College football predictions: Three picks for Saturday's slate

The second week of the college football season is a great opportunity to be a contrarian.

Don’t get swept up in the first results of the season, because while it is a cliché, it is true that teams improve the most between their first and second games.

UAB at Georgia Southern

Georgia Southern -7

After UAB’s 35-6 yawner against lowly North Carolina A&T, Trent Dilfer will get his true introduction to college football on Saturday.

Statesboro, Ga., has always been a tough place to play.

Gamblers have lost their shirts betting against the Eagles when they play at Paulson Stadium.

Since 2014, when they jumped up to the FBS ranks, Georgia Southern is a sterling 19-11 ATS when installed as a home favorite.

That’s the seventh-best record at the window in all of college football in the past nine seasons.

The Eagles will give the UAB defense fits because they run an Air Raid offense that features a host of dynamic skill-position players.

Jalen White gives them balance and continues to look like an all-conference running back (139 total yards).

North Carolina A&T, UAB’s FCS opponent, threw the ball only eight times in their opener, so this will be a schematic shock.

But the real reason I love the Eagles is their improved defense.

After they finished 129th in total defense last year, they went into the portal and got a handful of Power Five defenders to plug into their starting lineup.

And, critically, they hired Brandon Bailey as their defensive coordinator. As the Buffalo Bulls’ DC, the 29-year-old presided over the nation’s most Havoc-inducing defense last season.

Because Georgia Southern played The Citadel, a team transitioning out of the triple-option attack that rarely throws, Dilfer and his staff can only guess at what to expect.

He said as much at his weekly press conference, and I believe his Blazers are walking into a bear trap on the road.

Texas State at UTSA

Over 66.5

Texas State was supposed to be rebuilding. Well, so much for that.

The Bobcats’ 42-31 win over Baylor is all the evidence I need to anoint them a lethal offense.

Auburn transfer T.J. Finley looked reborn in G.J. Kinne’s offense, the same scheme that propelled Incarnate Word to the FCS semifinals last fall (51.5 ppg).

Finley torched Baylor (316 total yards, four touchdowns) as a four-touchdown underdog.

What we’ll need for this over to hit is a bounce-back performance from Frank Harris and UTSA.

Luckily, Harris is an established veteran with an astounding 99 career touchdowns.

The Roadrunners also faced a tricky opener against a million-dollar defensive coordinator (Houston’s Doug Belk).

They’ll find the sledding much easier against a Texas State defense held together with scotch tape and super glue.

Betting on College Football?

UCF at Boise State

Boise State +150 on the moneyline

Gus Malzahn has never been a good bet on the road.

In fact, his teams are just 10-14 ATS when playing away from home since 2018.

Now Central Florida must hop on a plane and fly 2,600 miles to play a Boise State team that routinely gets up for Power Five opponents.

The other element of this handicap is UCF quarterback John Rhys Plumlee.

He’s the definition of boom or bust. He registered five games of 90+ QBR play last season and six games with sub-40 QBR play.

Two of those duds came outside the state of Florida, one at East Carolina and one in a bowl-game loss to Duke. I always like fading a Jekyll-and-Hyde passer at plus money.