Week 8 college football betting, odds: 3 early bets to make right now

Sunday’s opening lines get built on Saturday’s box scores, and this week three of them are leaning on the wrong ones.

Oklahoma State just lost at Houston and is still laying 13.5 to a Colorado team the market has stopped taking seriously. Texas Tech hung 53 points on Arizona State to move to 6-0 and is somehow laying fewer points than the opening line Cincinnati. And Mississippi State got shut out at LSU, which is how an SEC game with the third-fastest tempo on our board ends up with a total in the mid-40s.

Here are three Week 8 college football bets I like right now.

Colorado at Oklahoma State (-13.5, 55.5)

Four straight losses, and Deion Sanders isn’t sugarcoating it. After the Texas Tech loss, he said Colorado (2-4) had “one glaring problem,” and called quarterback “the position that is somewhat disabling us and disarming us.” The Buffaloes scored 27 points total in losses to Northwestern, Baylor and Texas Tech, and we rank their offense No. 100 in the country. I’m not here to tell you that’s fine.

Oklahoma State (4-2) is the real deal on that side of the ball. QB Drew Mestemaker followed Eric Morris from North Texas after leading the country with 4,379 passing yards last season. Mestemaker threw for 365 at Houston on Saturday, and the Cowboys have the fifth-biggest in-season offensive upgrade on our board.

But 13.5 points asks a lot of the other side of this matchup, and that’s where I get off the bus.

Oklahoma State was ranked No. 18 a week ago, and its defense ranks 66th on our board after giving up 35 points to Houston. The Cowboys trailed 14-3 at halftime before scoring 29 in the second half, and Morris said afterward that “the slow start stuff has to stop,” which is a fair thing to say about a team that opened the season with a 24-10 loss at Tulsa.

Colorado’s defense sits 29th on our board, and our deserved-points model says the Buffaloes have played about five points a game better than the scoreboard shows, with that 23-13 loss at Baylor grading out as a coin flip. They just spotted No. 11 Utah a 13-0 halftime lead before outscoring the Utes 24-14 the rest of the way behind 256 yards and two touchdowns from QB Isaac Wilson.

Bet Colorado to cover the spread at sportsbooks

We make this Oklahoma State 32, Colorado 25. DraftKings opened the Cowboys at -14.5, it’s already down to 13.5 for the 7 p.m. ET kick — but you can find +14.5 around -130 if you want the extra point. Two touchdowns is a lot to lay the Cowboys’ middle-of-the-pack defense, so I’ll back the team that just found an offense.

Bet: Colorado +13.5 (-108)

No. 8 Texas Tech (-10.5, 56.5) at Cincinnati

Noon kick at Nippert Stadium, and a home defense that just got carved up for 598 yards. DraftKings hung this at Texas Tech -11.5, it has drifted toward Cincinnati (4-2) and I understand why: The Bearcats can score. QB JC French IV threw for a career-high 389 yards and three touchdowns at West Virginia, and Cincinnati outgained the Mountaineers 622 to 598 before losing 45-42 on a field goal as time expired.

Our own numbers poke a hole in Texas Tech, too. Our deserved-points model has the Red Raiders flattered by more than eight points a game, and a lot of that is defense finding the end zone: Ben Roberts’ pick-6 against Arizona State was the fourth time in three games a Texas Tech linebacker returned an interception for a score — that won’t keep happening.

The problem for Cincinnati is the other half of that West Virginia game. The Bearcats rank No. 84 in defense on our board, they’ve allowed 34 at Arizona and 45 at West Virginia in their last two games and Scott Satterfield blamed a lot of it on “poor tackling.” That’s a rough week to see a Texas Tech team that we rank 11th in defense and 20th in offense, and scored on its last seven first-half possessions against Arizona State on the way to a 43-10 halftime lead.

We make this game Texas Tech 36, Cincinnati 21, and -10.5 is -105 is available at some books. A top-10 team with a top-15 defense, laying less than it opened at against a defense that just gave up 598 yards is a gift I’m happy to unwrap early.

Bet: Texas Tech -10.5 (-105)

Oklahoma (-3.5, 46.5) at Mississippi State

Mississippi State head coach Jeff Lebby spent 2022 and 2023 calling plays for Brent Venables in Norman. On Saturday, he gets to try to score on him.

The under writes itself, so let’s start there. Mississippi State (4-2) walked into Baton Rouge ranked No. 16 without QB Kamario Taylor (dealing with a foot injury since the Missouri game) and top running back Fluff Bothwell, and walked out on the wrong end of LSU’s first home shutout of an SEC opponent since 2006.

Freshman QB Parker Puckett went 16-of-26 for 121 yards in his first start, and Lebby said afterward that Taylor is “not going to wake up tomorrow and be 100% healthy. We’re going to have to manage it.” On the other side, Oklahoma (3-3) has a defense that ranks No. 6 on our board and allows 18.2 points per game, and QB John Mateer just threw three interceptions in the final 16 minutes of a 21-13 loss to Kentucky.

But our number already has Taylor sitting, and we still land well above the market. With him, Mississippi State’s first five games finished at 75, 51, 75, 55 and 79 point. The Bulldogs rank third in the nation in tempo on our board, so the possessions pile up in Starkville. The Bulldogs D ranks 79th, though, after allowing 56 to Alabama and 31 to LSU. And Oklahoma’s offense isn’t as dead as 13 points looks: the Sooners outgained Kentucky 346 to 230.

We make it Oklahoma 28, Mississippi State 23, a 51-point game. The spread has moved two points toward Oklahoma since DraftKings opened it at Mississippi State +1.5, but the total opened at 46.5 and hasn’t budged.

The forecast is for 76 degrees and dry for a 3:30 p.m. ET kick, and if Taylor plays, this only gets better. If he doesn’t, remember that Lebby spent two years going against Venables’ defense in practice every day.

Bet: Over 46.5 (-108)