College Football Player Props and Best Bets for Week 7: Miller Steps up for the Boilermakers

Prop bet #1: It's Miller Time

Garrett Miller was injured to start the year but has since come on strong, posting 102 receiving yards on 10 catches across his last two games for the Purdue Boilermakers. He even showed off for “Tight End U” last week, racking up eight catches for 71 yards against Iowa. 

Miller appears poised for a large role in this offense going forward after finishing second on the team with eight targets in last week’s game. Fellow tight end Max Klare will not return this season due to injury, so the pass-catching role will heavily feature Miller going forward. 

Klare was off to a strong start this year, catching 22 passes for 196 yards across four and a half games. If you combined Klare’s production over that span with Miller’s, Purdue’s top TEs have accumulated 306 receiving yards — good for 61.2 per game. 

Purdue has a pass-happy offense under new offensive coordinator Graham Harrell, attempting 35.7 passes per game. Deion Burks has emerged as the WR1 in this offense with 24 catches for 396 yards and four touchdowns, but the rest of the receiving group has not produced at a level that you’d expect from an Air Raid offense. The other wideouts on the roster have combined for just one touchdown all season. 

The Boilermakers didn’t have the players on the roster to fully incorporate this scheme in one offseason and have relied on the tight ends to pick up a lot of that pass-catching responsibility. With the Boilermakers listed as +19.5 underdogs against the Ohio State Buckeyes, it wouldn’t be surprising at all if Miller continues helping his team out with their production in the passing game. 

Miller’s receiving yardage prop is set at just 24.5 for Saturday’s clash with the Buckeyes, which is far too low given all the factors discussed above. 

Garrett Miller prop: Over 24.5 receiving yards (-115 at DraftKings)

Prop bet #2: Flying Squirrel

Squirrel White can absolutely fly. The diminutive Tennessee Volunteers wide receiver is one of the fastest players in college football and self-reported that he’s been clocked with a 23.6 mph max sprint speed. 

In case you’re unfamiliar with Josh Heupel’s offense, speed kills. The Volunteers have been looking for an alpha wide receiver to emerge after speedster Jalin Hyatt departed for the NFL along with outside wideout Cedric Tillman. 

Who is stepping into Hyatt’s role as the blazing-fast slot receiver in 2023? You guessed it — White. 

Tennessee’s offense has been slow out of the gates in 2023 but should come back reinvigorated after the bye week. Squirrel broke out with nine catches for 104 yards in his last game and should continue seeing a huge workload, especially now that fellow starting receiver and former five-star recruit Bru McCoy has been lost for the season due to injury. 

Squirrel’s next chance for a productive outing comes against a Texas A&M Aggies defense that has been vulnerable to big plays through the air, ranking a ghastly 130th (fourth last nationally) in passing explosiveness. That’s a recipe for disaster against a Tennessee team with a quarterback who has a cannon for an arm (Joe Milton III) and lightning-quick receivers lined up out wide. 

The Aggies have a strong defensive front, but Tennessee can counter that with an offensive line that is performing well (sixth in front seven havoc, fourth in stuff rate) and has been aided by the return of starting center Cooper Mays. A&M was burned for 374 passing yards and five touchdowns against Miami in Week 2 and surrendered 321 passing yards and three scores last week to an Alabama offense that appeared to have never before been made aware of the invention of the forward pass until it played the Aggies. 

Give me Squirrel to exceed his receiving yardage prop of 70.5, and I also like him at +105 to score a touchdown as a bonus. 

Squirrel White prop: Over 70.5 receiving yards (-115 at DraftKings)

Prop bet #3: Breakout Bray

It seems to be a theme this week that I’m targeting receiving yardage props for players who are expected to assume a larger responsibility due to their teammates being lost to injury. So be it — if the books are slow to adjust and that’s where the value is, then I’ll make that this week’s priority. 

The latest beneficiary is Oklahoma State Cowboys receiver Jaden Bray, who has a receiving prop of 56.5 for Saturday’s clash with the Kansas Jayhawks. The Pokes lost starting outside receiver De’Zhaun Stribling for the year due to an injury in practice last week, which entrenches Bray as this team’s WR1 going forward. 

That’s typically been a very productive role in this offense, as Gundy’s WR1 has averaged 68 catches for 1,149 yards and nine touchdowns in a large sample size since 2015.

Do you want to know the best thing about those numbers? Every single one of those top wideouts was an outside wide receiver, which is where Bray lines up on 96.9% of his snaps. That makes him the clear favorite over slot receiver Brennan Presley to be this team’s top option in the passing game moving forward, especially since Bray already has more targets (37 to 30) and receiving yards (292 to 138) on the year. 

Bray matches up with a Jayhawks defense that ranks 101st in EPA per play and 102nd in success rate. Kansas also hardly locks down opposing aerial assaults, checking in at 114th in passing success rate.

This is not a scary matchup for Bray at home and I’ll be betting on him to surpass his low yardage prop in Week 7.

Jaden Bray prop: Over 56.5 receiving yards (-115 at DraftKings)