College football score projections for every Week 0 game plus a best bet pick

College football returns Saturday with seven games, including FBS teams. There are two conference games (both in Conference-USA) and two top 25 teams in action (Notre Dame and USC).

Let’s take a look at what my model projects to happen in those games and what edges we have in the betting market.

Last season’s regular season record: 65-55-5, +8.75 units, +6.3% ROI (record through conference championship games)

Record between 2021-2022 seasons: 120-101-9, +13.3 units, 5.3% ROI

Week 0 best bet

FIU +11.5 (-110) at Louisiana Tech

FIU went from winning one game in 2021 to four in 2022 under first-year coach Mike MacIntyre and I expect them to keep trending upwards under his direction. He’s a defensive guru and that’s where the Panthers’ weakness is right now. Sure, they’re still likely to be bad, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a nice jump in defensive efficiency this year.

Meanwhile, Louisiana Tech lost a lot from last year’s squad. They rank in the bottom 20 in returning production and a rocky start to 2023 could be in order. My number is in the single digits here so I’m taking the +11.5 with FIU.

Full Week 0 model projections

XMOV is the model’s projected margin of victory for the game with the BetMGM spread as of publish time listed to the right of it. XTOTAL is the projected combined point total with the BetMGM total (over/under) listed as of publish time to the right of that number.