College football Week 1 parlay picks: Penn State's Drew Allar should impress in season debut

After a modest Week 0 slate last week, college football is back in full force throughout Labour Day weekend.

The pregame narrative: A pair of big names in the Big Ten — Penn State's Drew Allar and Ohio State's Marvin Harrison Jr. — find their way onto this week's ticket with prime opportunities to start the season with a bang. We also like Western Kentucky on a teased-down spread against last year's second-worst scoring defence.

Here's our college football Week 1 parlay for games on Sept. 2.

NCAAF oddsas of 1:50 p.m. ET on 09/01/23.

College football Week 1 parlay picks

Parlay: Allar 200+ pass yards + Western Kentucky -6.5 + Harrison 80+ rec. yards (+215)

Allar 200+ passing yards (-245): No. 7 Penn State has massive expectations this season, most of which rest on the shoulders of Allar. The five-star sophomore, ranked as 247 Sports' No. 1 quarterback recruit for 2022, will make his first collegiate start against unranked West Virginia.

WVU allowed 262.7 pass yards per game last year, which ranked 111th out of 131 teams. Expect the Nittany Lions to give their promising youngster plenty of chances to air it out at home.

And keep in mind that while Allar is green, this won't be his first CFB action. As a true freshman, he appeared in 10 games, completing 35-of-60 passes for 344 yards and four scores.

This feels like a comfortable line now that the offence is his to run.

Other parlay picks

Western Kentucky -6 (-235): South Florida is a spiralling program with just four wins over the past three seasons, and three of those came against non-FBS programs. Yikes.

Last year, nine of the Bulls' 11 losses came by at least six points. The defence was a disaster, allowing the second-most points per game (41.2) in the nation.

Enter a Western Kentucky squad that returns a 4,700-yard passer (Austin Reed) and a 1,200-yard receiver (Malachi Corley) to an offence that scored more than 36 points per game.

We expect Reed to torch the Bulls, stacking points higher than USF can climb. WKU went 9-5 ATS last year, and we've trimmed five points off the standard spread to provide some security.

Harrison 80+ receiving yards (-180): Ohio State had a quarterback battle through fall camp, but that was recently resolved with Kyle McCord announced as the Week 1 starter.

Harrison and McCord were high school teammates, winning three state titles together in Pennsylvania, and most of Harrison's 2,625 receiving yards at that level came from the Buckeyes' new QB1.

Frankly, it shouldn't matter who's throwing to Harrison. He has a chance to pop any time he's on the field.

Last year, the 6-foot-3 wideout averaged 97.2 yards per game. That includes a 135-yard output against this week's opponent, Indiana.