Cover 4: Pistols Firing

College football picks against the spread for week 4, including Oklahoma State's home test against TCU and NC State's trip to Florida State.

Sep 20, 2017 by Kolby Paxton

All right, you guys. It's time to get serious. No more betting on blackouts. No more betting on Los Angeles schools in general. Perfect continually alludes us, but we're going to put a stop to that... maybe... at some point.

How do we do that? We do it by finding undetected mismatches -- and by climbing aboard the Mason Rudolph bandwagon.

No. 6 OKLAHOMA STATE (-12) over No. 16 Texas Christian

Saturday, Sept. 23 | 2:30 PM CT | Stillwater, OK (Boone Pickens Stadium)
A line that started at 9.5 jumped to 13 almost immediately before settling back down a point or so.

The misconception of oddsmakers is that TCU's offense will be able to engage Oklahoma State's in a 60-minute shootout. I disagree. Rudolph and the Pokes will put up points, just as they've done in each game to this point. TCU, on the other hand, struggled with a sub-par Arkansas secondary and -- for a half -- found sledding tough against a soft SMU defense, as well.

Oklahoma State's secondary is formidable. The Cowboys have given up just two passing touchdowns this season and are allowing opposing quarterbacks to complete just 55.7 percent of their passes.

NC State (+13) over No. 12 FLORIDA STATE

Saturday | Noon ET | Tallahassee, FL (Doak Campbell Stadium)
NC State was the preseason darling of the ACC but has been left for dead ever since falling to South Carolina in its season opener. However, the Wolfpack are the same team with the same potentially outstanding defense.

Meanwhile, the FSU offense will be led by a true freshman, James Blackman, making his first start after a two-week hurricane-induced layoff. If the 'Noles show some rust early and NC State turns up the heat on Blackman, look out.

Old Dominion (+28.5) over No. 13 VIRGINIA TECH

Saturday | 2 PM ET | Blacksburg, VA (Lane Stadium)
Football games are four quarters long. Understood. Having said that, allow me to point out the fact that Virginia Tech's 64-17 win over winless East Carolina last weekend was a 23-17 game at the break. Old Dominion hasn't looked incredible early on, but this is a 10-win team from 2016 with 15 starters back. What's more, the line is where it is, at least in part, because the Monarchs will start a 17-year-old freshman at quarterback in Blacksburg, VA. On paper, this screams disaster, but Steven Williams isn't your average 17-year-old.

The Hokies are habitually asleep at the wheel in at least one innocuous non-conference game. Doesn't 28.5 points seem like a gift from the gods of gambling to you? It does to me.

KENTUCKY (+3) over No. 20 Florida

Saturday | 7:30 PM ET | Lexington, KY (Commonwealth Stadium)
Remove Malik Davis' 74-yard run last week against Tennessee, and Florida averaged just 3.4 yards per carry -- which is not an aberration. The Gators have struggled on offense all season, and they'll need to get the ground game going against Kentucky on the road.

That's the problem.

The Wildcats are allowing just 1.9 YPC through three games -- the best rate in the nation -- and haven't allowed a rush of more than 11 yards.