Following a long and eventful college football regular season, the most wonderful time of the year is finally here. Bowl season might not be as essential across the college football landscape as it once was, but it still presents bettors with a plethora of games to handicap and wager on. The action continues on Saturday with the Pinstripe Bowl between Penn State and Clemson, the Military Bowl between Pittsburgh and East Carolina, the Fenway Bowl between UConn and Army, the Pop Tarts Bowl between BYU and Georgia Tech and the New Mexico Bowl between North Texas and San Diego State, among others.
With another weekday slate of bowl games upon us, it’s time to get into this Saturday card with my best bets column. We have gotten back on track in the column with a 6-3 mark over the last couple of weeks, so let’s keep that momentum going through bowl season! Let’s take a look at my pair of CFB best bets for Saturday, and you can also find out all of our expert CFB picks for the Bowl Season action.
CFB best bet: Clemson Tigers -2.5 over Penn State Nittany Lions (-110)
Odds available at Fanatics Sportsbook at time of publishing. Playable to Clemson -3.
Both of these teams are in pretty similar states of mind heading into this game, but Clemson should have most of its roster available on offense — including quarterback Cade Klubnik — while Penn State is expected to be without some of its top defensive personnel, and it remains to be seen if star defensive end Dani Dennis-Sutton will suit up for this game. With that in mind, I have a hard time gauging Penn State’s motivation heading into what is essentially a meaningless game on Saturday. On the other side of the ball, the Nittany Lions’ offense is expected to be without their excellent running back pairing of Nicholas Singleton and Kaytron Allen, and I expect backup quarterback Ethan Grunkemeyer to struggle a bit in what could become a one-dimensional offense on Saturday.
As I’ve mentioned in previous bowl season pieces, it’s smarter to try and pick a winner in a lot of these bowl games that feature a ton of uncertainty due to injuries and opt-outs. There is naturally a lot of variance that is being introduced to these games, and it’s hard for the market to accurately price that in one way or another. Therefore, when looking to back a favorite in a bowl game, it’s best to lay the points and not worry about if the spread is a bit inflated in this spot. Let’s look for that trend to continue and take Clemson to prevail over a Penn State team that might be already looking ahead to next season following a very disappointing 2025 campaign.
Get our expert’s full Clemson vs Penn State prediction
CFB best bet: Houston Cougars ML over LSU Tigers (-110)
Odds available at FanDuel Sportsbook at time of publishing. Playable to Houston ML (-120).
This is an instance of each of these teams coming into this game with completely different mindsets, and we should get a spirited effort from the Big 12 representative on Saturday. Houston should be motivated to put forth a good showing against a wounded SEC foe, and it sure seems like Willie Fritz’s group is ready for this matchup. Houston has fewer opt-outs than almost any other team on Saturday’s card, and it starts with veteran quarterback Conner Weigman, who should have a favorable matchup on hand against an LSU defense that is without 6 players in this game, including star linebacker Whit Weeks.
As for the Tigers offense, this has not been a unit to write home about since the exit of Garrett Nussmeier due to injury, and that should continue on Saturday against a Houston defense that ranks inside the top 30 in EPA per dropback and points per drive allowed on the season. The Tigers offense is well outside the top 100 in success rate and that was before the plethora of opt-outs, so that doesn’t exactly give me much confidence in what is essentially an exhibition game. One of these teams has a bit more to prove in this spot, and in a game where motivation matters more than usual, I’ll back the Cougars at this pick ’em price.
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