The 2024 College Football season is right around the corner, which means it is time to start looking for the best win total bets for the upcoming season.
In this series, I will take a look at win total bets for a few appealing teams in each of the four major conferences.
There are many more futures available in our 2024 College Football Futures package.
With that out of the way, let’s take a look at the Big 12.
Best Bet: Arizona Over 7.5 Wins
The loss of head coach Jedd Fisch to Washington was a blow to Arizona, coming off a 9-3 regular season, but Fisch was unable to poach much talent from the Wildcats roster.
Quarterback Noah Fifita and receiver Tetairoa McMillan, arguably the most talented in the Big 12 at their positions, both return.
The Big 12 looks like one of the deepest conferences in the country this year, but Arizona does draw most of the bottom feeders on its schedule: BYU, Arizona State, and Houston.
If we count those three games as wins plus two non-conference victories (Northern Arizona and New Mexico), the Wildcats should only need to go 3-4 against the meat of their schedule.
Arizona should also get a boost from some newcomers.
Head coach Brent Brennan hit the transfer portal hard, especially on defense. Arizona could have as many as 11 transferrs on the two-deep on the defensive side of the ball.
The defense was the Wildcats’ weakness in 2023, so there’s little risk in Brennan’s attempt at a quick rebuild 一 and it sets a significantly higher ceiling if the unit quickly gels.
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Best Bet: Utah Under 10 Wins
Utah went 8-4 in last year’s regular season despite missing starting quarterback Cam Rising for the entire season. Rising is back, but the schedule will make significant improvement difficult.
Including a bowl loss to Northwestern, Utah went 2-5 against teams that finished the year with a winning record (USC and UCLA were the only victories).
This year Utah has six teams on the schedule ranked in the top 50 of ESPN’s preseason FPI:
- at Oklahoma State
- Arizona
- TCU
- at Colorado
- Iowa State
- at UCF
To hit the over, Utah needs a 5-1 mark in those contests while also avoiding upsets elsewhere.
Another reason to bet against Utah is the lack of transfer portal talent added to the roster, especially on the offensive line.
Utah ranked 132nd out of 133 teams in opponent-adjusted pressure rate allowed in 2023, per Sports Info Solutions 一 yet the Utes did not make a single portal addition to the offensive line.
The offensive line issues also showed up in the run game, as the Utes ranked 73rd in opponent-adjusted yards before contact gained.
Kyle Whittingham’s squad prides itself on physical play, but that was missing from the offense in 2023.
The line might improve 一 there are high expectations for sophomore tackle Spencer Fano 一 but it will need to make major strides to pull off a 10-2 season.
Best Bet: BYU Under 4.5 Wins
In an ultra-competitive Big 12, it looks like BYU will be one of the few teams unable to compete for bowl eligibility.
Jake Retzlaff and Gerry Bohanon are participating in what appears to be one of the worst quarterback competitions in the nation.
BYU went 0-4 in Retzlaff’s four starts a season ago while Bohanon led South Florida to a 1-6 mark during his last stint as a starter in 2022.
The potential for poor quarterback play is elevated by BYU’s struggling offensive line, which ranked 103rd in opponent-adjusted pressure rate allowed in 2023, per Sports Info Solutions.
The schedule doesn’t help either. BYU has to play the teams with the five best odds to win the conference:
- at Utah
- Kansas State
- Oklahoma State
- at UCF
- Kansas
To make matters worse, two of the three most winnable conference games on the Cougars’ schedule are on the road at Baylor and at Arizona State.
BYU also goes on the road for two of its non-conference games at SMU and at Wyoming.
All signs point to BYU comfortably missing a bowl game for the second consecutive season, something that hasn’t happened since the Cougars missed three straight from 2002 to 2004.
