CFB Best Bets, Picks and Analysis For Florida State vs. Louisville on September 16, 2022

The Florida State Seminoles are looking to improve to 3-0 with a road win over a Louisville Cardinals team that is coming off of a big victory over the UCF Knights last week. These two are all set for a Friday September 16, 2022 clash at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky. 

Will the Seminoles continue their hot start to the year? You'll just have to keep reading our Florida State vs. Louisville betting preview to find out. 

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For the most up to date CFB computer picks, check out our interactive predictions for Florida State vs. Louisville. It's constantly updating based on hundreds of different data points.

Florida State vs. Louisville Best Bets, Predictions and Analysis

Spread Breakdown

LSU isn't supposed to be a very good team this year, but it was still huge for Florida State to beat a Brian Kelly-led team in Louisiana. The Seminoles appear to be heading in the right direction under Mike Norvell right now, and that would be massive for the former Memphis head coach, if true. He entered this year with one of the hottest seats in America, so a productive season just might save his job. 

Louisville is coming off of a nice win over UCF last week, but the Knights might not be as good as usual this season. That's still very much up in the air, but the Cardinals weren't particularly impressive in last Friday's win and Louisville did get blown out by Syracuse in the opening week of the season.

The reality is that the Cardinals rely way too heavily on dual-threat quarterback Malik Cunningham, so teams know exactly what they're looking to do on offense. It's just a matter of having the talent to throw him off his game, and the Seminoles seemingly have that. They did a nice job of bottling up LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels last game. 

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If Florida State can do an average job of slowing Cunningham down as a runner, it's just hard to see how the Seminoles won't win this game. Jordan Travis is a similarly explosive dual-threat quarterback for Norvell's team, and he has been outstanding to start this year. Last game, Travis threw for 260 yards with two touchdowns and no picks against LSU, while also adding 31 yards on the ground. Travis has always been a dynamic runner, but limiting mistakes as a passer will help him go to another level. So far, it looks like he is ready to do that. 

When looking at this game, it's really hard to ignore the fact that Louisville is 12-28-1 against the spread in its last 41 games against teams with winning records. The Cardinals are also 5-11 ATS in their last 16 games coming off a performance in which they gave up 20 or fewer points. That just shows you that this Louisville team doesn't generally play well defensively two games in a row. With that in mind, we're just keeping it simple and playing Florida State here. 

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Over/Under Breakdown

As previously mentioned, Florida State held up well in a meeting with Daniels and LSU last week. Cunningham is a better player than Daniels is, but the two are somewhat similar in that they both have wide receiver speed at the quarterback position. The Seminoles have also had nearly two weeks to prepare for Cunningham, as they did not have a Week 2 game. That should allow them to limit some of the damage that the Cardinals offense can inflict. 

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Florida State also happens to look more like an offense that prefers to run the football, and that starts at the quarterback position with Travis. The best thing for Under bettors is having teams that move the ball on the ground. That makes for quicker games with the clock just continuing to run. 

It should also be noted that the Under is 5-2 in the last seven games that Louisville has played against ACC opponents. The Under is also 6-1 in the last seven games that Florida State has played on the road. 

This is a game in which we'd much rather play a side over a total, but we'd lean towards the Under if we had to bet this. 

Best Bet: Seminoles vs. Cardinals

We're going to go with the Seminoles PK in this game. They're the more talented football team and come into this one after having an extra week of rest and preparation. 

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