College Football Picks Week 1: Louisiana Tech vs. Texas Longhorns

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College football Week 1 got off to a great start after delivering two winning college football picks. We cashed in on Cincinnati -2.5 and Over 59.5 in the Clemson/Georgia Tech game.

We’ll try to keep the streak alive with a sports betting breakdown and more college football week 1 picks for Saturday night’s Louisiana Tech vs. Texas matchup.

For more general betting tips, check out our college football picks betting guide.

College Football Picks — Louisiana Tech vs. Texas -20.5, O/U 55.5

Opened: Texas -20.5, O/U 55 at William Hill

Is Texas back? False alarms have gone off in Austin before, but this time Texas fans are as confident as ever after the Longhorns closed the 2018 season with four wins in their final five games for their first 10-win season since 2009. Quarterback and Heisman candidate Sam Ehlinger is surrounded by a new supporting cast, but that won’t stop the Longhorns hype train from revving its engine. Most of the hype is a result of Texas’ 28-21 Sugar Bowl win over No. 5 Georgia. Indeed, the victory was impressive, but again, we’ve heard this story before.

Most recently, Texas lost each of their last two season openers to Maryland. The Longhorns were double-digit favorites in both games, much like they are Saturday night when they take on Louisiana Tech.

Led by head coach Skip Holtz, the Louisiana Tech program won nine games in three consecutive seasons before winning only seven in 2017 and eight last year. Louisiana Tech has to reload their defensive line after losing their best player Jaylon Ferguson. It won’t be an easy task, as Ferguson has the most sacks in NCAA history. To add to its difficulty, Louisiana Tech lost two of Ferguson’s favorite accomplices.

On the bright side, they bring back the majority of their offense, including quarterback J’mar Smith and weapons like Adrian Hardy and Teddy Veal. The offense needs to improve significantly to have even a smidgeon of hope at serving Texas its third season-opening upset in a row.

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Why to Bet Louisiana Tech +20.5 (use our DraftKings Sportsbook promo code to get these odds): Not only have we seen Texas enter the season a media darling only to turn around and disappoint, but the Longhorns are forced to replace more production from 2018 than any other Power 5 school. One of those losses is wide reciever Lil’Jordan Humphries, Sam Ehlinger’s favorite target in 2018. In fact, Texas ranks 121st in Bill Connelly’s returning production metric. Louisiana Tech might lose their best player, but Holtz has a record of putting out NFL-caliber players and teams capable of hanging within three touchdowns of the big boys (La. Tech lost to LSU 38-21 in 2018).

Why to Bet Texas -20 (use our William Hill promo code to get these odds): Texas might have to replace a ton of production, but they won’t have a tough time doing it. Head coach Herman has been stock-piling recruits, locking in the No. 4 ranked recruiting class in both 2018 and 2019. Parlay that with Louisiana Tech losing their best player, among others on the defensive side of the ball, Bevo will have heyday watching Sam Ehlinger and this Texas offense. Speaking of Ehlinger, after recording 3,772 total yards and 31 total touchdowns in 2019, he’s one of the most popular futures bets to win the Heisman Trophy.

My College Football Pick: Louisiana Tech +20.5 Full me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times…I won’t let that happen this year. Hopefully this doesn’t offend Ehlinger, who went to twitter in 2018 after his opponents gestured “horns down.” My biggest bet of the college football season is on Under 9.5 Texas wins. While I won’t be surprised if Texas wins 9 games, this Texas team comes in overhyped after an impressive win against a team that didn’t want to be in the Sugar Bowl in the first place. More notably, Tom Herman teams have not been great ATS as favorites (15-23-2), and that losing percentage exasperates the bigger the favorite Herman is.

Full disclosure: I’m a Longhorns hater, but if you trust that my bias isn’t blinding, I think the right side is with the good guys Saturday night. And even if it wasn’t the right side, I can’t bet on a team that wants to penalize players for putting the horns sign upside down. Hell, let’s add Louisiana Tech +775 moneyline (use our PointsBet promo code to get these odds). Remember, I’m not biased at all — er…HORNS DOWN.

Image Credit: USA Today Sports Images

About the Author

schmitto
Matt Schmitto (schmitto)

Matt Schmitto is an Organic Strategy Lead for Better Collective. He was introduced to daily fantasy sports in 2012 and soon became a member at RotoGrinders. Seven years later, Schmitto joined RotoGrinders Network full time as a staff writer shortly after the Supreme Court overturned PASPA. He has since covered important stories in the sports betting and fantasy sports industries for sites like SportsHandle and USBets and has had roles as a sports betting editor and commercial content manager. He continues to play DFS and loves placing Futures bets at sportsbooks. His favorite DFS sites are DraftKings, Underdog Fantasy, and PrizePicks. Follow Schmitto on Twitter – @Matt_Schmitto