College Football Picks Week 13 2024
I went 2-2 in my picks last week, but more importantly I cashed a few big tickets from the preseason. Florida over 4.5 wins and Arkansas State over 5.5 wins were two of my biggest bets of the preseason and both cashed this week. I’ve been fortunate with Arkansas State- they’ve been quite bad this season and are very lucky to have six wins. Florida, on the other hand, has improved drastically over the course of the season and should make a bowl game.
In addition to the picks below, loyal readers will remember that I bet Iowa State +9 against Utah in my preseason bets. That bet looks quite nice, as the line is now Iowa State -6.
Week 1: -0.36 units
Week 2: -0.33 units
Week 3: -5.18 units
Week 4: -4.27 units
Week 5: +5.28 units
Week 6: +8.10 units
Week 7: -3.00 units
Week 8: +1.55 units
Week 9: +0.64 units
Week 10: -7.27 units
Week 11: +2.55 units
Week 12: +0.73 units
Preseason Bets: +14.63 units
Total: +13.07 units
UNLV @ San Jose State (Friday, 9 PM Central)
By this point in the season, I normally have a good handle on every team and I’m very rarely surprised by a line. This is a rare exception- these are two good teams, and I was quite surprised to see San Jose State getting a touchdown at home. San Jose State has been a revelation under new HC Ken Niumatalolo and is the clear third best team in the Mountain West. UNLV is a good team as well but this line implies a bigger gap between these teams than is justified.
San Jose State +7.5 -100 (2 units)
San Jose State ML +230 (1 unit)
Western Michigan @ Central Michigan (Tuesday, 6:30 PM Central)
Non-Michiganders likely do not appreciate how big of a rivalry this is. Western and Central are very similar sorts of schools and are competing against each other for recruits- there is a lot of bad blood between these schools. WMU got off to a hot start, but it was a bit fraudulent. CMU is a bad team, but they’re better than their record indicates thanks to some bad close game luck. You can toss out the records whenever these two old foes meet, and I think Western is a bit overrated so I like Central to cover.
Central Michigan +8 -110 (1 unit)
Baylor @ Houston (Saturday, 6 PM Central)
Baylor HC Dave Aranda was thought to be a dead man walking earlier in the season, but after four straight wins it looks he has saved his job. Baylor’s offense has caught fire since switching to new QB Sawyer Robertson and they would control their own destiny for a playoff spot if they hadn’t allowed a shambolic Hail Mary against Colorado in September. Houston has been up and down all season but Baylor is just a plain old good team now.
Baylor -7.5 +100 (1 unit)
San Diego State @ Utah State (Saturday, 2:30 PM Central)
Utah State has had a lost season after HC Blake Anderson was let go in the offseason. However, San Diego State has been even worse than Utah State. The fast-paced Aztecs offense has been a disaster this season, as a bad fast-paced offense is a great recipe for a tired defense. I like Utah State to win this battle of two bad teams.
Utah State -4.5 -112 (1 unit)
Tulane to make Playoff +650 (2 units)
Tulane went on the road and destroyed Navy 35-0 this week. The Green Wave have rocketed into the top 20 of my ratings after winning their last three games by a combined score of 121-9. They’ve now clinched a berth in the AAC title game, where they’ll play Army.
They have two ways to make the playoff. They can either win the AAC and have Boise State slip up in the Mountain West title game, or they can win the AAC and hope for supreme chaos in the Big 12, where they could jump a 3 loss Big 12 champion for the last autobid. The first one is most likely- they’ll be serious favorites over Army and Boise State is looking mortal recently.
Toledo to win MAC +450 (1 unit)
This is another case of using the conference tiebreakers to my advantage. Even though Toledo has 2 losses in MAC play and there are three teams ahead of them with 1 loss (Bowling Green, Miami (OH) and Ohio), they nearly control their own destiny for the conference title. Miami (OH) and Bowling Green still have to play and Toledo plays Ohio this week. This means that if Toledo wins out, there will be at most a single 1 loss team in the conference. In a big tiebreaker jumble for 2 loss conference teams, Toledo is very likely to come out ahead due to having the superior conference strength of schedule.