Caleb Wilfinger
It is so great to have college football back in full, and the first few weeks of the season have certainly delivered plenty of excitement, upsets and games that came down to the wire. What will Week 4 have in store for us? We’re just a few hours away from finding out.
With the chaos of Week 3 in the rearview mirror and the fourth week of the college football season just around the corner, it’s time to get into the Week 4 slate with my best bet for Friday’s slate of games. It isn’t the best slate in the world, but there is still some value to be had on one of these contests. Let’s take a look at my CFB best bets for Friday, while you can also find out all of our expert CFB picks for this weekend’s action.
CFB best bet: Tulsa Golden Hurricane +11.5 vs Oklahoma State Cowboys (-110)
Odds available at BetMGM Sportsbook at time of publishing. Playable to Tulsa +10.5
This wager is not for the faint of heart, but I’m fairly optimistic that we’ll get at least a decently competitive game in Stillwater on Friday, as the Oklahoma State Cowboys are set to host the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. Tulsa is a team that I was somewhat high on heading into the season, thanks in large part to head coach Tre Lamb, a successful coach at the FCS level with East Tennessee State and Gardner-Webb. To Lamb’s credit, he seems to already have positively affected the culture at Tulsa, as the Golden Hurricane easily won their first game of the season and were very competitive in losses to New Mexico State and Navy in recent weeks, particularly in the first half against a Midshipmen team that was favored by 2 touchdowns. Now, they’ll hit the road for a date against an Oklahoma State side that has been an absolute mess, and things aren’t exactly looking up for the Cowboys.
Oklahoma State head coach Mike Gundy has long been a stalwart in college football, but it’s long past time for him to hang it up at this point in his career. He’s currently coaching a roster that is frankly bereft of talent compared to other schools at the Power 4 level, and the team has also looked completely disjointed in both of its games to this point. The Cowboys were thrashed by a score of 69-3 against Oregon in Week 2, but it was actually their very poor Week 1 effort at home against lowly UT Martin that really gives me concern heading into his week.
Quarterback Zane Flores has yet to throw a touchdown pass this season, and the Cowboys ground game is virtually nonexistent at the moment. Defensively, Oklahoma State is a mess, ranking 127th in success rate and 136 in points per drive allowed. With that in mind, even thought Tulsa is dealing with an injury to starting quarterback Kirk Francis, backup quarterback Baylor Hayes performed just fine a week ago and should be able to fill in admirably once again if needed. Given the fact that Oklahoma State is outside the top 100 in a variety of metrics on both sides of the ball, there should be paths for Tulsa to find success and keep this one competitive on Friday. I’ll grab the points with the Golden Hurricane and bank on this one getting a bit weird under the lights.
Lock in our expert’s Tulsa vs Oklahoma Sate predictions for Friday
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