College Football Betting – Week 1 Parlay Picks

As opening kickoff to the 2021 college football season is almost here, we’re gearing up for the main slate of five games by studying the lines and trends as closely as possible. This is a tremendous opportunity to take the value oddsmakers give us before adjusting to what’s happening on the field. Some of our best plays will come before the end of the first month.

One of the simplest ways to walk away a bigger winner each college football Saturday is to take advantage of parlays. Stacking lines and totals offer tremendously good value compared to individual bets. Of course, we want to jump into the action.

We have three great parlays available that we had to jump on. We’ll continue to break down the main slate like this for each week of the season. Welcome to Week 1.

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Nebraska Cornhuskers at Illinois Fighting Illini (1 p.m. ET Saturday)

(Nebraska -6.5, O/U 55.5, FanDuel Sportsbook)

What happens when two teams that favor the run get together in a conference matchup? We usually see a tighter game than expected until the fourth quarter, and the under usually hits as ball control takes over. One wild card in this scenario is the turnover battle.

Nebraska learned the hard way about turnovers when Illinois smacked the Cornhuskers at home, 41-23, in 2020. Illinois played poorly most of the year but took advantage of rushing lanes on offense and interceptions on defense to send the Cornhuskers home with their pride in check. Even with that recent result, I have a hard time seeing either team playing a similar game this go-around.

The book offers us four options on the line/total points parlay. Both of the over 55.5 totals give us the higher return option compared to the under. I agree with the books that the most likely result is a lower-scoring affair or one-sided game. 

I like getting Nebraska at a lower number than one touchdown compared to other books, and the total still allows us to survive a 24-21 type of contest. Still, I like Nebraska to cover both the line and the point total due to their overall roster being deeper and stronger. 

Our pick: Nebraska -6.5/Under 55.5 (+230)

UCLA and San Jose State both win by 20+ points

(+240, BetMGM Sportsbook)

We hate blowouts for entertainment purposes, but we sure don’t mind them when we’re parlaying odds for two to occur. The reality is this line is terrific because we’re not stretching the lines significantly in order to get huge value. UCLA is sitting at -18 on some books for -110, while San Jose State has as many as 23.5 points for -110. 

Admittedly, I was already a little wary of UCLA at 17.5 because Hawaii will be able to move the ball on the Bruins’ defense. But Hawaii struggled to score more than 24 in the majority of their games last year and will again bog down when the field shrinks closer to the red zone. UCLA’s size will overwhelm the Rainbow Warriors and stunt scoring drives.

Meanwhile, the San Jose Spartans should win in a cakewalk against the lowly Southern Utah Thunderbirds. The Spartans were ATS champs last year, and we have no reason to doubt them in Week 1. I expect a beatdown in CEFCU Stadium late Saturday night.

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Nebraska, UCLA and UTEP all to win

(+240, BetMGM Sportsbook)

We’ve covered Nebraska and UCLA, and now we just have to throw UTEP in as we see significantly better odds to simply stack what we’d want to take anyways. This is a free parlay instead of taking each individual matchup. And we don’t have to worry about the spreads.

UTEP is facing a New Mexico State team that didn’t even play three games in 2020. While the Aggies have one of the more effective rushing games in the country, the rest of their team was dreadful over the last two years. I could make the argument they’re capable of covering the large 10.5 line but not win outright.

UTEP has a significantly better defense and more rounded offense, even if they’re not particularly strong on their own. The Miners have won seven-of-10 against the Aggies and have outrushed them by almost 100 yards. I think history repeats itself and we easily claim this parlay. 

Get all my picks and other CFB handicappers with the FTN Bets bet tracker.