offensive success rate and 76th in defensive success rate, so I’m pumping the brakes just a bit on the Washington State hype for the time being.
The Spartans should hang tough on both sides of the ball, especially if Washington State comes out a bit sluggish in a sleepy spot. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised at all if San Jose State gets on the board first and puts some scoreboard pressure on the Cougars in this one. If Nash is going off once again and Brown plays a clean game under center, things could very interesting down the stretch on the Palouse.
Read our full San Jose State vs Washington State prediction
Illinois Fighting Illini vs Nebraska Cornhuskers under 43.5 (-110)
Odds available at BetMGM Sportsbook at time of publishing. Playable to 43.
One of the better games on the Power 4 college football slate this week features a Big Ten showdown between the Nebraska Cornhuskers and Illinois Fighting Illini in Lincoln. The Cornhuskers have played above expectation for 3 consecutive weeks now, and it all starts with a defense that has a ton of continuity and isn’t giving up any explosive plays under defensive coordinator Tony White. Nebraska is a top-20 unit in EPA per rush, early downs EPA and net points per drive on defense, and I would expect this elite unit to cause a number of issues for an Illinois offense that is 83rd in rushing success rate and 93rd in EPA per rush (College Football Insiders).
The Illini have fared a bit better when throwing the football, but it’s important to remember that 2 of their 3 data points are against extremely weak competition. In fact, quarterback Luke Altmyer was far from perfect against Kansas in Week 2, and this Cornhuskers defense is certainly better than that of the Jayhawks. On the other side, while true freshman quarterback Dylan Raiola has instantly given this Nebraska offense a shot in the arm, he’ll be going up against an Illinois pass defense that is 13th in EPA per dropback and can certainly frustrate the young QB in what will be the biggest game of his career thus far. This is clearly the best defense that Raiola will have faced to this point, so I feel comfortable backing the under in what should be an old-school Big Ten slugfest on Friday.
Lock in our Illinois vs Nebraska Same Game Parlay picks at +700 odds for tonight’s matchup
