College Football Bets: What You Need To Know Before Week 3, 2023

If Week 1 didn't get your blood pumping, Week 2 sure as hell did the trick (or, if it didn't, please seek medical attention now). College football was MUST-WATCH TV from noon all the way until 10:30 on Saturday - possible later if you couldn’t let go and decided to stay up for Auburn-Cal play a game that nobody wanted to see, ever - and we should all strap in for 10+ more weeks of it.

I don't want to dive too deep into everything that happened in the slate here because it would take away from some of the points that I’m going to make, but suffice it to say that we are seeing college football at its absolute best. Great battles between high-quality teams, big programs flirting with upsets (or worse, “sealing the deal”), and the variety and weirdness that always goes along with CFB.

Before diving into Dimers' college football predictions or this week's best college football bets, it’s time to talk about three things to know for Week 3.

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1. A New Age of College Football

As the entire country watched a Nick Saban-led Alabama team get dismantled in Tuscaloosa, it was hard not to feel like we all had to accept the reality before our eyes. College football is changing, and it’s changing fast. Conference realignment is certainly a part of that (or a product, possibly), but the key factor as I see it is that NIL has overhauled everything.

Recruiting is no longer a simple formula, where you can sell kids on the quality program and their chances of reaching the NFL. Now you have to pitch them on both the sports side and the money to be made, meaning the best of the best don’t simply default to a small number of schools. Milroe wasn’t great, but you could see that the Tide were lacking in some of the less flashy positions where they normally have 5 stars.

Ironically, the “new age” is helping programs like Colorado, Texas, and Miami, relics of the past, reclaim relevance in the CFB landscape. And, more importantly, we’re seeing an increase in parity that has often felt missing over the last decade. You may not love NIL or the NCAA, but this may well be a good thing for fans.

2. Nothing Worth Having Comes Easy

A common theme across the board this week, particularly for the Top 25, was teams getting into dogfights with opponents that they seemingly should have handled easily. Many of those programs, like Tennessee against the mighty Austin Peay, eventually sorted themselves out, but a fair number of teams had games come down to the wire against unranked opponents.

Most survived, with Oregon, Utah, and UNC pulling off late victories, but Wisconsin wasn’t so lucky. The reality is, though, that so long as those games end up as tallies in the win column the “damage” is negligible. Style points dont account for much this early in the season and learning how to win close games can ultimately be a benefit in the long run. Teams (and their fans) would much prefer a walk in the park every week, but that just isn't reality and seasons can be decided by an early loss that derails everything.

Our preseason look at College Football Futures: Who will be crowned National Champion?

3. Turn up the Heat

Aside from Alabama deciding to “fuck around and find out” against Texas and the FSU/LSU tussle, most of the top programs have done nothing but beat up on hopeless small schools just looking for a paycheck (See: Alabama, Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Notre Dame, etc.). Week 3 might not exactly force the issue, but at least a number of those programs will have to play Power 5 opponents and prove something to the world.

Do I expect South Carolina to beat UGA in Athens or Illinois to upset Penn State? No. But at the very least we’re going to get to see these top tier units have to prove their worth rather than just going through the motions. And, who knows, maybe we get lucky and see things get hairy for them too.

Make sure you check for value in Dimers' College Football Player Prop Bets section before locking in any picks for your parlays.

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