Texas, Alabama and LSU all lost in the top 10 on Saturday. Oklahoma beat the No. 1 team in the country with a blocked punt and a pick 6. And Kentucky won in overtime on a 2-point conversion for the second week in a row.
The market spent Sunday night evaluating all of this, and 21 of the 59 spreads in our chart had already moved a point and a half or more before Monday. These are the numbers I want to bet on before the week sets them right.
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Here are three Week 7 college football bets that I like right now.
No. 25 Northwestern (-7.5, 48.5) Michigan State
Pat Fitzgerald coached Northwestern for 17 seasons, was fired in the summer of 2023 in the hazing scandal, sued the school for $130 million and settled last August. Saturday at 12 p.m. ET, the Wildcats come into East Lansing ranked 25th and the Fitzgerald Spartans are 2-4 (0-3 in the Big Ten).
This opened Northwestern -9.5 and was bet as high as -7.5 on a number of books, so I’m not the only one who watched it. The Wildcats deserved the ranking. The only loss is 29-23 at Indiana, they ran for 413 yards against Penn State in the first game at the new Ryan Field, Aidan Chiles has nine touchdowns and no picks and they are 4-1 ATS.
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While the Wildcats rank 22nd in the nation offensively, the defense is a different story. Northwestern allows 381 yards per game (98th in the nation) and 233 of them through the air (100th). The 16.2 PPG he gave up came against South Dakota State, Colorado, Ball State and a Penn State team that has lost three straight. The program’s only true offense, Indiana, ran for 271 yards and scored 29 points. Our earned run reading shows Northwestern’s results being flattered by about four runs per game.
Michigan State is also not the same team that scored 10, 13 and 3 in three straight losses. Our in-season re-evaluation places Michigan State’s offense as the 25th biggest improvement in the country, two spots behind Northwestern’s. Spartans starting RB Cam Edwards is out for the year, and Jaziun Patterson has taken care of him. We do this Northwestern 27, Michigan State 21.
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Bet on Michigan State to Cover the Spread at Sports Betting
It’s expected to be 44 degrees and dry at kickoff, both teams are playing slow — Northwestern is 117th in tempo and Michigan State 109th — so there aren’t many possessions for a 7.5-point margin. The reason this is going poorly is Michigan State’s poor red zone defense (129th).
Fitzgerald is going to prepare this group for a scheduled game, and this is it.
Bet: Michigan State +7.5 (-108)
Fresno State (-8.5, 45.5) at San Diego State
San Diego State lost to Oregon State 66-14 last week and the top seed in that game was Fresno State by 9.5. It’s 8:30 now. The market is still pricing in the 66 points allowed. I’m not defending San Diego State’s offense: it’s 135th in the nation with 278 yards per game, quarterback Jayden Denegal is completing 53.6 percent of his passes with six touchdowns and five picks, the Aztecs are 1-5 ATS and they started October with a mumps outbreak and nearly three dozen names on the availability report. Sean Lewis said that “the football gods haven’t really favored us due to injuries”, and he’s right. The question is whether Fresno State wins by more than eight points.
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The Bulldogs are 4-2, but we rank the offense 91st in the country, and quarterback Jayden Mandal has eight touchdown passes in six games. The two best results – 49-3 against Sacramento State and 26-6 against Washington State – came against an FCS team and a team that ran for 30 yards. On Saturday, Boise State ran for 274 yards at 6.1 YPC, held the ball for 38:58 and won 38-31 at Fresno. Our earned run reading shows the Bulldogs being flattered by 4.4 runs per game, the largest spread in this article, and San Diego State winning exactly what it shows. In other words, the Aztecs are bad, but not 66-14 bad.
The only thing San Diego State does is operate. Javion Kinnard has 355 yards and the Aztecs ran for 237, 144 and 192 yards in September before the injuries. Fresno State’s run defense allows 165 YPG per game (101st). The two teams that ran on it scored 24 and 38. San Diego State doesn’t need to throw to get to 17 here.
The risk is he’s playing the 17th fastest pace in the country behind a defense that allows 478 yards per game, and that’s fast and bad you lose by 50. We make Fresno State 25, San Diego State 18, and Fresno’s +8 turnover margin (fifth in the nation), is a big part of the reason the number isn’t lower. It’s 87 degrees at the 7:30 p.m. local kickoff and there’s no wind. Grab the 8.5 while it’s there.
Bet: San Diego State +8.5 (-110)
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No. 15 Kentucky at Oklahoma (-7, 43.5)
Will Stein coached six games at Kentucky and won two of them on 2-point conversions in overtime: 35-34 at South Carolina after a 17-point comeback and 35-34 against No. 10 LSU on Saturday.
Oklahoma beat No. 1 Texas 27-24 with a blocked punt in the end zone, a 42-yard pick-6 and a 47-yard field goal on the final play. The market saw the Sooners’ 238 offensive yards and opened that total to 41.5. It’s 43.5 now. We are 47.6.
Oklahoma’s offense is 128th in the nation and 126th on third down — and it passed seven times against Texas while quarterback John Mateer threw for 155 yards and no touchdowns. According to Bill Connelly’s post-game win expectancy, Texas wins this game 93% of the time. Oklahoma’s defense is the reason the Sooners are alive, as we rank the unit No. 6 in the country. But that only covers one side of the field.
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Kentucky’s defense allows 28 PPG (108th), 246 passing yards per game (116th) and allows its opponents to score on 92% of red zone trips (112th). He gave up 34 points to South Carolina and LSU in back-to-back weeks, but the Wildcats lost three linebackers, two defensive backs and a defensive lineman. Oklahoma has scored 10, 14, 13 and 27 against FBS teams since the first game, and it doesn’t see a smoother SEC defense than this one. The Sooners score on 90 percent of their trips to the red zone when they get there, and Kentucky allows teams to get there.
The Wildcats’ offense is also real: we rank it 29th in the country. Kentucky has a turnover margin of +7 (sixth nationally) and Oklahoma is -4 (116th), which is how a field goal game turns into 27-24 with a pick 6. Oklahoma’s last four games ended with 27, 20, 54 and 51 points, and the two that erased that number were the two with real offense on the other sideline. It’s 56 degrees and calm in Norman, so no weather is putting a damper on things.
We’re four points above the number and 43.5 is still showing at BetMGM.
Bet: Over 43.5 (-110)
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