Winner winner, chicken dinner. The second week of college football betting could not have gone much better for me. I nailed the first leg of my parlay on the right side of one of the day’s biggest blowouts. Arizona never stood a chance against a very good Houston team, with the Cougars taking a 31-0 lead into halftime on their way to an easy win.
UNLV was clearly the right side against UTEP later in the day too, making me 1-0 in college football parlays on the year. Let’s make it 2-0 this week.
Week 1: No Play
Week 2: +$267.68
College Football Parlay Betting Odds (Courtesy of BetDSI)
Vanderbilt +14 at Notre Dame
Kent State +35 at Penn State
$100 to win $364.81
Vanderbilt has looked very good through the first two weeks of the season. The Commodores have not beat a great team, but they thoroughly handled their business against both Middle Tennessee State and Nevada.
The human polls may not be giving Vanderbilt its proper credit yet, but Bill Connelly’s latest S&P+ rankings are giving the Commodores plenty of respect. The defense has looked sharp against two offenses that have the potential to be pretty good Group of Five offenses, and Kyle Shurmur has been lethal through the air.
Through two games, Shurmur is completing more than two-thirds of his passes and averaging 8.7 yards per throw. He has also thrown four touchdown passes without tossing an interception, something his counterpart in this game can’t say.
Brandon Wimbush has really struggled this season. Notre Dame is not as much of a running threat as it was last year without Josh Adams, Quenton Nelson, and Mike McGlinchey, and that has put the pressure on Wimbush to move the ball through the air. He has made some poor decisions, tossing four interceptions through the first two games of the year.
Notre Dame’s running woes (the Irish are averaging 2.8 yards per carry) and Wimbush’s passing trouble mean they should be a much smaller favorite than this.
Penn State shouldn’t be a five-touchdown favorite either. The Nittany Lions blasted Pittsburgh 51-6 last week, but the margin of victory in that game is somewhat misleading. Penn State was only up by eight going into halftime and only had two long drives in the second half. The other scores were set up by special teams or Pittsburgh mistakes.
Trace McSorley seems like he is really missing former offensive coordinator Joe Moorhead. His accuracy issues have reemerged this season, and he is completing just 52.3 percent of his passes for 5.8 yards per attempt. A lot was expected of McSorley this season with Saquon Barkley now playing in the NFL, but so far he has not taken over as expected.
Meanwhile, Kent State is not as bad as many thought they would be. The Golden Flashes were a popular choice to finish at or near the bottom of the MAC, but they nearly knocked off Illinois in their season opener and hammered FCS Howard in their second game. The running game has had a decent amount of success, and with Penn State playing a conference game next Friday there is something of a lookahead factor.
