The UCLA Bruins will look to shake off a heartbreaking loss to Fresno State as they travel to do battle with the Stanford Cardinal.
It will be the Pac-12 opener for the Bruins, while Stanford sits at 1-0 in conference play after an upset win over USC two weeks ago (which got the Trojans' coach fired).
Will Stanford make it 2-0 as college football betting underdogs against LA schools this year — or will the Bruins be able to get back on track with a road victory?
Check out our best free college football picks and predictions for UCLA vs. Stanford on Saturday, September 25 to find out.
UCLA vs Stanford odds
Odds via the Covers Line, an average comprised of odds from multiple sportsbooks.
UCLA opened as 3.5-point favorites but it has been bet up to 5-point chalk at most books as of the time of writing. Be sure to check out the full college football odds before placing your bets, and also view the full line movement for this game. Use the live odds widget above to track any future line movements right up until kickoff and be sure to check out the full college football odds before placing your bets.
UCLA vs Stanford picks
Picks made on 9/23/2021 at 5:43 p.m. ET.
Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.
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UCLA vs Stanford game info
• Location: Stanford Stadium, Stanford, CA
• Date: Saturday, September 25, 2021
• Time: 6:00 p.m. ET
• TV: PAC-12 Network
UCLA vs Stanford betting preview
Weather
Be sure to monitor the gametime conditions with our NCAA football weather info.
Key injuries
UCLA: Sam Marrazzo OL (Questionable), Mitchell Agude LB (Questionable).
Stanford: Austin Jones RB (Out), E.J. Smith RB (Out), Casey Filkins RB (Out), Noah Williams S (Out), Zahran Manley DB (Questionable), Ethan Bonner CB (Questionable), Tucker Fisk TE (Probable), Ben Yurosek TE (Doubtful).
Find our latest NCAA football injury reports.
Betting trend to know
UCLA is 8-0 ATS in its last eight games after accumulating more than 200 yards rushing the previous game. Find more NCAA betting trends for UCLA vs. Stanford.
UCLA vs Stanford predictions
UCLA -5 (-105)
The Bruins are a much-improved football team in 2021, their fourth year under Chip Kelly.
They began the season with a 44-10 victory over Hawai'i, where the game entered garbage time very early in the second half. They followed that up with a 38-27 win over LSU despite being home underdogs — a tremendous win for the program and momentum-builder going forward.
Although last week’s last-second 40-37 loss to Fresno State was a step back, that’s a very good Bulldogs team that hung with Oregon and is 4-0 ATS on the season.
The bread and butter of this UCLA offense is its running game. The Bruins are averaging 194 yards per game on the ground and should be able to move the ball at will against a Stanford front seven that is allowing 210 rushing yards per game on 5.9 yards per carry.
If Power Five cellar-dweller Vanderbilt was able to average 5.6 yards per rush en route to 247 rushing yards a week ago, imagine the kind of success that UCLA running backs Zach Charbonnet (10.5 ypc, 6 TDs) and Brittain Brown (5.1 ypc, 2 TDs) will have against the Cardinal.
This brings us to our next point: Stanford’s 2-1 start is a tad misleading. It beat a terrible Vanderbilt team and was never in the game against Kansas State. The win over USC was undoubtedly impressive, but this is still a team getting outgained by 40 yards per game.
The Bruins, meanwhile, were one of the most experienced teams in the country (20 returning starters) going into the year and have already shown enough signs of improvement to prove they’re a legitimately better squad in 2021.
Under 58.5 (-110)
True, the UCLA rushing game should have plenty of success in this matchup. And also true is that the Stanford offense has looked much improved after handing the reins over to Tanner McKee as the starting quarterback.
So how did we end up with an Under play here? It’s simple — these are two of the slowest paced teams in the entire country. In fact, Stanford is the slowest team (130th) in college football, running only 53.7 offensive plays per game. UCLA isn’t playing much faster, as its 59 plays per game ranks 122nd in the nation.
Stanford’s defense is bad, and its coaching staff knows it. The Cardinal slow every game down to a crawl in hopes of limiting the opposing team’s chances of finding paydirt. It won’t help that their top two running backs, Austin Jones and E.J. Smith, will miss the contest.
Will both teams find success offensively? Probably, yes. Will both teams run enough plays to light up the scoreboard? We’re going to go with “no.”
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