College football best bets, picks for Week 11

Last week, we went 2-2 in our college football bets after going 9-3 the previous three weeks. We got tripped up by that horrible Clemson performance on Saturday night, but going 11-5 over the last month ain’t so bad.

We’ll be looking to get back to tacking on wins this week.

There are plenty of strong betting games on this slate, and below are my college football best bets for Week 11.

Navy vs Notre Dame

Saturday, November 12th at 12:00 on ABC

OK, so Notre Dame is trending in the right direction, and betting against them last week was a bad idea. But this bet on Navy comes down to just one thing: pace of play.

We’ve all seen Navy play before, so we know that basically no team in the country runs as much as Navy does. If you’ve seen Notre Dame play, you know that they’re fairly average against the run. That means Navy should be able to string a few good drives together and bleed the clock, and that’s what we’re counting on here.

Even Vegas thinks this game is going to be low-scoring, setting the over/under at just 42 points. So if this game is going to feature tons of running and few plays and two teams who like to run the ball and an underdog Navy team that runs well and also stops the run well, I think we could be in for an ugly, low-scoring affair that makes this cover a solid bet.

Best Bet: NAVY +16 | FanDuel (-110)

Arkansas vs. LSU

Saturday, November 12th at 12:00 on ESPN

LSU had their best win in years last week when they took down Alabama. So who’s ready for a letdown?

The logic of it is easy to understand: LSU comes off their best win of the year in an emotional last-second win over Alabama and now has to go on the road to take on an Arkansas team that is coming off a bad loss and is fighting to be bowl-eligible.

Arkansas has struggled, as we saw last week, but they have some talent on offense with a really good offensive line and a strong quarterback in KJ Jefferson. The Razorbacks prefer to run the ball, so they don’t ask Jefferson to do much, but he’s more than capable of making plays.

However, the rushing attack could be more than enough here since LSU is below average nationally in yards allowed per rush and expected points added per rush. They allowed 210 yards rushing in a win over Florida, 263 yards rushing in a loss to Tennessee, and still allowed 4.6 yards per carry in a tremendous effort against Alabama last week, so Arkansas has a clear path to keep this close.

As of this writing, you can still find this at +4 on Caesars at -110

Best Bet: ARK +3.5 | PointsBet (-105) or FanDuel (-110)

Louisiana Tech vs. UTSA

Saturday, November 12th at 3:30 on ESPN+

Now, this might not be a game on many radars, but I went to college in San Antonio just a few blocks from UTSA, so I’m prone to some Roadrunners love. However, in this game, I also have some Roadrunners concerns, which is why I really like the over here.

Louisiana Tech got its starting quarterback Parker McNeil back last week and then beat Middle Tennessee 40-24. McNeil is averaging 9.6 yards per target and has a 96.3 PFF passing grade on passes over 20 yards in the air, which is why Tech ranks 11th in passing explosiveness.

That’s great because my Roadrunners concerns are about their passing defense, which ranks 117th in passing explosiveness allowed. They’re also a terrible tackling team and consistently give up big chunk-plays.

However, they can also be explosive under offense with their own strong quarterback, Frank Harris, who is averaging 9.2 yards per attempt and has 21 passing touchdowns to just six interceptions. His success is also helped by a strong rushing attack that is top-25 in rushing success and expected points added per rush.

That works well against a Louisiana Tech defense that is just not good, allowing 6.4 yards per play, so all-in-all, I think a lot of points will be scored here.

Best Bet: LT/UTSA over 68 | DraftKings (-110)

Georgia vs Mississippi State

Saturday, November 12th at 7:00 on ESPN

This Georgia team is really good. That shouldn’t surprise you given that they’re the defending champs, but they looked great against a really good Tennessee team last week. Now they face a Mississippi State team that I think is being a bit overvalued here.

Yes, the Bulldogs are 6-3 but those early wins over Texas A&M and Arkansas aren’t looking as impressive right now. They only scored 16 points against LSU, 17 points against Kentucky, and six points against Alabama, so what are they going to do against this Georgia defense?

If they’re going to score fewer than 20 points, which I believe to be true, then is it that out of the question that Georgia scores 33 or higher to cover? They’ve scored that in every game but two this year, and one of them was that rainy, sloppy mess against Tennessee last week.

Best Bet: UGA -16.5| FanDuel (-110)