College Football Betting Guide: Friday 9/9/22

numberFire has built comprehensive algorithms to pinpoint the bets with the highest probability of returning money, whether you are betting on the total, the spread, or the moneyline.

For those new to numberFire, we use a five-star system to show which bets you should be targeting for any given game. Stars represent how much you should risk on a wager relative to what you would normally bet.

For example, if you would normally bet $110 to win $100 on a -110 spread wager, if we give a 3-star ranking, we suggest risking three times that amount: $330 to win $300. Here are the best bets for this weekend with guidance from our model. All advanced statistics are courtesy of the S&P individual team statistical profiles, except where noted.

Note: Lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. Please check here to make sure you're seeing the most updated information.

Louisville at Central Florida (-6.5)

Under (61.5): 1 Star out of 5
Louisville Spread (+6.5): 1 Star out of 5

With only two games, we have to be open to the idea of not going too hard if the value isn't there, and our model is showing just a lean on this matchup in the way of the under (61.5) and the Louisville Cardinals spread (+6.5).

Louisville got trounced 31-7 against Syracuse in their opener while allowing a 60% offensive success rate. Despite that, they still rank 60th overall in SP+ and 66th in the Massey Ratings consensus ranks.

The Central Florida Knights, on the other hand, pummeled the South Carolina State Bulldogs (86th in Massey's FCS ratings) by a score of 56-10. The consensus ratings have them just 46th, a 20-team gap over Louisville.

Overall, this one looks like efficient lines across the board, thus the modest leans at best.

Boise State (-16.5) at New Mexico

Boise State Moneyline (-900): 5 Stars out of 5
Over (44.5): 5 Stars out of 5
Boise State Spread (-16.5): 3 Stars out of 5

Very clearly, the model has stronger opinions on this game between the 0-1 Boise State Broncos and the 1-0 New Mexico Lobos.

Boise State finds itself 56th in the consensus rankings while New Mexico sits 117th despite an undefeated record.

The Lobos blanked Maine, a team that's 56th in the FCS rankings by Massey, 41-0 last week while Boise State lost 34-17 to Oregon State, much, much tougher competition. Their offensive performance was so shaky that the team now finds itself with a quarterback competition between Hank Bachmeier (whose predicted points added from last week totaled -2.8) and Taylen Green (whose PPA was +14.3).

Still, the oddsmakers like Boise enough to be heavily favored, and that matters.

Since 2018, road teams favored by 15.5 to 17.5 are 61-3 outright (95.3%) and are 39-23-2 against the spread.

Also in that timeframe, games with totals between 43.5 and 45.5 are 99-89 in favor of the over with an average total of 46.4 points.