College Football Picks Week 2 2025

Futures*: -4.46 units

Week 0: -3 units

Week 1: -2.57 units

Season Total: -10.03 units

*Note: Futures PnL is a mark to market estimate

Last week was not great for me. The three good results were Rice beating Louisiana (I had Rice ML +470), Texas losing to Ohio State (I sold a ton of Texas exposure in the preseason) and UNC getting embarrassed (I have UNC U3.5 wins +1600).

Pretty much everything else went wrong. Boise State and Clemson losing hurt a lot. It was an unfortunate week 1, but I have recovered from bad week 1s multiple times in recent years.

Week 2 Picks

Houston @ Rice (Saturday, 6 PM Central)

Betting on Rice worked great last week and I am sticking with it this week. Rice is going to be a pretty high variance team this year- they have an extremely quirky offense that is a pain to prepare for. That makes them a nice ML underdog to bet on. I also just think they’re better than most people realize- new coach Scott Abell is an expert FCS coach and brought in a lot of intriguing talent from that level. I don’t think the market adjusted enough after their win over Louisiana last week.

Rice +14 -108 (1 unit)

Rice ML +520 (0.5 units)

South Florida @ Florida (Saturday, 3:30 PM Central)

South Florida was a pleasant surprise in Week 1, beating Boise State 34-7. The Bulls finally have a healthy Byrum Brown at QB- he was excellent in 2023 and then injured for most of the 2024 campaign. We didn’t really learn anything about Florida in week 1 as they played FCS Long Island, but I like continuing to bet on a USF team that has an exciting QB and one of the most talented rosters in the G5.

South Florida +18.5 -108 (1 unit)

South Florida ML +650 (0.5 units)

Memphis @ Georgia State (Saturday, 6 PM Central)

Georgia State is really bad. Ole Miss put up an obscene 695 yards of offense on the Panthers last week, dicing them up both on the ground and through the air. The vibes have been weird at GSU for a while- HC Dell McGee took over at an awkward juncture after old coach Shawn Elliot left the program in February 2024 and he’s never gotten his feet under him. Memphis has a powerful offense led by transfer QB Brendon Lewis and I think they’ll roll here.

Memphis -14 -108 (1 unit)

Central Michigan @ Pittsburgh (Saturday, 11:00 AM Central)

I’ve been a buyer of Central Michigan for a while- I have multiple preseason bets on them. The Chippewas delivered big time last week by knocking off San Jose State as a two touchdown underdog. Like Rice, they run a funky offense- HC Matt Drinkall was previously Army’s OC. Pitt, meanwhile, is often a slow starter and is not a powerful offense that is going to run up the score. I like CMU and the points here.

Central Michigan +21.5 -108 (1 unit)

New Futures Bets

TCU to make the Playoff +500 (1 unit)

Everyone is laughing about how bad North Carolina got beaten on Monday night. No one is talking about how good TCU looked in that game. There’s a reason that SEC teams were trying to pry QB Josh Hoover from TCU in the portal- he delivered a masterful performance against UNC. I already liked TCU (I got them to make the playoff +920 in June) and am doubling down here. They moved into the top 20 of my model after demolishing UNC and might really have something going with Hoover.

Florida State to make the Playoff +470 (1 unit)

This is an interesting bet. Florida State is hovering around the 25-35 range in most computer models after beating Alabama. For most teams, that’s pretty consistent with +470 odds to make the playoff. However, this is a bet on their upside case. I think there are some cases (not likely, but possible) where FSU is legitimately a top 10 team in the country. They have a lot of raw talent on the roster, and with such a transfer-heavy roster, they might be able to flush last year’s 2-10 disaster out of their system extra fast. Other teams in the 25-35 range of the computers don’t have the high end talent FSU does, so I’m making a bet on their upside tail.

Results to Root For

Here are some games to keep an eye on this week with implications for my futures bets:

Baylor @ SMU -2.5: We are long Baylor and short SMU, we want Baylor pretty badly here.

Ole Miss -10 @ Kentucky: We are short Ole Miss, they lost to Kentucky last year and a repeat would be amazing.

Tulane -10.5 @ South Alabama: Tulane was one of our success stories in week 1 and we’d like to see the momentum continue here.

Arizona State -6.5 @ Mississippi State: We’re pretty long Arizona State and that would take a decent hit if they lost this.

Michigan @ Oklahoma -5.5: We’re very long Oklahoma and this is one of the biggest games of their season.

UCLA -2.5 @ UNLV: We are very short UNLV and this is the highest leverage game on their schedule.

Stanford @ BYU -20.5. Our Stanford bets look very bad, to have any hope we need them to be competitive here.