It's good to be back.
For the seventh straight season on our college football betting podcast, Big Bets on Campus, Collin Wilson and I pick our two favorite moneyline underdogs for each week's slate.
For Week 1 of the new season, we rolled with a Group of Five 'dog on the road and a Power 4 'dog at home.
We'll get things started Saturday late afternoon down in Birmingham and finish up on the West Coast in L.A. If you're feeling lucky, a parlay of both pups pays out at just over 6-1 at the time of writing.
Let's dive into our college football moneyline underdogs for Week 1.
College Football Moneyline Underdogs for Week 1
Stuckey: North Texas ML +175 vs. South Alabama
| North Texas Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
+5.5 -115 | 64.5 -110o / -110u | +175 |
| South Alabama Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
-5.5 -105 | 64.5 -110o / -110u | -210 |
I'm going to open up the season with some AAC vs. Sun Belt action by taking North Texas over South Alabama.
Ultimately, I'm looking for variance here. Well, there's a lot of variance in this game.
Both North Texas and South Alabama sit outside the top 100 in returning production, and they're very similar in terms of what they lost.
South Alabama lost its quarterback in Carter Bradley, star running back in La'Damian Webb and star wide receiver in Caullin Lacy. Meanwhile, North Texas lost a 3,000-yard passer in Chandler Rogers, a 1,000-yard rusher in Ayo Adeyi and the first 1,000-yard receiver in program history in Ja'Mori Maclin.
We're replacing a lot of quarterbacks and skill-position players here.
In addition to those departures on offense, the Jaguars lost head coach Kane Wommack, who became Alabama's defensive coordinator, as well as three starters on that side of the ball in the spring.
After all the turnover, I think North Texas has the more reliable quarterback in Chandler Morris, who's a good fit Eric Morris' offense. South Alabama has major questions on the back end of its defense, which Morris' modified Air Raid can attack.
I'm also not sure new Jaguars signal-caller Gio Lopez is ready to step in right now. He looked solid in South Alabama's 68 Ventures Bowl win over Eastern Michigan, but there are a lot of changes at hand here and he went 0-for-13 in the Jaguars' spring game.
Considering all the variance, I'm going to go with the Mean Green on the road.
Collin Wilson: USC ML +165 vs. LSU
| LSU Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
-4.5 -110 | 64.5 -110o / -110u | -200 |
| USC Odds | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spread | Total | Moneyline |
+4.5 -110 | 64.5 -110o / -110u | +165 |
I'm going to go with USC +165 against LSU in a standalone game on Sunday night — one of the biggest games of the weekend.
These two teams just hired new defensive coordinators, but USC won the day with D'Anton Lynn coming over from UCLA. He's completely revamping a defense that has desperately needed it ever since Alex Grinch followed Lincoln Riley to Los Angeles.
It's also worth noting that the Trojans hired North Dakota State's Matt Entz to be their linebackers coach, so there's head-coaching experience on this defense as well.
On the other side, I don't see LSU's defense improving whatsoever under new coordinator Blake Baker from Missouri. The Tigers were great at creating Havoc, ranking top-20 in that area, but they couldn't defend explosives.
Mizzou was also horrific in Defensive Finishing Drives, allowing 4.6 points per trip across their 40-yard line to rank 81st nationally.
That's going to be a problem against a USC offense that ranked third in scoring offense and 10th in total offense a season ago.
While Caleb Williams is gone, the Trojans bring back Miller Moss, who lit the college football world on fire with his performance against Louisville in the Holiday Bowl. In that game, the L.A. native threw for 372 yards, six touchdowns and one interception while completing 69.7% of his passes.
Plus, he has one of the nation's most explosive weapons in wide receiver Zachariah Branch and will throw behind one of the top offensive lines in the Big Ten.
I'll take the Trojans to make a statement on Sunday.
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