The third week of the 2018 college football season has plenty of marquee matchups, but these are the best bets you can count on this week.
Two weeks of the 2018 college football season are in the books and, well, it’s truly hard to pinpoint all of the things that we know at this point. On the one hand, we can definitely say that teams like the Georgia Bulldogs, LSU Tigers, Notre Dame Fighting Irish and many others are legitimate after they’ve withstood early-season tests and performed with aplomb in those games.
Having said that, there are plenty of other highly touted teams that have yet to be tested, and some of those teams will be this week. We’ll see the Alabama Crimson Tide take on an explosive Ole Miss Rebels team, watch the Ohio State Buckeyes go on the road to play the TCU Horned Frogs, and even see LSU get tested again as they face the Auburn Tigers this week. There are many more, of course, but that’s just a sample.
Because the season is still so young, though, the level of certainty that you can look at the landscape of college football with at this point is still low. For instance, you can look at a team like the Penn State Nittany Lions and the fact that they’re 2-0, but one of those wins was an overtime victory against a team from the Sun Belt and the other was beating up a bad Pittsburgh team. So really, what do we know about them.
With some conferences starting conference play this week, in addition to some other marquee matchups, we’ll start to get a better picture of how things are shaping up this season. Still, with what we do know, we’re still going to tackle the odds again this week. These are the five college football bets you can bank on in Week 3.
5. Oklahoma (-17) vs. Iowa State
There might be some concern about the Oklahoma Sooners coming into the third week of the season given what happened last week. Yes, they handled the UCLA Bruins with ease in a routing victory last week. However, in the process of getting that big win over a Power 5 team, the Sooners lost star running back Rodney Anderson for the season to a leg injury. That’s a big blow to their offense, losing that caliber of player.
When it comes to Oklahoma, however, they are a team equipped to withstand such a blow. The first reason is that Trey Sermon is the No. 2 running back on the depth chart and, though he’s a slight downgrade from Anderson, he’s still been a consistent contributor and is a talented enough player to still make plays in a featured role.
What’s more, the Sooners still have Kyler Murray and his electric ability at quarterback and weapons like Marquise “Hollywood” Brown to utilize in the passing game. And you also can’t discount the ability of head coach Lincoln Riley, who is still proving that he’s a natural at this coaching college football thing to this point.
In a conference matchup against a tough, fundamentally sound Iowa State Cyclones team, you can understand why this line would only be at 17 points. Even still, that feels like a slight to the Sooners. Despite the fact that they’re on the road in this game, I see them coming in and dominating their start of Big 12 play with a four-touchdown victory.