1 Early College Football Pick for Week 0

Congratulations. You made it. 

There is college football on this week, as Week 0 is set to kick off on Saturday. That means BetMGM’s college football spreads for this season are no longer theoretical targets off in the distance.

If you’re looking for a top betting option to get involved with this week, let me start you out by suggesting the obvious option.

TCU vs. North Carolina: Preview and Prediction

This handicap is 90% about North Carolina, and how you personally read the current competence level of this program.

North Carolina won four games last year. Two of the wins were in September against Richmond (an FCS program) and Charlotte (a program that never should have left FCS). 

This year, UNC has improved certain aspects of the football team. For instance, quarterback Billy Edwards was present for spring football – not true for 2025 transfer quarterback Gio Lopez, who arrived in the summer. 

But is a journeyman NCAA quarterback like Edwards a substantive upgrade? In the bigger picture, he’s probably not. 

The defensive line should be good. Beyond that, there is a lot to wonder about on this Tar Heels team, including whether or not they have anyone ready to effectively kick field goals and extra points. The defensive backfield is young and a mess. I don’t like the construction of the offensive line. This is a team with decent skill play but bad bones in many of the key places that matter. 

All of that is before you get to any recent Chapel Hill dysfunction, which includes having the oldest college football coach in college football and a program general manager who’s been put on administrative leave. 

TCU is not going to win the national championship this year. But Sonny Dykes is running a buttoned-up program that should be a Big 12 contender this year. The Horned Frogs dismantled UNC in last year’s opener 48-14, and I’ve seen virtually nothing the last six months that suggests a different outcome on Saturday.

This game is in Ireland, which adds complexity to the trip. Well-run programs can absorb complexity; by contrast, poorly-run programs become even more dumpster-esque.

This is more than enough to simply lay the number with TCU and check in on Saturday afternoon, but I’ll also give you some compelling team trends. North Carolina is 0-8 all-time (1-7 ATS) against Big 12 teams. 

TCU is 5-2 ATS in its last seven games against ACC teams and 3-1 outright in openers under Dykes. All three openers have been against P4 teams. 

If you read my column last month on early summer bets to make before the lines move, you would have gotten this at TCU -6.5. Obviously, that’s a preferable position because you’re on the right side of the key number. 

But with the state of Belichick’s UNC program, I wouldn’t spend too much time sweating the line movement. This is a game to consider playing aggressive alts for TCU. If I can get my hands on something like a TCU -17, I’m probably doing that, too. 

Prediction: TCU -7.5