Caleb Wilfinger
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Week 1 didn’t look like the most appetizing slate on paper, but it sure delivered tons of excitement. We had some wild finishes involving ranked teams, unlikely upsets across the Power 5 and Group of 5 and dominant showings from national title contenders. In all, it was a weekend that delivered on the promise of what should be a terrific college football season.
With Week 1 in the rearview mirror, it’s time to get into the Week 2 slate with my weekly best bets column. The 2022 season was very profitable for this column, as I finished with a win rate over 60%, highlighted by an 8-0 run to close out championship week and bowl season. While we got off to a middling start in Week 1, there are tons of games with value on this buffet of a slate. Let’s take a look at my best bets for Week 2 of the college football season.
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Texas Longhorns +7.5 vs Alabama Crimson Tide (-110)
Odds available at DraftKings Sportsbook at time of publishing.
This game has the potential to be one of the defining contests of the 2023 season, and it should be an excellent game from start to finish. Both of these teams pretty much held serve in their Week 1 matchups, but now we’ll get to see if either is a serious National Championship contender. Usually we wouldn’t have much data to work off in order to formulate a prediction for a Week 2 game, but these teams played a season ago and the advanced box score suggests that Texas wins that game more often than not.
The Longhorns finished with a postgame win expectancy of 80% per College Football Data, and that was against an Alabama team with Bryce Young at quarterback and a host of proven players at the skill positions. Now, with Quinn Ewers in his second season under center going up against Jalen Milroe in his second career start, I definitely think Texas has the decided edge at quarterback. So while the Crimson Tide are at home and certainly have the better head coach managing the game, this is the first massive contest at Alabama for both of its new offensive and defensive coordinators, neither of whom were very impressive calling plays last season. The Longhorns have a ton of depth, experience and returning production on both sides of the ball, and that’s hard to ignore for me. I’m buying the narrative that this Texas team is ready for the challenge in Tuscaloosa.
When looking at this game from far away, I get the feeling of last season’s Alabama vs Tennessee meeting. Both games involved a team on the rise who still hadn’t yet earned national respect going up against a Crimson Tide group that is noticeably weaker at various positions across the roster than previous teams in Nick Saban’s prolonged run of greatness. The talent gap between these teams is extremely thin and last year’s meeting proved it. If the Longhorns can hold their own in the trenches, there’s little reason to suggest that they can’t pull off the outright upset, or at least keep it within a touchdown. I grabbed +8 early in the week but I’ll gladly take the 7.5 points for now and would play this down to 7.
Be sure to check out our full Texas vs Alabama predictions
SMU Mustangs +16.5 (-110) vs Oklahoma Sooners
Odds available at FanDuel Sportsbook at time of publishing.
If you love offense, then you’re in the right place with this matchup as we should be in for a offensive explosion from the opening kick. Despite their 73-0 shellacking of Arkansas State last week, I’m still not convinced that this Oklahoma team is legitimate on both sides of the ball. In fact, Dillion Gabriel and company started out red-hot against inferior competition in non-conference play a season ago before losses against Kansas State and TCU quickly flipped the fortunes of their season. Furthermore, that game against the Wildcats was the first time the Sooners defense played a well-coached offense, and the results were less than ideal. I wouldn’t be surprised if the same held true this week.
SMU quarterback Preston Stone should carve up opposing defenses all season, and that started against Louisiana Tech in Week 1, when the Mustangs raced out to a 31-0 lead at halftime before settling into cruise control in the second half. The Mustangs’ skill-position talent is elite by Group of 5 standards and would even surpass plenty of programs at the Power 5 level, as SMU sits at #34 overall in team talent composite (247 Sports). I’m pretty confident in the Mustangs’ ability to score on an Oklahoma defense that absolutely has to prove to me that they’ve taken major steps forward before I’m willing to lay over 2 touchdowns with the Sooners against a quality opponent. I believe the Mustangs should put up around 27-31 points, so let’s take the upstart road team to cover this inflated number in what should be an absolute shootout under the lights.
Be sure to check out our full SMU vs Oklahoma predictions
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Liberty Flames -9.5 over New Mexico State Aggies (-110)
Odds available at FanDuel Sportsbook at time of publishing.
I thought Liberty was undervalued last week against a pretty terrible Bowling Green team, and fading the steam turned out to be profitable as the Flames took an early lead and didn’t look back en route to a solid win and cover in Jamey Chadwell’s first game as a head coach. Once again, I’m higher on the Flames than the market this week, as Liberty has gone from a 13-point favorite to now sitting at -10 at most outlets. That works for me, especially considering that we’re getting the better coach, quarterback and defense in this matchup. There’s also a bit of revenge at play in this one, as the Aggies demolished this same Liberty team a season ago, albeit one that had frankly quit on the season by that point in November. Expect a motivated effort from this Flames offense as they continue to improve under Chadwell’s new scheme.
I was interested in seeing how New Mexico State started off the season after the Aggies finished strongly to close out a successful 2022 campaign. However, their loss to UMass in Week 0 was very concerning, as the Aggies were pretty thoroughly defeated by a team that was only expected to register 2 wins this season. Additionally, quarterback Diego Pavia struggled mightily in that game, which doesn’t bode well for an already limited passing attack against a Liberty defense that is much more talented than the likes of UMass or any of the FCS teams that the Aggies beat up on last fall. New Mexico State was a 24-point underdog in this matchup a season ago. Even if the program has improved more than I think, a 14-point line adjustment still doesn’t make any sense to me whatsoever.
Be sure to check out our full NCAAF Week 2 picks
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