Top College Football Week 8 SU Picks

For the most part, Week 7 was not a good week for college football betting favorites, as only a handful of the nation’s top teams won their games convincingly. This included shaky performances from playoff frontrunners like Ohio State and Clemson, who both needed overtime to dispatch their respective Week 7 opponents, while the likes of Louisville, Nebraska and Utah barely managed to eke out wins over their lowly foes. In the end, it didn’t matter much, though, as SU bettors who banked on these teams got paid. Moving forward, here are a number of top college football betting picks that look to offer solid SU betting value for Week 8. Oh, and for the sake of full preliminary disclosure; we won’t be talking about obvious favorites–and low-value money line picks—like Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Louisville and Oklahoma who’ve been heavily favored to win their games in Week 8.

Top College Football Week 8 SU Picks

Week 7 posted upsets, homecoming celebrations and overtime wins. Could you ask for more? pic.twitter.com/QfUHaJnkqy

— NCAA Football (@NCAAFootball) October 16, 2016

Oregon at California (-2), Friday, October 21, 10:30 PM ET

SU Pick: California The Ducks and Golden Bears play nearly the same type of football–a lot of offense and very little defense. That means we will most likely have a shootout when Oregon (36.83 PPG scoring, 41.83 PPG allowed) and California (42.33 PPG scoring, 40.00 PPG allowed) clash at the California Memorial Stadium this Friday. And with both teams coming off bye weeks, there will be very little to separate these two Pac-12 foes. That being said, we are leaning on the Golden Bears for the win, largely because Cal’s standout quarterback Davis Webb will be back in the fold healthy and Oregon’s D has easily been the worst in the Pac-12, if not the entire nation.

Wisconsin (-3) at Iowa, Saturday, October 22, 12:00 PM ET

SU Pick: Wisconsin Despite losing to Ohio State and Michigan in their last two games, it would be unfair to criticize the Badgers. The Bucks and Wolverines are two of the best teams in the Big Ten, yet Wisconsin respectably lost by exactly 7 points in each of those two contests, including fighting Ohio State all the way to overtime last week. With the motivation of playing tough in those two games (and notably covering the spread in the process), the Badgers should fancy their chance of beating the middling Hawkeyes who’ve been inconsistent this season despite playing some really soft opponents thus far. The biggest difference in this game should come from Wisconsin’s stellar defense that is allowing just 15.17 PPG , which included holding Michigan to a measly 14 points (in Michigan Stadium) barely two weeks ago, before putting the clamps on Ohio State’s nation-best offense in a 30-23 OT loss last week.

TCU at West Virginia (-4.5), Saturday, October 22, 3:30 PM ET

SU Pick: West Virginia How West Virginia isn’t getting enough respect in the nation is a big mystery to us. Not only are the Mountaineers 5-0 (2-0 in Big 12) one of the two undefeated teams in their conference, but they are also playing quite well on both sides of the football (32 PPG scoring, 19.40 PPG allowed). TCU (4-2, 2-1), on the other hand, continues to impress with strong offensive showcases (40.17 PPG scoring), but with nothing to smile about in the defense, where they are allowing 30.00 PPG. When all is said and done, this game should therefore end more-or- less in the same way the Mountaineers used their solid defense to smother the all-offense- no-defense Texas Tech Red Raiders in a 48-17 thrashing last week.

Utah at UCLA, Saturday, October 22, 4:00 PM ET

SU Pick: Utah There are a number of lingering concerns in this game’s lines, owing to the status of UCLA quarterback Josh Rosen, who may or may not be available for this Saturday contest. But here’s the thing; it probably won’t matter much even if Rosen is declared fit to start this game. Why? Because the Bruins have a suicidal O-line that is a sure-bet to expose whoever starts at QB. Against the Utes who’ve been the class of the Pac-12 with a fierce pass rush unit and a D-line that butters the team’s bread by feeding off turnovers from opposing teams, UCLA will definitely have a hard task in trying to outlast the disciplined Utah squad. Oh, and lest we forget, the Bruins are a poor team when it comes to finishing off close contests; something that should work into the Utes favor in the highly likelihood of a down-to- the-wire game at the Rose Bowl this Saturday.

Arkansas at Auburn (-8.5), Saturday, October 22, 6:00 PM ET

SU Pick: Arkansas Up until last week, it seemed as if Arkansas was only a good team when it came to beating inferior opponents. But then, something happened last weekend—Austin Allen passed for 3 TDs, Jared Cornelius ran for a late-game TD and the then-#22 Razorbacks held on to beat the then-#12 Rebels in a thrilling 34-30 home victory. With that signature victory in the bag, we believe that the now-17th- ranked Razorbacks will go into the Jordan-Hare full of optimism for another win over the #21 Auburn Tigers. Needleless to say, beating Auburn in its backyard is never an easy thing to do, and that will be made even harder by the fact that the Tigers are playing some really good football in defense (ranked No. 11 in the nation with 16.0 PPG allowed). Even so, Auburn’s offense has struggled in most games this year, particularly in games against ranked opponents with good offenses. And based on that reason, we believe that the Razorbacks will just about manage to outlast their hosts and claim their second straight win over Auburn after taking them down 54-46 when the two teams met on October 24th last year.