What do we do after back-to-back strong weeks? What do we do as we stack successful approaches for college football picks? We keep doing the same thing.
The ideal is to have the longest view in the room. The secret to running a marathon is not deployed on the morning of the gun but in the months of trials of miles beforehand. A profitable season of college football predictions is built as much in the cold of November as it is in the back half of September.
So let’s take last week’s 3-2 showing for +1.9 units and keep striving toward reaching the black in the ledger, still adrift at 11-15 for -3.98 units on the season with my college football best bets. Let’s find the best value in Week 7’s consequential college football slate.
College football predictions for Week 7
- UNLV team total Over 42.5 (-112)
- Georgia Tech -4 (-110)
- MISS ST vs UGA u55 (-110)
- Wyoming moneyline (+110)
Picks made on 10-10. Click on each pick to see full analysis.
College football Week 7 predictions
UNLV team total Over 42.5
Best odds: -112 at FanDuel
Yes, this is where last week’s column began, as well. And the UNLV Rebels waited until fewer than three minutes remained in regulation to clear that team total of 32.5, and that was with the benefit of a short-field touchdown and a punt block recovered in the end zone for a score.
But, UNLV has now blocked three punts this season. Sending speedy second-team All-American receiver Ricky White III after punts is a cruel trick to pull on opponents. And the Rebels left points on the board, resorting to a field goal late in the third quarter on a possession that featured a first-and-goal on the 4-yard line.
All of which is to say, getting this team total Over to the window last week was less a fluke than it may have seemed with that game’s late chaos. UNLV ended regulation at 38 points when that total was 32.5. Remove the punt block recovered in the end zone but finish that field-goal drive, and the Rebels still would have cleared that number.
Life will be easier this Friday night. The Utah State Aggies have yet to hold an FBS opponent to fewer than 38 points, with only backup-quarterback led Utah falling short of 45 points. Boise State hanging 62 on the Aggies last week is less concerning than Temple putting up 45 three weeks ago.
Utah State’s defense is as restrictive as an open window.
Meanwhile UNLV’s offense continues to be underappreciated in the Hajj-Malik Williams Era. It is difficult to grasp how much it has improved since Matthew Sluka left the program over a dubious NIL dispute. Let’s grab two differences to try to emphasize it.
Before that forced QB switch, the Rebels ran the ball 17.2% more often than the average team would in a given game state. That was through two games against FBS foes. Two games later — so, yes, four games total — that fell to 6.8%.
Any version of very basic math will tell you, the current version of UNLV is throwing the ball more often than the average team would, which is the perk of having a quarterback who can complete more than 44% of his passes.
And last week’s failed first-and-goal on the 4-yard line stands out because the Rebels have scored 5.75 points per quality drive since Williams took over at quarterback, compared to 2.25 with Sluka. Just as vitally, UNLV put together quality drives on 59.1% of Sluka’s possessions, a number up to 70.6% in the last two games with Williams.
Last week’s narrow Over on the Rebels’ team total serves to only prolong our value on this gambit, as the world struggles to catch up to this offense’s improvement.
Get more CFB picks from the College Football 134 podcast
Join Douglas, and co-host Andrew Caley, on the College Football 134 podcast, published every Tuesday and live on the Covers YouTube channel every Saturday at 9 a.m.
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Georgia Tech -4
Best odds: -110 at BetMGM
The intention is not to simply run back all of last week’s column, but in the name of efficiency, let’s see how far into that “Pittsburgh -2.5 at North Carolina” handicap we can get until we have to do more than replace a proper noun or a unit of time. …
Any early [Georgia Tech] lead likely will elicit boos from the Kenan Memorial Stadium crowd. [Three] weeks ago, the Tar Heels gave up more than 50 first-half points to James Madison in a blowout loss at home. Head coach Mack Brown went into the postgame locker room and, to put this most charitably, spoke confusingly enough about his future that some people left that room thinking Brown was retiring.
He clarified that was not his intention, not that any intention showed up [two weeks ago] in blowing a 20-0 lead at Duke in a 21-20 loss.
Brown has lost the narrative. North Carolina has lost defensive containment, new defensive coordinator Geoff Collins increasingly doing a Gene Chizik impression. And [Georgia Tech’s] passing offense should worsen that.
Truly, nothing else needs to be changed in this analysis, only further emphasized.
Pittsburgh quarterback Eli Holstein threw for 381 yards and three touchdowns vs. the North Carolina Tar Heels while averaging 9.1 yards per pass attempt. He added 76 rushing yards and a score just for good measure.
Led by running back Jamal Haynes, the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets run the ball more than Pitt, but they are most effective through the air, ranking No. 15 in the country in expected points added (EPA) per dropback. So when Haynes is not running with a personal agenda while facing his former head coach, quarterback Haynes King should find plenty of success.
Asked Jamal Haynes at ACC Kickoff about this week's game against Geoff Collins & UNC. His answer from July on whether he had a yardage goal for this one: "I ain't going to put it out there but y'all will see during that game. I'll definitely have a chip on my shoulder for sure,…
— 💫🅰️♈️🆔 (@ADavidHaleJoint) October 9, 2024
The Yellow Jackets will have the entire playbook at their disposal, and teams with that delight have exposed the Tar Heels lately. North Carolina remains ripe to be exposed, as James Madison, Duke, and Pitt all showed, and especially as Mack Brown has lost control of the conversation around his program.
Mississippi State vs 
Georgia Under 55
Best odds: -110 at Caesars
Last week’s third bet? An Under based on two teams running the ball plenty and shortening the game. Navy and Air Force cracked that total of 37, but that does not mean the approach was invalid.
The Mississippi State Bulldogs are winless against FBS competition this year, but they entered the first three of its games with some hope of winning, a one-possession underdog both at Arizona State and against Florida, and favored by 10.5 points against Toledo. Two weeks ago at Texas, the Bulldogs understood they were overmatched as 37-point underdogs.
That may sound harsh, but they quite clearly approached it differently.
Mississippi State snapped the ball every 21.58 game-time seconds at Arizona State, every 20.54 against Toledo and every 21.6 against Florida.
In Austin, that slowed to every 28.73 seconds, and as a result, that 35-13 loss fell well short of the pregame total of 59.
The Bulldogs opted for scoreboard respectability and ended their misery quickly. They should do so again vs. the Georgia Bulldogs in Athens.
Wyoming moneyline
Best odds: +110 at BetMGM
Finally, a deviation from last week. No, the change is not ending the column with a moneyline underdog. SMU paid off at +210 last week. The change is including only four picks rather than five.
There are more picks to be enjoyed in this week’s episode of “College Football 134,” a thought not intended so much as shameless self-promotion as it is an explanation of why Rutgers -2.5 and the Eastern Michigan moneyline are not included here. When there is not a second layer to those handicaps, it is redundant to include them now.
The best way to recap Week 6 is to ask how it changes life for Alabama & Tennessee moving forward.
— Douglas Farmer (@D_Farmer) October 8, 2024
The best way to preview Week 7 is to bounce between Ohio State and Eastern Michigan before @statsowar brings chaos.
Spotify: https://t.co/XcrIvsd91c
iTunes: https://t.co/wSXXMTwAKA
Instead, let’s turn to Laramie, an underrated piece of homefield advantage in college football.
Both the Wyoming Cowboys and the San Diego State Aztecs are, in a word, bad. But the worst unit on the field will be the Aztecs’ offense, and it may look worse than usual, should that even be possible.
Freshman quarterback Danny O’Neill has completed 61.3% of his passes against FBS competition, averaging 7.2 yards per attempt. He has not shown any threatening efficiency, part of why San Diego State’s dropback success rate ranks No. 116 in the country, per cfb-graphs at collegefootballinsiders.com.
That should, naturally, lead the Aztecs to run the ball, as they already do 6.6% more often than would be expected of an average team in a given game state. But run defense is Wyoming’s closest thing to quality.
It is distinctly possible San Diego State does not score this weekend, and per the rules of college football, scoring is required to win.
Not intended for use in MA.
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