College Football Betting Picks: Week 1

The college football season is finally here. While it may be tempting to unload the bankroll in Week 1 of the season, it’s important to still prioritize bankroll management. It’s the wild west of the college football season, and without any data points to work with, we’re going to be making plenty of assumptions this week.

I would recommend scaling the action down to 0.25/0.5u bets for this opening week — it’s always important to remember this is a marathon, not a sprint. Here are my favorite bets for Week 1 of the college football season. Each week of the season I’ll be offering my best bets and picks for the games. You can also follow along in our FTN Bet Tracker to see all the bets our experts place as the season goes along. Good luck this season.

Cincinnati (+6.5) @ Arkansas

3:30 p.m. ET Saturday

Bet: Cincy +6.5, -105 (DraftKings Sportsbook)

I have to admit, I’m a little biased with this Cincy pick here. They were my most profitable team last season, and while I understand this year will look much different, I think there is some value. With how much love KJ Jefferson and this Arkansas squad is getting recently, I definitely think this line will cross 7 before the end of the week. One of the main reasons I’m betting this is because I think the market is overreacting to the losses Cincy has sustained. They are not giving any credit to Luke Fickell for maintaining a strong squad despite losing their two most impactful offensive players in Desmond Ridder and Jerome Ford. 

Here’s the good news: Cincy is returning all of their starting offensive line, a group that should be one of the most dependable in the nation this year. While losing Ford won’t help the running game, Ryan Montgomery showed promise, averaging 6.8 YPC last season in limited use. Cincy knows they are going to need to control the pace of this game, and I think this trenches battle tilts toward Cincinnati. Last season, the Arkansas defensive line wasn’t good, allowing 153 rushing yards per game. They lost multiple starters on that line and will need to quickly regroup if they want to contend with this experienced Cincinnati line. 

I understand Jefferson looked great, giving this offense balance through the air and the ground last season. But not enough is being made about losing his top weapon, Treylon Burks, to the NFL draft. Arkansas’ offense can run with the best of them, but I expect Cincinnati to be in this game until the very end. Don’t take dogs unless you think they can win, and this game should come down to the last drive. 

Western Kentucky (-10), Pittsburgh ML (-102)

Bet: Two-team parlay (DraftKings Sportsbook)

I also like adding in BYU ML here for +165. Last week, we successfully attacked Hawaii, easily cashing out Vanderbilt tickets. While I think this Hawaii team will improve, it’s clear working with that completely new defense took a huge toll. Western Kentucky is a high-powered offense that is set up even better to exploit Hawaii’s flaws then Vanderbilt was, at least on paper. WKU didn’t have the strongest showing in Week 1, but they took care of business and the offense looked good. I think they probably end up covering that -15.5 spread, but I like bringing it down here for some safety. 

Pittsburgh is another team I feel like is being undervalued here. Everyone is mentioning all the losses they sustained with Kenny Pickett and Jordan Addison, but nobody is mentioning the work they did in the transfer portal to help build back strong, just like Cincinnati. They’re returning a strong defense that finished No. 5 in the nation in sacks last season, while WVU was last in the Big 12 in sacks allowed, another O-Line/D-Line mismatch here. I believe West Virginia did get better this offseason bringing in JT Daniels, someone who I still think has some upside, I just don’t think this is the matchup to show it off. I like targeting Pittsburgh pass-catchers Konata Mumpfield and Gavin Bartholomew in props this week. Both should benefit from their new opportunities this week.