We’re back with another edition of CFB Forecast! It’s just me this season, but we’ll play it straight:
Three best bets — spread, moneyline, quarter, half, prop, you name it.
We’ll start with rather simple bets, given all of the turnover that occurred across the nation this offseason.
Michigan State -9.5 vs. Toledo (-115, Bet365). Toledo is a popular team in the public, so this is an automatic fade, especially at this price. The line is -10.5 in most spots, so there’s some value on MSU here. The Spartans are a bit of mystery — heck, so are the Rockets with a new coach — but it’s hard to imagine a Big Ten team not beating a visiting MAC team by double digits. I am high on Toledo this season, as I wrote in my Week Zero column, but just not here on Friday night.
Duke -7 vs. Tulane (-125, Circa). Buy half a point here to be safe, although Circa still offers the best spread price with the Blue Devils at -7.5 with just -105 juice. My eyes pop at 7.5-point lines, since those are usually good spots to fade the public in by taking the favorite, and this case is no different, especially with the odds as big as -9.5 elsewhere. Both teams lost a lot this offseason, but Tulane also lost its coach to Florida. Manny Diaz, meanwhile, is back to lead Duke, where he’s posted consecutive 9-win seasons. Take Duke at home.
UCLA ML at Cal (-122, DraftKings). Cal was favored in this game most of the summer, but the Bob Chesney hype train became just too much to handle come August. Still, if he’s everything everyone says he is — and I am firmly in the #TeamChesney camp — then you probably won’t get a better opportunity than this one right here, as a short favorite against a guy making his head-coaching debut in Tosh Lupoi. The Bruins are -1.5 if you’d like to take the chance and avoid most of the vig.
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