College Football Week 0 Picks: Kansas vs. Fresno State (2025)

Saturday marks the return of college football, kicking off with a five-game slate during Week 0. The 2025 regular season officially gets underway with meaningful action, so college football fans and sports bettors have plenty to look forward to, starting with the Aer Lingus College Football Classic between No. 22 Iowa State vs. No. 17 Kansas State in Dublin, Ireland, at noon ET.

Three of five Week 0 matchups feature teams from Power 4 conferences. There are three Mountain West teams, a Big Sky team represented by Idaho State, and a Conference USA tilt between Sam Houston vs. Western Kentucky. Week 0 concludes with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff between Stanford vs. Hawaii from Honolulu.

Let’s dive into early lines for three of these games and assess their projected line movement, which also includes a pick. Here are our early College Football Week 0 picks and predictions for Kansas vs. Fresno State.

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College Football Week 0 Picks: Kansas vs. Fresno State

(Odds courtesy of DraftKings Sportsbook)

Kansas vs. Fresno State

An interconference matchup between a Power 4 program, Kansas, hosting Fresno State out of the Mountain West, has led to a much bigger point spread set to -12.5 favoring the Jayhawks. There’s plenty of reason to be bullish on Kansas in 2025, especially with senior QB Jalon Daniels.

Daniels will no longer have RB Devin Neal to churn out production in the backfield. That’s now RB Daniel Hishaw Jr., who averaged 5.8 YPC on only 65 rush attempts in 2024.

Fresno State’s begun to have the point spread shift in their favor, moving one full point from +13.5 to +12.5. The Bulldogs finished below .500 in 2024 under head coach Tim Skipper but it’s now the Matt Entz era.

Traveling to Lawrence to face Daniels in an early season primetime game is going to be difficult for Fresno State’s new regime. They were better defensively in 2024 than on offense, ranked 65th in opponent points per game (24.8), while scoring 26.1 points per game on average, which ranked 81st in the country.

Despite a 5-7 record, Kansas did a lot of things well last season. Five of the Jayhawks losses were by six or fewer points, including a 1-5 start. Head coach Lance Leipold will undoubtedly remind his team to remain aggressive throughout the game to avoid another collapse.

This time, I’m going to go opposite of the line movement and back the more seasoned team to win by 13 or more points. Bet on the Kansas Jayhawks during their home opener against a rebuilding Fresno State roster at -12.5 on the point spread.

Pick: Kansas -12.5 (-112)