Under-the-Radar College Football Bets: Week 4 (2019)
While the Notre Dame-Georgia and Michigan-Wisconsin games are the headline acts of the week, we’re focusing our picks on a number of other games that might be flying under the radar. We’ll start off with the Oregon-Stanford matchup, which has been downgraded in terms of interest level as both teams have suffered losses already.
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Oregon Ducks at Stanford Cardinal
Odds: Oregon -9 at PointsBet
The Ducks should be an even bigger favorite than nine points. Stanford is horribly undermanned at this point as starting left tackle Walker Little is out for the season and linebacker Ricky Miezan is also sidelined. Even quarterback K.J. Costello was injured earlier in the year and is not 100 percent. Even when everyone was healthy, this team labored to beat Northwestern, so they also might not be very good.
Oregon is so much deeper, so much faster, and so much healthier. The Ducks should be able to blow the doors off this game, not merely winning but winning in a blowout. It would be surprising if Stanford can play well enough to keep this game close – even if this is a rivalry game. The one realistic scenario in which this game stays close is if Oregon commits huge turnovers in the Stanford red zone or in other really important situations. The Ducks should cruise here.
UCF Golden Knights at Pittsburgh Panthers
Odds: UCF -10 at PointsBet
Talk about quarterback depth. The Knights had quarterback Darriel Mack get injured before the season started, and then head coach Josh Heupel said that No. 2 quarterback Brandon Wimbush did not play in Week 2 of the season because he was less than 100 percent. It hasn’t really mattered. True freshman quarterback Dillon Gabriel stepped in and has not allowed the Knights to miss a beat. UCF scored 48 points against Florida Atlantic in Week 2 and then scored four very quick touchdowns early in the game against Stanford this past weekend. You wouldn’t know that Gabriel is a true freshman by watching him play as he looks polished and smooth, in command of the offense and able to distribute the ball to a lot of very fast skill-position players.
Pittsburgh has a better defense than the teams UCF has played, but the Panthers have struggled on offense this season. They are not likely to score enough to keep pace with UCF over 60 minutes. Pittsburgh might keep this close for two quarters, but not over a full game. The Panthers have not shown the firepower or speed needed to handle UCF’s obvious athleticism and depth.
South Carolina Gamecocks at Missouri Tigers
Odds: Gamecocks +9.5 at PointsBet
The Missouri Tigers are a hard team to read right now. They were horrible against Wyoming, but they rebounded and were great against West Virginia. Moreover, this West Virginia team nearly lost to James Madison before Missouri and then they played a great game in beating North Carolina State the following week. Does this mean West Virginia is a good team or a team which simply had a bad day against Missouri? How one views West Virginia might affect what one thinks about Missouri. The Tigers are a mystery right now.
As for the Gamecocks, they played well against Alabama. While they didn’t win or come close, they challenged Alabama’s defense and got a great performance from freshman quarterback Ryan Hilinski, who was pressed into service when veteran signal-caller Jake Bentley got injured. If Hilinksi played well against Alabama, he can play well against Missouri. If he plays well here, South Carolina will cover the spread.
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Dave Golokhov is a featured writer at BettingPros. For more from Dave, check out his archive and follow him @davegolokhov.