College Football Week 1: Friday NCAAF Parlay Picks – Oklahoma races past Temple

At long last, Week 1 is finally here! Sure, Week 0 was a nice appetizer, but this week truly marks the start of the 2024 college football season. The action kicked off with a handful of games last night, and we cashed our first mega parlay of the season at +370 odds. Let’s keep the momentum going!

Friday’s slate looks to be a very entertaining one that offers a handful of compelling matchups which I’ll be targeting in this piece. There is value to be had across the board, so I have built a 2-leg college football parlay of my favorite plays on the slate. Let’s look at the three components of our NCAAF mega parlay for Friday’s action.

Oklahoma -42.5 (-105)

Stanford ML (+270)

NCAAF Parlay odds: +622

Odds available at FanDuel Sportsbook at time of publishing.

For this parlay, we are going with a massive favorite against the spread and an underdog on the money line. Let’s get into each leg.

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Oklahoma Sooners -42.5 over Temple Owls (-105)

The Oklahoma Sooners opened their 2023 campaign by covering a gigantic spread against a struggling Arkansas State team with ease. I’ll be going back to that same well to start off this mega parlay, as the Sooners should demolish one of the worst teams in FBS football. This is an Oklahoma defense that I expect to be a top-20 unit in the nation this season, even with moving up conferences into the loaded SEC. Even if Brent Venables’ team isn’t perfect to start the season on the defensive side of the ball, they should still feast against a Temple team that is a total mess on the offensive line. On offense, Jackson Arnold should have no trouble settling into a rhythm against an Owls defense that could certainly be the worst unit in the nation this season. This game should serve as a confidence builder for an offense that is going to need to round into form before facing much tougher competition in the near future, so I’d expect a solid Sooners effort for all 4 quarters in their season opener.

While the Sooners should have another solid season, there are simply not many positives you can come away with when looking at this Temple team. The Owls were a dismal 3-9 a season ago, and that was with a very talented quarterback on their roster in EJ Warner. Not only is Temple 130th in returning production, but the program didn’t exactly bring in much from the transfer portal to improve key position groups on both sides of the ball. When Warner was hurt last season, this looked like the one of the worst teams in the nation, so to be without their former best player and have a schedule that starts off with a matchup against a top-20 opponent? That doesn’t bode well for a program that is going through a complete and total rebuild. It wouldn’t shock me if the Owls tallied 7 points or fewer in this game, so let’s back Oklahoma to lay the wood at home.

Get our college football picks for all of the big Week 1 matchups!

Stanford Cardinal ML over TCU Horned Frogs (+270)

To close out our mega parlay, let’s head to the farm in Palo Alto, California for a fascinating contest between TCU and Stanford. Stanford head coach Troy Taylor enters his second season with the program with a team that brings back 77% of its defensive production from the 2023 campaign, plus the Cardinal retained promising quarterback Ashton Daniels and an offensive line that returns 98% of its snaps from a season ago. Daniels will also have his top 3 targets in the passing game back, including wideout Elic Ayomanor, who many college football fans will recognize from his career-best performance in Stanford’s 29-point comeback victory over Colorado last October.

While the offense of the Cardinal should hit the ground running after having a second full offseason in Taylor’s system, the same can’t be said for a TCU team that is in the midst of a complete overhaul on the defensive side of the ball. Former defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie (now a high school football coach) was fired after last season’s poor showing, and former Boise State head coach Andy Avalos now steps in to fill the position. While Avalos is a respected defensive mind across the college football landscape, it’s going to take time for this Horned Frogs defense to adapt to a completely new system, especially with a defensive front seven that suffered major losses in the transfer portal in the offseason. A lack of experience doesn’t bode well against this Stanford offense that should have some tricks up its sleeve for the home opener.

Over on offense, I’m not much of a believer in Josh Hoover following his mediocre 2023 campaign at quarterback, and while Stanford’s defense can be had if TCU can generate some explosive plays in the passing game, I don’t trust Hoover and this coaching staff if things get tight down the stretch. This is a game that could feature a ton of variance and I like to target underdogs in that role. Let’s take Stanford on the money line to close out this mega parlay.

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