For me, Week 3 was a miserable week replete with bad beats. Georgia -3.5 misses because they don’t kick the PAT on a game-winning touchdown in overtime. Oregon -27.5 misses because the Ducks’ fourth-string defense gives up a pair of fourth-quarter touchdowns in a 31-0 game. Wisconsin just gives up on the road. At least we didn’t back Penn State against the spread. Ouch.
The only win last week was the upset spot.
Let’s try to do a little better in this window.
Here’s how to bet the early market for Week 4’s games.
- Last week: 1-5
- 2025 season: 13-16
- 2024 season: 84-69-1
Week 4 schedule, odds
At SDS, we’ve got you covered all season with live, up-to-date college football odds. You can find point spreads, game totals, and money line odds for every Week 4 game below.
Tulsa at Oklahoma State
The gap between Tulsa and Oklahoma State, according to Bill Connelly’s SP+, is about a touchdown. That’s on a neutral field. Boone Pickens is a difficult place to visit when it’s rocking, but there’s absolutely nothing for the Cowboy fanbase to feel good about right now, so a Friday night game against a 1-2 visitor won’t exactly make for an electric environment.
There may even be empty seats.
In fact, there may be a lot of empty seats.
This will be Oklahoma State’s first game back on the field since getting its teeth brutally kicked in for all to see by Oregon 2 weeks ago. Dan Lanning, a master motivator, took a small shred of a comment from OSU head coach Mike Gundy and turned it into a manifesto of disrespect for his team to feed off of. The Pokes were down 41-3 at the half and wound up enduring the worst loss the program has suffered in over a century. Oregon ran for 312 yards. In the opener a week prior, UT Martin ran for 3.8 a carry, adjusted for sacks. Oregon had more yards of offense against the Cowboys than the Cowboys have in their first 2 games combined.
With a backup quarterback and a coach who probably should have been shown the door a while ago, there’s very little to get excited about in Stillwater.
Tulsa doesn’t appear to be very good, either. Navy turned the football over on its first 3 possessions of the game against the Golden Hurricanes last week and had a lead going into the halftime break. The Tulsa offense ranks 95th in the country in EPA per play, according to Game on Paper. The defense ranks 80th. (Oklahoma State is outside the top 100 in both categories.) A week prior, Tulsa lost on the road 21-14 to New Mexico State.
I like the Golden Hurricanes against this number in a spot where an in-state school has an opportunity to earn some respect early in coach Tre Lamb’s tenure. Things slipped away from Tulsa in the second half against Navy, but they were competitive (and mistake-riddled) in the first half. I think Oklahoma State might be done already.
Bet Tulsa +13.5 (-115 via ESPN Bet)
Maryland at Wisconsin
Maryland is a touchdown underdog on the road. SP+ says Maryland is the better team by almost 2.1 points. According to Game on Paper, Maryland ranks 37th in net EPA per play while Wisconsin ranks 64th. One could argue that Wisconsin has played stiffer competition, but I’m not ready to give Wisconsin credit for going on the road and getting ripped to shreds by Alabama simply because it played the game.
Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson had nearly as many touchdown passes as he had incompletions. Ryan Williams made the Badger secondary look like toddlers fumbling over themselves in a peewee game. Wisconsin was down 35-7 going into the fourth quarter and Alabama took its foot off the neck. At the end of the game, Wisconsin waved a white flag and quit.
It doesn’t sound like starting quarterback Billy Edwards will be back for this game, so Danny O’Neil figures to run the show once again. He had 2 ugly interceptions against Alabama, giving him a pick in every game thus far. The ground game also disappeared against the Tide, which was discouraging.
Maryland quarterback Malik Washington is coming off his best game of his young career, throwing for 261 yards and accounting for 2 total touchdowns in a 44-17 win over Towson. Washington had a 94.8 QBR in the game, the second-highest from a Big Ten quarterback in Week 3.
Washington has at least 250 yards passing in his first 3 games for the Terps, and his completion percentage topped 70% for the first time in Week 3.
Maryland held its first 2 FBS opponents under 4 yards per play. It is giving up just 2.9 yards per carry so far. It has 8 takeaways. According to Game on Paper, only 5 defenses have a lower EPA per play faced than the Terps’ defense. Wisconsin had significant trouble trying to block Alabama’s front, and now it gets to face a defense that has at least 3 sacks in every game so far.
I think the seat is warm under Wisconsin head coach Luke Fickell, and a noon ET crowd will be angsty. I like Washington, who has made some pretty solid throws for a freshman and has had a ton of wide-open receivers through his first 3 games. Alabama had a ton of open receivers, too.
Bet Maryland +8.5 (-110 via Fanatics)
Arkansas at Memphis
Memphis has had a really good offensive start to the season. Arkansas has had a really bad defensive start to the season. Get ready for some more points.
The game against Ole Miss saw the point total creep under 60 prior to kickoff, and that felt like a major overreaction to the quarterback change in the Rebels’ backfield. And that proved to be the case, as we got 59 combined points in just one half. Arkansas sits 63rd nationally in EPA per play faced after surrendering 475 yards and 8 explosive pass plays to the Rebels. The Hogs actually outgained the Rebs on a per-play basis, but lost the game. That’s the fourth time that has happened since just the start of the 2024 season.
After creating multiple takeaways in each of their first 2 games, Arkansas got nothing off of Ole Miss in Week 3.
Memphis quarterback Brendon Lewis has had a decent start in his first season with the program, completing 73.3% of his throws for 608 yards while adding 190 rushing yards in 3 games. Tailback Sutton Smith has been great out of the backfield as well.
The Tigers could be spicy here at home against a visiting SEC school. They’ve effectively neutralized the last 2 run games they’ve seen — 89 yards, 50 carries — and have only allowed 3 touchdowns in 3 games. Obviously, slowing down a Taylen Green-Bobby Petrino offense is an entirely different animal, but if the Tigers can get a couple of stops, they might be able to win the possession game and hang close.
Bet Memphis team total over 27.5 points (-114 via FanDuel)
Kent State at No. 7 Florida State
The Seminoles have been 56 points better than expectations through their first 2 games. They beat the Week 1 number by 27.5 points, then beat an astronomically high 45.5-point spread by almost 30 points (lol) in Week 2. The offense looks legit. The defense is stuffing the ground game. And now Florida State is another massive favorite against a truly awful Kent State team.
The Golden Flashes ended a 21-game losing streak in Week 1 with a 4-point win over FCS Merrimack. They followed that result up by losing to Texas Tech by 48 points. Then they lost to Buffalo at home last week. The offense, which was nonexistent a year ago, is still MIA. That unit ranks 126th in EPA per play, according to Game on Paper.
Opponents are averaging 72 plays a game against this Kent State defense to begin the season and no FBS team has given up more scrimmage plays of at least 20 yards. This could be a huge-possession game where Florida State will get to pick the score. Coming off a bye week, I’m looking for FSU to try and regain the groove it had before the break.
Bet Florida State -44.5 (-115 via ESPN Bet)
No. 22 Auburn at No. 11 Oklahoma
In terms of the vibes at kickoff, this will be the best atmosphere we see anywhere across the country on Saturday. (What we’ll see in Lincoln, Nebraska, might be close.) Unfortunately, I think there’s the potential for this to be a lopsided result.
Oklahoma head coach Brent Venables knows Auburn quarterback Jackson Arnold. He knows the strengths. He knows the weaknesses. He knows the buttons to press. Auburn has just 7 completions of at least 15 yards in 3 games so far this season. Arnold’s completion percentage has been 25.3 percentage points worse when blitzed versus when not. We know Auburn has the receivers to make plays, but does it have the quarterback to take advantage of a defense down the field? That question is still largely unanswered.
Auburn has been able to run over its first 3 opponents, and Arnold has been fabulous in this part of the game. The Tigers had 307 rushing yards against Baylor, 224 at 6.6 a pop against Ball State, and then 195 at 5 a carry against South Alabama. None of those defenses compares in the slightest to OU’s.
The Sooners are second nationally in EPA per play faced, according to Game on Paper. They rank fifth nationally in rushing success rate allowed. If Auburn can’t run the ball and Oklahoma is able to create opportunities to rush the passer, we’ll see turnovers. But even then, I don’t think Oklahoma has to “earn” those opportunities against Arnold. Venables might say, “OK, the game is on your arm, prove you can beat us.” The Sooners did not give up an explosive pass play in the opener. They’ve allowed 5 all season.
On the other side, the combination of Ben Arbuckle and John Mateer should be able to take advantage of an Auburn defense that has been bad in space to start the season. Mateer gets the ball out quickly and Arbuckle does well to get his playmakers in space. Mateer is averaging 8 yards per pass attempt this season on throws behind the line of scrimmage. Auburn currently grades out 106th in team tackling, per PFF. And 7 backend players have been tagged for allowing at least 20 yards after the catch on receptions where they were the primary defender, per PFF.
There are a lot of arrows that point in Oklahoma’s favor in this matchup. The Tigers might be able to stop the run, but the Sooners have a pretty strong 3-0 record despite not really figuring out the ground game yet.
Bet Oklahoma -6.5 (-110 via bet365)
South Carolina at No. 23 Mizzou
It might get a lot worse for South Carolina before it gets better. The Gamecocks could be without their starting quarterback when they go on the road to face a white-hot Mizzou team, and that that means another blowout could be in the cards.
After LaNorris Sellers was knocked out of the Vanderbilt game, South Carolina ran 41 offensive plays and didn’t score a point. They gained 184 total yards at 4.5 per play. The Gamecocks had 5 second-half possessions; they turned it over on downs on the first 2, and they committed turnovers on the last 3. Vanderbilt wasn’t particularly good on offense — 5.1 yards per play, 4.2 sack-adjusted yards per run — and the ‘Dores still put 31 on the board thanks to 4 total takeaways.
This offense was not working even when Sellers was healthy, but if he’s unavailable for the Week 4 matchup, South Carolina loses that running element that still made its quarterback dangerous.
On Sunday, South Carolina coach Shane Beamer said he was “optimistic” about Sellers heading into the week. The line from most shops says the opposite. If Sellers is dealing with a concussion, this “will he, won’t he” game will drag right up to kickoff.
If Sellers is unavailable, South Carolina might get rolled. No one in the SEC has looked more impressive through the first 3 weeks of the season than Mizzou. Ahmad Hardy will be the best back South Carolina has faced thus far. Beau Pribula will be the best passer South Carolina has faced thus far — by a laughable margin, too. The Gamecocks had to replace 5 draft picks from their defense this season, and the early returns have been underwhelming; they rank 59th in EPA per play faced despite playing a Virginia Tech team that just fired its coach and an FCS squad.
However, if Sellers is available, things change. South Carolina can’t afford another loss this early in the season. The College Football Playoff will all but assuredly be out of reach if they have multiple defeats on the record before October arrives. From Oct. 11 through Nov. 15, South Carolina plays 5 straight games against teams that currently sit in the AP top 15, and 3 of those games are on the road. This becomes a desperation spot.
I lean Mizzou, but the uncertainty of Sellers’ situation has me hesitant to get involved. Let’s see what the first availability report of the week (on Wednesday) says and see how the market reacts to that.
Lean Mizzou -12.5 (-115 via FanDuel)
Upset Spot of the Week: No. 21 Michigan at Nebraska
Do you believe?
Do you really believe?
If you say no, Deion Sanders isn’t going to appear out of thin air and scold you. You’d certainly be justified in saying no. Since the start of the 2017 season, Nebraska is 0-25 against ranked opponents. Rutgers is the only other power conference team without a win over a ranked team during that same span. What’s more? Nebraska is just 9-16 against the spread in those games against ranked teams.
Futility is pretty much ingrained into the corn at this point. Is this team different? That’s the question that gets answered in Week 4 because the Huskers are coming off consecutive thumpings of outmanned opponents and welcoming a Michigan team to Memorial Stadium that is ranked off the strength of its name only.
According to FPI, Michigan’s strength of record ranks 53rd nationally. (Nebraska is 18th.) Michigan had a ho-hum 17-point win over New Mexico in its opener and then managed only 13 points on the road against Oklahoma in Week 2. Seven of those came from a 75-yard touchdown run on the first play of the third quarter. Sure, the Wolverines obliterated Central Michigan last weekend, but Pitt put 45 points on that same defense so I’m not sure how much can be gained from the result.
Bryce Underwood struggled in his first road start, completing 9 of his 24 pass attempts for 142 yards. He had 3 rushing attempts and lost a yard. Nebraska will look at what Oklahoma did and try to force Underwood to stay in the pocket and beat it with his arm. In what will be a hostile road environment, that’s a tough task.
Is Nebraska’s offense legit? Because it was a sputtering mess in the Week 1 win over Cincinnati and a flamethrower in the 2 weeks since. The last 2 opponents were Akron and Houston Christian, whose athletes don’t compare in any way, shape, or form to Michigan’s. Still, quarterback Dylan Raiola has found a rhythm, completing 39 of his last 52 passes (75%) for 586 yards and 6 touchdowns. He hasn’t thrown a pick. He hasn’t taken a sack. And he has a 28.8% explosive play rate.
Picking the Huskers to beat the Wolverines goes against every trend, but I do think there’s something to the concept of belief. Nebraska won a tight game in Week 1 against Cincy, and the last 2 results should have the confidence sky-high in Lincoln. Nebraska is due for one of these.
Bet Nebraska money line (+115 via BetMGM)
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
