The first week of college football betting was essentially a seven-course meal stretched over five glorious days. With the NFL back in action this week, college football returns to its normal days and times though, with one game on Friday and the other remaining games being played on Saturday.
This week there are some college football parlays to be played. Let’s get right into it.
College Football Parlay Betting Odds (Courtesy of BetDSI)
Houston -4.5 vs. Arizona
UNLV -23 vs. UTEP
$100 to win $367.68
It’s just a coincidence that I’m focusing on schools in the southwest with this week’s college football parlay, but it has me craving Tex-Mex. In the first leg of this parlay, I am laying the chalk with Houston over Arizona. This line has moved significantly since it opened. The Cougars were originally a touchdown favorite, but early action has come in on Arizona.
That’s a little curious to me as the Wildcats offense looked stunted in Kevin Sumlin’s first game at the helm. Arizona could only muster 326 total yards of offense in the win, and the bulk of those yards came in the fourth quarter after BYU had taken a commanding 28-10 lead.
Sumlin made the curious decision of keeping Khalil Tate in the pocket, not allowing him to make plays with his legs like he did all throughout last season. However, this is now the fourth game in a row that Tate has ran for 3.5 yards per carry or less, so defenses may have just caught on to needing to keep a spy on him.
Houston boasts the best defensive lineman that Arizona will see all season — Ed Oliver is likely to be a top ten pick in the 2019 NFL Draft, and he very well could be the first player taken. He was a monster against Rice on Saturday, being named co-defensive player of the week in the AAC after racking up 13 tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss against the Owls. Oliver will disrupt things in the middle of the line, and that will cause Arizona’s offense a world of trouble.
The Cougars needed time to put away Rice in their opener, but that may have been a case of looking ahead to this one. It’s not often that Houston gets to host Power Five teams, and this is a program known for coming up big in non-conference play.
For the second part of the parlay, I’m laying a considerable amount of chalk with UNLV. However, I believe it’s worth the price considering just how bad UTEP really is.
The Miners were awful in their first game under new head coach Dana Dimel, getting blown out 30-10 by FCS Northern Arizona. They could only pick up 229 total yards of offense against a defense that isn’t very good, and they were equally inefficient in terms of both running and passing. UTEP managed just 4.1 yards per pass and 2.8 yards per run, and this team could go winless again in 2018.
Meanwhile, UNLV looked good on the road against USC in their opener. The Rebels ended up losing, but they made it a game and only trailed by five points entering the fourth quarter. They were able to rack up over 300 yards on the ground against the Trojans, ripping off big chunks of yardage against a talented front seven. Lexington Thomas and Armani Rogers proved themselves against the big boys, and they could have huge days against an outmatched UTEP team.
After losing their home opener to Howard last season, UNLV will not make the mistake of looking past an opponent again. Tony Sanchez knows he needs to get to a bowl in his fourth year in charge of this program, and he will not leave any room for doubt here.
