College Football Best Bets: Odds, Picks for Saturday’s Noon Games
Jeff Moreland/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images. Pictured: The Kentucky Wildcats.
Is it Saturday at noon yet?
Yes, it is!
Our college football staff has cooked up three best bets for Saturday’s noon slate, including picks for USC vs. Colorado, Florida vs. Kentucky and Eastern Michigan vs. Central Michigan.
Read on for a breakdown of all three college football picks and predictions.
Saturday's Noon College Football Best Bets
The team logos in the table below represent each of the matchups that our college football betting staff is targeting from Saturday's noon slate of games. Click on the team logos for any of the matchups below to navigate to a specific bet discussed in this article.
| Game | Time (ET) | Pick |
|---|---|---|
| 12 p.m. | ||
| 12 p.m. | ||
| 1:30 p.m. | ||
Specific betting recommendations come from the sportsbook offering preferred odds as of writing. Always shop for the best price using our NCAAF Odds page, which automatically surfaces the best lines for every game. | ||
USC vs. Colorado
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Caleb Williams and USC should have no problems shredding Colorado’s defense. This is the nation’s best offense by EPA per Play, Success Rate and points per game), and the monster holes in the Buffs defense were exposed by Oregon last week.
However, there’s one key difference between last week and this week.
Last week, Oregon had the personnel to stop Colorado’s pass-heavy offense. The Ducks’ secondary is more experienced with six returning starters from last year’s squad and looks much improved this season, ranking fifth in Pass Success Rate Allowed and 17th in EPA per Play Allowed.
USC doesn’t have that same luxury.
Colorado doesn’t have a run game to fall back on (1.9 YPC), so if a defense stops Sheduer Sanders’ explosive downfield aerial assault, it stops Coach Prime.
But USC’s defense continues to be abysmal. The Trojans are 68th in EPA per Dropback allowed and 130th in Explosiveness Allowed.
The Trojans are even worse in passing downs, sitting 100th nationally in Success Rate Allowed and 109th in EPA per Play Allowed. So, even if the Buffs get behind the sticks, Sanders can sling his way to another first down.
Even worse, the Trojans’ defensive numbers have come against San Jose State, Nevada, Stanford and Arizona State, who hold an average Offensive SP+ rating of 104th.
This will be USC’s toughest defensive test yet, and it’s forced to take it on the road at 5,430 feet of altitude.
USC will score, but you must play passable defense to cover a three-touchdown spread. Considering the Trojans couldn’t do that against San Jose State (28 points allowed) or Arizona State (28 points allowed), I don’t expect them to do that here.
The Arizona State was very concerning. The Sun Devils looked incompetent in the non-con but dropped 28 points with an above-average Success Rate (41%, 52nd percentile) against USC.
If you can’t stop Drew Pyne, you won’t stop Sanders, Xavier Weaver and Jimmy Horn Jr. That trio will be creating explosive plays all over the field on Saturday.
Sure, USC may drop 50. But Colorado likely scores 30-plus. I’m willing to bet the final score ends somewhere around 49-35.
Our Action Analytics projections make USC a 15-point road favorite, giving us a six-point edge over the market.
Florida vs. Kentucky
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Graham Mertz has gotten the job done so far and has been effective, but are we supposed to believe he’s suddenly a trustworthy quarterback? He’s completing nearly 78% of his passes, but give Billy Napier a ton of credit for not exposing him at all.
That could end on Saturday, though.
Mertz has an average depth of target of just 6.4 this season. He has only three big-time throws. In the lone SEC game for Florida against Tennessee, Mertz recorded zero big-time throws and had an ADOT of just 3.5 yards. His ADOT ranks dead last in the SEC, and he has the fewest big-time throws.
Kentucky’s Devin Leary is the better quarterback in this matchup with eight big-time throws on the year, plus the ability to push the ball down the field. That’s where Florida has had problems on defense, ranking 133rd in the country at preventing explosiveness.
This is a great matchup for the Wildcats, who rank first in the nation in explosiveness on offense. Leary is not afraid to take shots down the field, and running backs Ray Davis and JuTahn McClain are each averaging more than six yards per carry. Davis leads the SEC with five rushes of 20-plus yards.
Expect the Wildcards to stack the box here with a stout run defense and force Mertz to beat them.
Kentucky has been terrific at forcing turnovers on defense, already with eight takeaways this season. We saw Mertz forced into mistakes on the road at Utah. Now, he’ll have his second road game of the year in Kentucky against a tough Wildcats defense with a veteran quarterback on the other side.
Give me the Wildcats to pick up the win at home in this one.
Eastern Michigan vs. Central Michigan
The total in this game is a little too high for me.
Eastern Michigan got shut out at Jacksonville State last weekend in what was a pitiful offensive display. The Eagles averaged just 2.4 yards per play, turned the ball over three times and went 1-for-15 on third down.
But that's nothing new for this offense after it put up just six points against Minnesota and 19 against UMass.
To say Eagles quarterback Austin Smith has been struggling would be an understatement, as he's averaging only 5.4 yards per attempt and has a 50.6 PFF passing grade.
They haven't run the ball with any success either, as they're 96th in Rushing Success Rate and 84th in EPA/Rush.
Central Michigan has been one of the worst defenses in college football, but it's played two steps up in competition in Michigan State and Notre Dame so far.
The Chippewas put up 34 points on the road at South Alabama last weekend, but this offense hasn't been that efficient as a whole this season. The Chippewas are averaging just 4.3 yards per play against FBS opponents while ranking 121st in Success Rate and 103rd in EPA/Play.
They've also made a change at quarterback. Bert Emanuel Jr. took the starting job to begin the season, but Jase Bauer has since taken over.
The sophomore out of Ankeny, Iowa, has now started two games, but neither of them has been great. On paper, he had a solid showing against South Alabama, going 19-of-30 for 224 yards and a touchdown — but he put up a PFF passing grade of just 65.7 and had three turnover-worthy plays.
Eastern Michigan's defense has been solid this season despite the fact it's given up a lot of yards. It ranks 45th in Finishing Drives Allowed and 33rd in Havoc.
Most importantly for this game, it's fourth in the country in average field position because punter Mitchell Tomasek has put 10 of his 23 punts inside the 20-yard line.
The pace of this game is going to be pretty slow. Eastern Michigan ranks 94th in second per play, while Central Michigan sits at 122nd. Ultimately, I like the value on under 47.5 points.
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