It feels good. It feels real nice to be back in the swing of college football picks and setting up a weekend for television viewing. As I mentioned in this week’s Top 20 rankings, I feel like Week 1 overdelivered after a slow start to the proceedings. Now, we have some good games in Week 2 led by a titanic matchup in Austin between National Championship contenders.
2026 Betting Record
Against the Spread: 3-6
Straight Up: 5-4
The start to last week was ROUGH. We were shaking off the cobwebs, for sure. North Carolina, Memphis, and Colorado all won as underdogs and I went into Saturday night a mind boggling 0-6 against the spread. Luckily, LSU, Ole Miss, and SMU pointed me back in the right direction.
Week 2 Games to Watch
All times are Eastern. Rankings are from the AP Poll.
#23 Missouri [-5.5] at Kansas
Friday, September 11, 8:00 PM, Fox
The Border War returns again after last year’s resumption of the series that saw an 11-point Missouri win. A reminder these teams didn’t face each other during the 2012-2024 seasons, so this is the Tigers’ first visit to Lawrence stretching all the way back 2005 since the rivalry was played in Kansas City for a while. Austin Simmons looked awfully nice last weekend after transferring over from Ole Miss to Missouri. But, Kansas has OC Andy Kotelnicki back in the fold after returning from Penn State. This one has to be very close.
Missouri 37
Kansas 33
#11 Oklahoma [-5.5] at Michigan
Saturday, September 12, 12:00 PM, Fox
John, please.
Everyone is bloodthirsty and piling on at Michigan’s embarrassing actions last weekend and rightfully so. How will they respond with a ranked Oklahoma coming to town? My instinct was to see a spread over 10 points so less than a touchdown definitely raises an eyebrow for me. Vegas may not believe in John Mateer all that much, which could be right. Are we thinking this will be a super ugly game offensively and some weird stuff is going to happen? Cosmic justice would give us an Oklahoma route but I doubt we’re that lucky.
Oklahoma 21
Michigan 17
#6 Oregon [-22.5] at Oklahoma State
Saturday, September 12, 12:00 PM, ESPN
I included this game because it’s a weird road trip for Oregon coming off an emotional opener over Boise State. Then, Okie Light looked like dog poop against Tulsa. I wouldn’t have been shocked by a spread over 30 points and yet it’s a little more modest. I want to lean in on the Cowboys showing something but I think the Ducks blow their doors off.
Oregon 49
Oklahoma State 13
Arizona State [+14.5] at #10 Texas A&M
Saturday, September 12, 12:00 PM, ABC
Kenny Dillingham is still the coach at Arizona State and still hasn’t left for greener pastures, yet. They are coming off a disappointing season (given their 2024) but the Sun Devils should still be plenty frisky. I’m not sure many people know what to expect from A&M, either. I like Marcel Reed more than most as a college quarterback but a SEC team returning him under center and not really being in the title conversation pre-season feels like no one thinks Mike Elko can have another strong start like 2025. I think taking the points is a smart choice.
Texas A&M 30
Arizona State 20
#12 Alabama [-10.5] at Kentucky
Saturday, September 12, 3:30 PM, ABC
He can do it.
Will this be the game where Kenny Minchey enters the national consciousness? A reminder than Alabama is 39-2-1 against Kentucky and the Wildcats only have one win in the series over the last 103 seasons. Any type of win would be huge, even over this weird post-Saban Alabama program. Screw it, let’s go all in.
Kentucky 35
Alabama 32
Arizona [+7.5] at #15 BYU
Saturday, September 12, 3:30 PM, Fox
We may be sleeping on Arizona, I know that was my first reaction to seeing this matchup. They were quietly very solid last year and quarterback Noah Fifita can be a very good quarterback on his day. This game was also real close last year, too. As Notre Dame fans, we need BYU to both win and have a good showing to build anticipation for our visit to Provo. I think they’ll get the former at least.
BYU 35
Arizona 28
#18 Tennessee [-12.5] at Georgia Tech
Saturday, September 12, 7:30 PM, ESPN
This game got a lot less interesting after Georgia Tech lost to Colorado. Still, I’m including it because it’s at least a decent power program road test for the Vols who are coming off a disappointing 5-loss season and will want to put the Bees to bed.
Tennessee 32
Georgia Tech 16
#1 Ohio State [+1.5] at #4 Texas
Saturday, September 12, 7:30 PM, ABC
This is the third meeting between these schools in about a year and a half with the Buckeyes winning both games in the recent past. Last year’s game on Fox was the most watched week 1 game of all time and I’m sure ABC is frothing at the numbers that could come in on Saturday night. They really don’t have any competition with other games in this timeslot, either. Neither Sayin or Manning were good in this game last year, I still don’t think we’ve seen Arch play really well against a good team and carry Texas. I’m still pushing back against him being anointed as a Heisman pick or top NFL Draft selection. I’ve had Ohio State winning this game for a while during pre-season predictions, I think they have a regular season defeat coming during a tough mid-season stretch.
Ohio State 23
Texas 17
Iowa State [+14] at #21 Iowa
Saturday, September 12, 7:30 PM, NBC
El Assico! Iowa State is looking to win 3 straight in the rivalry for the first time since 2000. They’ve also won the last 2 (and 3 out of the last 5) visits to Iowa City. Vegas doesn’t believe this one should be very close, though. Now that Matt Campbell is gone I guess that makes sense. Still, this is one of the closest rivalries in the country. Almost every game is close in the 4th quarter and/or comes down to one score. I’ll take the Cyclones to cover.
Iowa 27
Iowa State 19
Manifesting that Kenny Minchey win over Bama!
I like Memphis getting 8.5 against Boise following that emotional loss to Oregon. It is on the blue turf but Memphis looks like the G6 favorites at the moment
How about Kenny with 3 TDs passing and one, maybe two running and after the game we hear murmurs of “Heisman candidate”. I want him and Stevie A. to have very good seasons.
Okie St. has plummeted haven’t they? If OU doesn’t win in Ann Arbor, are they slowly heading to a Nebraska level, cuz I don’t think cheating Michigan is real good. I guess they still recruit better. How important is the tOSU game for Sark? What if they lose by 10+? ….I think they win.
A good slate Saturday.
I’m not a believer in Sark, they effectively scored 0 points against OSU last year. I’m not confident enough that I would pick the Buckeyes but I definitely struggle to see them losing to Texas.
As far as Ok State … yikes. Maybe they’ll shock the world this week against a potentially vulnerable Oregon, but if that game goes as Vegas expects then it’s going to be another long year in Stillwater
Minchey played great last week!
If Minchey beats Bama, should be fun to get the national “ND should have chosen Minchey over Carr because he can win the big games” narrative until the BYU game.
I didn’t realize until today that El Assico might be less competitive with Campbell gone. Combined with Iowa looking competent on offense in Week 1 (caveat for their level of competition) and this could turn into a blowout
My cosmic justice prediction for Michigan: game tied at 17 with 10ish seconds left Oklahoma ball on their own 40. Mateer inexplicably scrambles and burns the clock for a 15 yard run, but a borderline late hit is called and Oklahoma wins on a walk off field goal.
That or OU goes for 2 with under a minute and leading 48-0. Venables says “Michigan is never out of the game no matter the time left.”
I could see Michigan winning this. Here is how it happens. After 2.5 scoreless quarters they get a safety and the B1G announces that the games actually started 20 minutes before kickoff according to their super secret clock. So the game ends in the middle of the third quarter with Michigan up 2-0.
I’m very curious about how CU will do this year. After his second season with the Buffs, I thought Deion might be the perfect NIL era coach (a mercenary who can attract mercenaries). After last year, yikes, looks like I was way off the mark. If he puts up another 4ish win season, that’s 20ish wins in 4 years, and I imagine a Coach Prime hot seat would make for some great sound bites.