College Football Week 4 Best Bets: Friday, September 25

Week 4 of the college football regular season is right around the corner, and we have a very intriguing Friday slate to get us ready for Saturday’s card, which is absolutely stacked. As part of the Friday-night-lights offering, we will be treated to a couple games involving service academies in Army vs Temple and Navy vs UAB, while we have a pair of headline matchups in Northwestern vs Indiana and Clemson vs California to cap things off. 

Ahead of the Friday night action, here is my best bet of the bunch. For more of our most confident picks, find our CFB best bets, or check out our CFB predictions for tips and analysis on every FBS game this season.

CFB Best Bet: California Golden Bears +1.5 over Clemson Tigers (-115)

Odds courtesy FanDuel Sportsbook at the time of publishing. Playable to -1. 

For what it's worth, my power ratings suggest this line is a bit short and that Clemson should be favored a bit more, but I'm going to disagree with the numbers and go with the eye test and trust my understanding of the current-day landscape of the ACC. Keep in mind, this is Clemson's first west-coast trip since Stanford and Cal were added to the conference.

Clemson has seemingly turned to true freshman Tait Reynolds under center, a six-foot-two, two-sport athlete that was a three-star recruit coming out of Arizona. I obviously need to see more from Reynolds before I make an educated assessment, so I’ll say there’s been some good and some bad thus far. Only completing 57% of passes against Georgia Southern isn’t ideal, nor is a sub-eight-yard aDOT against UNC. Furthermore, he has zero big-time throws to this point, and in combination with that low aDOT last week, it’s probably safe to say Clemson hasn’t really asked him to do much yet. It doesn’t help his case that he’s taken three sacks in each of Clemson’s three games thus far, including against LSU, against whom he dropped back only 11 times. 

Cal’s Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele may just be a true sophomore, but it feels like we already know and understand his ceiling. Many, including Dabo Swinney, expect him to be a future NFL quarterback, and he’s already off to a great start – passing for more than 850 yards with seven scores and two picks while taking just four sacks and accumulating seven big-time throws. He’s been especially good on deep balls, sitting top-25 in PFF’s passing grade on throws of at least 20 yards, boasting zero turnover-worthy plays on those 19 pass attempts. He’s picking up right where he left off after finishing top-30 in that regard last year as a freshman. 

Clemson’s win at home over UNC last week was good for program morale, but I’m still bearish on the Tigers over the course of the whole season. Despite the win, they lost the time-of-possession battle by more than seven minutes, allowed 5.5 yards per carry and started the game in a 14-3 hole after one quarter. That’s not going to cut it against JKS and his backfield partner, running back Adam Mohammed, who has 22 missed tackles forced and 256 total yards after contact so far – respectively good for fifth-most and fourth-most nationally per PFF.

This could also be a pretty significant flat spot for the Tigers, as they welcome the Miami Hurricanes to the upstate next week after notching their first conference win a week ago. Power ratings aside, all signs point to a Cal win here, though I won’t balk at the 1.5 points being offered at multiple books.

CFB Player Prop: Turbo Richard (IND) 1st Half TD Scorer vs Northwestern (+125)

Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook at the time of publishing. Playable to +100.

Turbo Richard is around -200 to score anytime against Northwestern, which makes sense given he is the lead back of a three-touchdown home favorite. However, taking him to score in the first half provides a bit more value, enough to make me interested.

Richard has handled the opening drive of every game, and he's scored in the first half in two of the three, cementing his early-game usage. This is a great matchup for him to get going early in, as the Wildcats rank 69th in PPA per rush allowed and 113th in rushing success rate allowed outside of garbage time this season, mostly due to a poor front seven that doesn't stuff the run or control the line of scrimmage. Not to mention, Richard has broken 15 tackles already, a number that figures to increase against a Wildcat defense outside the top 70 in PFF's tackling and run defense grades.

Laying nearly two touchdowns in the first half of a conference game, look for the Hoosiers to lean heavily on the run and for Richard to find pay dirt against the relatively untested Wildcat run defense.