College Football Expert Picks: Week 8 ATS Predictions & Best Bets

How do you target college football spreads after one of the craziest Saturdays ever?

Answer: Very carefully.

The Week 7 college football carnage reshaped the entire betting landscape of the sport. This week, handicappers need to avoid overreacting. After a dramatic week of results, some single-game markets may be offering numbers overly shaped by last week’s outcomes.

As always, I’ve spent some time this week going game by game through the entire FBS schedule, looking for soft numbers and advantageous betting opportunities. You can start with my early Week 8 college football bets, which I published on Monday.

My full list of Week 8 best bets is available below.

College Football Week 8 Best Bets

• Auburn +7
• West Virginia +10.5
• San Diego State -112
• Wisconsin +3
• UTSA -2.5

LSU vs. Auburn Prediction

Auburn’s win over Georgia at the gun was one of Week 7’s more shocking results, as Georgia likely would have opened Sunday morning as the new national championship favorite after the Julian Sayin injury.

Instead, Georgia took an October loss, like most of the rest of the SEC, and Auburn will get some looks as a live dog in the back half of this season.

Normally, this would be an opportunity for me to sell high on Auburn after a season-defining high point. But the opponent here is LSU, which is 0-2 straight up in two games away from Baton Rouge this season.

Given the weakness of LSU football odds away from home, and the fact that this market is resting on a key number, I’m pretty interested in taking the points with the home dog. LSU will sustain drives between the 20s with a good conversion rate on third down, but Auburn will force some field goals and have an opportunity to stay inside the number.

Prediction: Auburn +7

TCU vs. West Virginia Prediction

I cannot stress enough how bad West Virginia’s defense is. The unit ranks 133rd in defensive success rate, 136th in EPA/pass, and 138th in EPA allowed on first and second down.

In a word, that’s terrible.

I have pretty strongly advocated for a WVU fade over the last few weeks as the Mountaineers took on capable offenses like Oklahoma State and Arizona. I was skeptical of last week’s game against Cincinnati. In all these games, West Virginia was either a short favorite or a short dog, so they’d need to win outright or lose close to cover.

Finally, there’s an opportunity to do something different. West Virginia is a double-digit dog in Fort Worth this weekend, with TCU riding high off an upset win over Baylor last week. The general belief here is that TCU has fixed some of its problems, is the better team, and is playing at home.

That’s a potential misread of this WVU offense. Despite any flaws the defense may have, Michael Hawkins and the WVU offense are as good as advertised. Virtually every game West Virginia plays in this year will be a shootout that West Virginia can win at the gun if it has the final possession of the game.

That makes West Virginia awfully dangerous as a multi-possession underdog. I don’t think TCU’s defensive line – or any defensive line, really – can stop the scheme and personnel that Rich Rodriguez has put together. This is a horribly unbalanced team, but odds like these are exactly the kinds of scenarios where the Mountaineers can be a lucrative bet.

Prediction: WVU +10.5; WVU +310

Colorado State vs. San Diego State Prediction

San Diego State played an awful month of football in late September and early October, partially due to a bizarre situation where the Aztecs’ locker room was blindsided by several cases of Mumps.

The list of unfortunate results included a 52-point loss at Oregon State and a 25-point loss at Toledo.

But SDSU appears to be back on track, as highlighted by last week’s 26-23 win against Fresno State, which had previously looked like the second-best team in the Pac-12.

The odds market here is trying to reconcile good Aztec football and bad Aztec football by splitting the difference. But if we accept that the horrendous stretch was impacted by health and is now concluded, trying to average out good results and bad results actually isn’t a very efficient way to price the team’s upcoming games.

On the Colorado State side, the Rams might be the only team in FBS that plays worse defense than West Virginia. They rank dead last in FBS across a number of categories.

San Diego State will be the more balanced and complete team here, and so I like them in a game that is essentially a pick ‘em. Don’t sleep on the over, either – CSU is 6-0 to the over this season.

Prediction: San Diego State -112; Lean Over 63.5

USC vs. Wisconsin Prediction

This number screams Wisconsin.

To start, the unranked Badgers are sitting on a short key number that jumps off the page when you scan BetMGM’s college football odds page.

USC has struggled in these long Eastern road games and will be on upset alert from kickoff. The Trojans have left Southern California twice so far this year for games against Penn State and Rutgers; USC won each game by one score, despite the fact that Penn State and Rutgers are currently a combined 1-6 in conference play.

On the field, USC excels via its passing offense, but Wisconsin’s passing defense ranks 10th nationally with an average of -0.15 EPA/pass.

This will be a lower-scoring game, but I like Wisconsin to win and cover.

Prediction: Wisconsin +3; Wisconsin +125

UTSA vs. Tulane Prediction

Tulane won a preposterous game against Memphis last week where the Tigers turned the ball over six times. Incredibly, the game included a 76-yard interception returned for a touchdown with no time left on the clock at the end of the first half.

The defensive score put Tulane up 23-10, and Memphis pressed the entire rest of the game trying to catch up. It never did.

I still have Will Hall’s Tulane team graded as deeply mediocre, which leaves this key conference game against playoff aspirant UTSA as a sell-high spot against the Green Wave. I’ll take UTSA as a short road favorite under a key number.

Prediction: UTSA -2.5