We are full-steam ahead on this college football season, as the Week 3 slate presents multiple big-time matchups bearing season-long significance to conference title races and postseason eligibility. Before we get to the meat and potatoes of the college football card, Friday provides us with an appetizer of 3 FBS vs FBS matchups with varying storylines. Who is playing quarterback for Colorado? Can Kansas State fix its season in its first true road game? What’s going on with Nico Iamaleava and the Bruins? After browsing through the matchups, I’m targeting one angle on Friday’s limited card. Here is my CFB best bet for Friday, and don’t forget to find the rest of our college football best bets for Week 3’s massive slate and our expert CFB picks for more than 30 games on Saturday.
CFB Friday best bet: Houston Cougars 1H -2.5 over Colorado Buffaloes (-115)
Odds available at BetMGM at the time of publishing.
News broke earlier this week that 3rd-string quarterback Ryan Staub is getting the start on Friday night in Colorado’s first true road game of the season. It’s a puzzling decision considering Coach Prime brought in Kaidon Salter from Liberty and a 4-star freshman in Julian Lewis in the offseason. Even more bizarre was Prime refuting the reports on Wednesday, saying Staub was simply playing well and taking a majority of the first-team reps in practice. He also said a decision for Friday’s game had yet to be made.
If you can draw anything certain from that, well, that makes one of us. Although, any sort of quarterback drama isn’t exactly ideal, especially when you’re hitting the road for the first time against a strong defense led by a well-regarded coach in Willie Fritz. This Colorado offense has struggled to put itself into scoring situations (101st in total non-garbage time opportunities through Week 2), and with the quarterback drama, I don’t have much faith in the Buffaloes waking up offensively on the road, under the lights in a primetime game against a defense that was top 50 in scoring, scoring opportunities allowed, points per opportunity, and total defense in 2024.
I’m expecting Houston’s offense to have chemistry and fluidity to it early against a Colorado defense that was extremely poor against Georgia Tech’s rushing attack and has surrendered 7 explosive passes through 2 weeks, despite its most recent game being against Delaware. I give the edge to the Cougars not only on both sides of the ball in this matchup, but on the sidelines from a coaching and preparation standpoint with Fritz. Take Houston to cover the first half against Colorado at anything -4 or better.
Find our full Colorado vs Houston predictions for this Big 12 battle on Friday night
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