FOX Friday Night Football Player Props & Best Bets: Iowa vs UCLA

Prop bet #1: Brendan Sullivan Under 131.5 passing yards

Best odds: -115 at BetMGM

This market is not usually offered, so let’s embrace the chance to bet an Under on a player prop. There would not be an Over of value when it comes to Brendan Sullivan passing yards — in this regard, he is very much a prototypical Iowa Hawkeyes quarterback.

In his two starts, Sullivan has thrown for 80 and 93 yards. More noticeably, he had just 14 and 10 pass attempts, respectively. The Hawkeyes are not making him be something he is not.

Why would Iowa change what it prefers against the UCLA Bruins? The Hawkeyes run the ball 14.6% more often than the average team would in a given game state, the 12th-highest rate in the country. The Bruins' defense limits explosive rushes, but it still allows opponents to stay ahead of the chains on 54.9% of rush attempts.

Iowa will be plenty patient and content to simply chip away on its trips down the field, and that should mean only about a dozen passes from Sullivan yet again.

Prop bet #2: Brendan Sullivan anytime touchdown

Best odds: +165 at BetMGM

In his two starts, Sullivan has rushed nearly as many times as he has thrown. Adjusting for sacks, he has rushed 16 times while dropping back to throw 25 times.

Okay, maybe “nearly as many” was generous, but the point is, Sullivan offers competence in both regards.

More peretinently, he has crossed the goal line in each of his two starts, as well as in the game before this stretch, so that is three straight games with scores from Sullivan.

UCLA’s defense ranks No. 106 in points allowed per opposing quality drive, according to cfb-graphs at collegefootballinsiders.com. Given the Bruins’ proficiency at limiting explosive plays, that failure where it matters most usually comes closer to the goal line than not.

That should be ripe territory for Sullivan.

Prop bet #3: Brendan Sullivan Over 34.5 rushing yards

Best odds: -115 at BetMGM

The intention of this article was not to focus solely on Sullivan, but with all these markets so mispriced, why not take that value?

Sullivan has rushed for 40 and 58 yards, respectively, in his two starts. That latter number would be 72 if college football were more honest about stats. But sacks count as lost rushing yards for quarterbacks, and that may be the only the concern to this bet.

Then again, Iowa ranks No. 17 in the country in giving up just 1.11 sacks per game. Sullivan has been taken down only once in his two starts.

And UCLA ranks No. 87 in the country in notching 1.75 sacks per game. Just as important, those sacks have cost opponents an average of 6.1 yards per takedown, not exactly crippling.

The Bruins’ lack of pressure should yield some value in this rushing prop, as odd as that sentence may seem.