After a wild and unpredictable first seven weeks of the college football season, Week 8 is just around the corner and that means a plethora of games for football fans to enjoy.
The Week 7 slate was one of the most anticipated Saturdays of the season, and it certainly delivered in every way possible, as we had plenty of upsets, wild finishes and even an all-time classic game on our hands as Ohio State vs. Oregon lived up to the hype and then some.
Will we see more upsets and chaos this week, or will the chalk mostly hold this time around on Saturday?
Week 8 is another blockbuster weekend on the college football schedule, featuring a handful of massive games between power programs that should reverberate across the nation.
Additionally, there will also be a number of contests further down the board that could have a serious impact on the College Football Playoff race across multiple conferences. Let’s get into our best bets for this week’s slate.
For our best bet on the Week 8 slate, let’s start with a Friday night game and take the Purdue Boilermakers to cover this massive spread against the Oregon Ducks.
This has been a tried and true play for us this season, and it’s just hard to ignore the dream spot we’re getting with Purdue in this one.
The Boilermakers get to host an Oregon team that is fresh off what is quite possibly its biggest regular season win in program history, after knocking off Ohio State in an instant classic at home last Saturday.
The Ducks might still be celebrating this win by the time they board the plane and travel across multiple time zones to take on this Purdue team on a short week.
Oregon also has a home game with a top 25 opponent in Illinois on deck, so it would be hard to expect the Ducks to be completely locked in for a weeknight game against a considerably inferior opponent.
Even putting aside the obvious letdown spot potential of this game, there’s a reason why Purdue has been dubbed as the “spoilermakers” by college football fans over the years.
The Boilermakers have repeatedly shown a propensity to pull off upsets at home against top 5 opponents who have just come off massive victories (see: Ohio State in 2018, Iowa in 2021, Michigan State in 2021, just to name a few).
Statistically, there’s very little that Purdue does well, but the Boilermakers did show some life with their backup quarterback Ryan Browne in the game last week at Illinois, rallying from a huge deficit by scoring 40 points in the second half to send the game to overtime. Even though Purdue ultimately lost that game, perhaps that comeback will give this program some life heading into a massive opportunity to shock the college football world this week.
This game shouldn’t be all that close on paper, but given the situational spot, it’s hard for our expert not to back Purdue +27 (-110) here.
For our second pick for the Week 8 college football slate, back the Arkansas Razorbacks +3 (-110) against the LSU Tigers.
Much like the previous game, this is also a tremendous situational spot, as Arkansas is coming off a bye and will get to host an LSU team that might’ve just picked up its best win in the Brian Kelly era with an improbable overtime victory over Ole Miss in Death Valley last Saturday.
However, once you dig into the box score a bit, it’s clear that LSU shouldn’t have won this game and Ole Miss really gave away a victory on the road.
In fact, out of all of the games last weekend, this game featured the biggest net success rate discrepancy for a team that ultimately lost. That indicates that LSU’s offense has plenty of issues, despite the talent that the Tigers have at the skill positions and at quarterback.
On the other side, Arkansas could easily be 6-0 on the season, having blown late leads in games against Oklahoma State and Texas A&M. However, the Hogs are playing some of their best football of the season defensively, especially coming off a performance against Tennessee where they held the Vols’ vaunted offense to just 156 passing yards in a victory over Josh Heupel’s group.
How you can beat this Arkansas defense is on the ground, but LSU doesn’t run the ball very well at all, ranking 67th in rushing success rate on the season. If the Razorbacks are able to get the Tigers in third down and long situations, that should allow their pass rushers to pin their ears back and get after quarterback Garrett Nussmeier.
This is an excellent home underdog spot for a coach in Sam Pittman that thrives in this role. Let’s take the Hogs to keep this one within a field goal, and potentially win the game outright.
For our final pick for Week 8 of the college football season, take the over in this massive SEC showdown between the Georgia Bulldogs and Texas Longhorns.
The Longhorns have looked like the best team in college football this year, but it’s important to note that they have yet to face an offense with a pulse this season, as the best teams Texas has gone up against thus far have been Michgian and Oklahoma. Those teams don’t exactly do anything close to approximate what the Longhorns will see from a top 5 opponent in Georgia on Saturday.
The Bulldogs are sixth nationally in EPA per rush, 17th in EPA per dropback and a top 20 unit in points per quality possession and early downs EPA (College Football Insiders). It’s also fair to assume that Georgia might have kept a few things under wraps on offense this past week against Mississippi State knowing that this game was on deck. With that said, there are still concerns to be had with this Bulldogs team.
If there’s one thing we saw when Alabama played Georgia back in September, it's that teams can throw on this Bulldogs' secondary. Georgia is outside the top 50 in EPA per pass on defense and 87th in passing success rate, a stark contrast to where a Bulldogs defense is usually ranked in the Kirby Smart era.
Something isn’t quite right with this defensive unit, and Steve Sarkisian and this loaded Texas offense should absolutely take advantage in Austin. The Longhorns’ offense is inside the top 10 in nearly every meaningful metric, but they’re inside the top 5 in passing success rate, EPA per pass and net points per drive, most importantly.
This is a matchup where Sarkisian and quarterback Quinn Ewers should be comfortable, especially at home. Look for plenty of points to be scored in this one, so let’s take the over 56.5 (-110) while we still can.
Read more betting picks and predictions for College Football on site.
This article was written by a partner sports writer via Spotlight Sports Group. All odds displayed on this page were correct at the time of writing and are subject to withdrawal or change at any time.