Does your appetite for watching the rest of the country plummet when Notre Dame suffers a catastrophic loss, especially early in the season? You may not be alone! The good thing for anyone experiencing such issues is that week 3 is a great opportunity to take break and find something else to do on Saturday. This is a brutally poor weekend of matchups, highlighted by South Carolina (losing to Old Dominion with under 10 minutes to play just 12 days ago) hosting ESPN College GameDay with 1-loss LSU coming to town.

For my part, I’ll be participating in the 75-mile Tour of Chautauqua cycling event on Saturday. Will I make it home in time for the Purdue kickoff? I’m not too fussed about it, thank you Notre Dame Football.

2024 Betting Record

ATS: 13-5-0
SU: 13-5-0

I was 6-4-0 during week 2 against the spread and 7-3-0 straight up with my picks. It was another hot start to the weekend but it couldn’t continue into the Saturday evening games where I lost some ground. Winning picks against the spread included BYU, Texas, Oklahoma State, Utah, Kansas, and Tennessee. Straight up I had losses with BYU, Iowa State, and Illinois winning outright this weekend.

Week 3 Games to Watch

All times are Eastern. Rankings are from the AP Poll.

UNLV [+6.5] at Kansas
Friday, September 13th, 7:00 PM, ESPN

Barry Odom is on the early DGT™ list. 

I wonder how much coverage this game would’ve gotten if Kansas didn’t lose this past weekened? UNLV has a diverse and pretty good ground game (in their opener they easily took care of a Houston team that nearly beat Oklahoma this past Saturday) which could cause the Jayhwaks a ton of problems. The Rebels being ranked 90th in OFEI doesn’t quite match their 7.0 yards per play so far this year. That’s why this relatively close line from Vegas feels more appropriate. I have to think this is a big bounce back game for Kansas, with some blowout potential because it is UNLV after all, but I think this will stay pretty tight until the end.

Kansas 34
UNLV 24

#20 Arizona [+7.5] at #14 Kansas State 
Friday, September 13th, 8:00 PM, Fox

This maybe should’ve been the game of the weekend but it loses some steam coming on a Friday night starting an hour later than our first game above. This also could be one of the top 2 or 3 most important Big XII games of the regular season. I’m surprised to learn this is Chris Klieman’s 5th season in Manhattan already, is this the biggest regular season game in his tenure? The Wildcats don’t face Utah before the postseason (Arizona plays them at the end of the month) and this could give K-State the inside track to a conference championship and first-round playoff bye.

Kansas State 27
Arizona 23

#4 Alabama [-16] at Wisconsin
Saturday, September 14th, 12:00 PM, Fox

Five or 6 years ago this would’ve been such a fun out of conference game. Alabama is venturing almost 900 miles north to a top 15 college stadium atmosphere/town and yet Wisconsin isn’t the same program it once was. The Phil Longo experiment as OC hasn’t been working out too well (100th in YPP after playing Western Michigan and South Dakota so far) but this also doesn’t look like anywhere near the same Alabama program as the peak Saban years. Maybe this will be a decent game?

Alabama 31
Wisconsin 17

#16 LSU [-7] at South Carolina
Saturday, September 14th, 12:00 PM, ABC

South Carolina is coming off a rock fight with Kentucky (combined 435 total yards) and looked aenemic in their opener against Old Dominion, too. I’m not going to overthink this one. Some teams in the SEC just aren’t real good.

LSU 30
South Carolina 13

#24 Boston College [+17] at #6 Missouri
Saturday, September 14th, 12:45 PM, SEC Network

Was there a single soul on earth who thought this could ever be a ranked matchup in week 3? The only ranked vs. ranked of the entire weekend! Give them credit, Boston College does look like they have a pulse this year, especially on offense. They’re going to have a tough one this weekend, though.

Missouri 48
Boston College 27

#9 Oregon [-16] at Oregon State
Saturday, September 14th, 3:30 PM, Fox

Always an elite uniform matchup.

During the pre-season I thought Oregon would be heavy, heavy favorites in this game with Oregon State reeling after being dumped by their head coach and conference. The Ducks have shown a lot of weaknesses (especially up front on the offensive line) and might be in for a really tough rivalry game here. It was an easy win last year in Eugene, but this year I’m not so sure.

Oregon 29
Oregon State 21

Tulane [+13.5] at #15 Oklahoma 
Saturday, September 14th, 3:30 PM, ESPN

I could’ve sworn these teams played last year but I am mistaken. They faced each other in the 2021 opener where Oklahoma had to fight hard in a 5-point win in Norman. The Green Wave make the trip west again and line up a Sooners team that looked pretty shaky last week. Tulane looks quite solid with true freshman Darian Mensah replacing the legendary Michael Pratt. I like the points here.

Oklahoma 47
Tulane 39

#1 Georgia [-24] at Kentucky
Saturday, September 14th, 7:30 PM, ABC

Former Georgia quarterback Brock Vandagriff gets to face his old team this weekend. Unfortunately he’s coming off a stink bomb performance last week (3 of 10 for 30 yards and 1 interception) in which Mark Stoops sat him on the bench. I checked and Georgia tends to play tighter games at Kentucky so maybe they won’t cover? Nah, that Wildcats offense looked so, so bad last week.

Georgia 35
Kentucky 9