With the 2025 college football season moving into Week 3, that means we’ll start to see conference play and the renewal of rivalries. This Friday night, we’re going to see a pair of Big 12 games as well as No. 22 Indiana trying to knock off Indiana State to remain undefeated.
For college football odds on all games in Week 3, be sure to check out OddsTrader for the fastest way to find the best available prices. Here are our favorite expert picks for Friday night’s top matchups.
Conference Play Is More Fun for Bettors
Even the biggest college football fanatics should admit that it’s not that much fun to talk about a ranked team going into a game where they’re a 49-point favorite against a non-FBS school. That’s what the beginning of September is for so many teams, so kudos to the schools who do take on some Power 5 conference challengers in those early games.
But with conference play this weekend, we’ll see teams meet who are rivals and have a history of recent matchups, giving us more data to go on for how they may match up. That’s important information for bettors, assuming it exists as we have had a lot of conference turnover in recent years.
But it also can lead to more competitive games, which is why we’re looking at Week 3 games that have some very small spreads. Here’s 3 of our favorite bets for Friday night college football.
Colorado vs. Houston (-4.5)
Deion Sanders’ Colorado Buffaloes got their first win of the season last week, 31-7 over Delaware. The defense still allowed just south of 400 yards, but they were able to keep the score down in a wire-to-wire win.
This week should be a tougher matchup in the first meeting between Colorado and Houston as members of the Big 12. Houston (2-0) is coming off a 35-9 win over Rice, and that’s after shutting out Stephen F. Austin 27-0 in Week 1.
Houston’s offense is solid but not dominant. The defense is what will carry this team. Colorado had a unique plan last week by playing multiple quarterbacks, with 3rd-stringer Ryan Staub shining best with 158 yards and 2 touchdowns. It sounds like Coach Prime is willing to play multiple quarterbacks again, as Sanders seems uncertain about who will fully replace his son as his starter this year.
But the old adage is if you have multiple quarterbacks, you really have none, so we’re going to bank on the home team to cover the spread while also acknowledging the under 45.5 points is a solid play too for your college football picks.
Expert Pick: Houston -4.5 (-110) at BetMGM
Kansas State vs. Arizona (+1.5)
Staying in the Big 12, we have Kansas State (1-2) as a slight road favorite against Arizona (2-0). Kansas State has already lost a pair of 24-21 games to its only FBS opponents this year in Iowa State and Army.
They have not been very effective on either side of the ball so far, despite having an extra game (Week 0) compared to most teams. Meanwhile, Arizona has a 40-6 win over Hawaii and took care of Weber State in a 48-3 stomping last week.
But the Wildcats were only 4-8 last year and lost 31-7 to Kansas State, who ran all over their defense with dual-threat quarterback Avery Johnson, who is back this year. Johnson’s 110 rushing yards against Arizona last year are the most in any game in his career, and he also threw for 156 yards and 2 touchdowns in that game.
Change of venue is important this year, but we’ll still take Kansas State to cover with Johnson being able to run on that defense again this year.
Expert Pick: Kansas State -1.5 (-105) at BetMGM
New Mexico vs. UCLA (-15.5)
Our final game is not a conference matchup this Friday night, but UCLA (0-2) is still seeking its 1st win of the year against a New Mexico Lobos (1-1) team that lost 34-17 to Michigan and won 32-22 against Idaho State last week.
The Lobos are struggling to throw the ball as quarterback Jack Layne averages only 5.3 yards per attempt. They have more interceptions (3) than touchdown passes (2), and one of their touchdowns was a brilliant trick play out of the quarterback sneak formation to fool Michigan.
But it’s not promising for the offense. Meanwhile, UCLA may even be worse off as the offense is averaging 16.5 points during this 0-2 start. There was some hype for Nico Iamaleava transferring from Tennessee to UCLA, but he hasn’t started well this year. He’s only averaging 6.2 yards per attempt, and he’s thrown 2 touchdowns to 2 interceptions.
The defense has also allowed 73 points in 2 games. UCLA is favored big and should get the home win, but we’re going to take the under 52.5 points given the struggles of both quarterbacks to generate efficient passing production right now.
Expert Pick: Under 52.5 Points (-105) at BetMGM
Find Your Favorite College Football Bets Today
With conference games coming up in college football in Week 3, this is a great time to start finding your favorite plays as teams try to round into shape against familiar foes and the games that matter most on their schedule. You could always sign up for a sportsbook and take advantage of their welcome offer for bonus bets to use on games like the ones we’ve highlighted above.
Explore College Football Bets with OddsTrader Turbo
Whether you’re betting on the Friday night college football slate or the big weekend to come in football, you should check out what OddsTrader Turbo has to offer. You can get access to 5-star picks with a 73% success rate historically, the ability to track line movement with game alerts for the odds you want to see and use the BetStation to get expert advice on all of this week’s college football games and more.
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