College football best bets Week 9: 5 locks of the week including Penn State vs. Ohio State

Locking up our college football best bets for Week 9 as we tackle a huge Penn State vs. Ohio State game, the Cocktail Party and much more. 

Week 9 is the college football Saturday that many fans have been waiting the entire 2021 season for. With Penn State vs. Ohio State, Georgia vs. Florida in the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party, Michigan vs. Michigan State and much more, this is an absolutely loaded slate that should have fans glued to their couches all Saturday long.

From a betting perspective, though, it’s important not to get too caught up in that. We must always be trying to find the best bets and values in college football if we’re going to put our money on the line.

That’s the goal here as, though we are still tackling some of the high-profile games, we find the locks of the week that are going to pull through on the big stages.

Note: All odds are via WynnBET. For more betting info and content, visit BetSided.

College football locks, best bets for Week 9

5. North Carolina vs. Notre Dame – Over 62.5

One thing I’m confident in is that the Notre Dame defense without Kyle Hamilton isn’t good enough to control the game and keep the North Carolina offense at bay. That doesn’t necessarily mean the Tar Heels will win as the hurry-up offense with Jack Coan has looked solid for the Irish. But the over 62.5 feels like a high-quality bet given what we’re seeing.

4. Georgia (-14.5) vs. Florida

Understanding that this is a rivalry game and that Dan Mullen always has something up his sleeve, this Georgia defense is the type of unit where that doesn’t matter. The Dawgs can control every bit of this game with that unit and their ability to run the ball on a suspect Florida run defense. This is going to be a relative blowout, though I also like the under 51.0 quite a lot too.

3. Kansas (+30.0) vs. Oklahoma State

Let me first promise that this isn’t an overreaction to Kansas playing Oklahoma close last week, though that is part of it. The Jayhawks have been getting better as the season has gone along. More importantly, though, the Oklahoma State offense inspires very little confidence that they can beat almost any team by more than 30 points.

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2. Iowa vs. Wisconsin – Under 36.5

This is the ultimate sickos game in terms of betting with how bad these offenses are in comparison to the awesome defense. The total is set extremely low but I remain undeterred. I don’t see a world where either the Hawkeyes or the Badgers are capable of finding enough offense consistently to reach this total in what should be a total slugfest.

1. Penn State (+19.0) vs. Ohio State

In the simplest terms, this line is inflated because Ohio State has been whooping up on inferior teams and Penn State just lost in a letdown spot to Illinois. The Buckeyes are clearly the better team but I just don’t think they are going to run away from a good Nittany Lions defense in a game that is always pretty close. The Buckeyes win but not by more than 19 points.

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