Odds, picks, prediction for Week 3

All Ball State needed to do to get us to the window last week was kick one field goal against Auburn. Almost sounds too easy. It may not have been pretty, but the Cardinals’ cover gets us to 2-0 on the season with our Ugly Underdogs. We’ll try to keep the dream of a perfect season alive with a trip to beautiful Laramie, Wyo., on Saturday night.

Two of the best uniforms in college football will clash when Utah travels to War Memorial Stadium to take on the Wyoming Cowboys. 

Just from an aesthetic point of view, it doesn’t get much better than a game during twilight at one of the most picturesque venues in all of sports. Soak it in. This is America at her best.

As for the matchup, most of the focus will be on the Utes and quarterback Devon Dampier, who has quickly moved up the Heisman betting board.

Now sitting at 16/1 odds to win the award, Dampier lit up UCLA and Cal Poly in his first two games with the Utes, completing 38 of 48 passes (79.2 percent) for 398 yards and five touchdowns.

The former New Mexico Lobo also chipped in 112 yards and a score with his legs.

Dampier and Utah are now the favorites to win the Big 12, but this could be a classic case of the college football world getting ahead of itself.

There’s no doubt that Dampier is a dynamic player capable of winning games on his own, but the Utes have not faced the stiffest of competition out of the gate.

UCLA is still in rebuild mode, and the Bruins just got beat by UNLV, so that takes away some of the shine from Utah’s 43-10 victory at the Rose Bowl in Week 1.

Wyoming’s defense, on the other hand, looks like it could be better than expected. 

After falling flat in 2024, Jay Sawvel completely re-made the defense, which he was in charge of from 2020-2023, with transfers and JUCO additions. The early returns have been impressive, with the Cowboys holding their first two opponents to a combined seven points.

Those two teams were Akron and Northern Iowa, but it’s still a noteworthy step for a team that needed to sort out its defense to have any hope of going to a bowl game in 2025. 

Stopping Dampier and Utah will be a much different ballgame than slowing down the Akron Zips, but the good news is that we’ve got 23.5 points to work with here. 

Betting on College Football?

As for the offense, things did not get off to a promising start in a 10-0 win over Akron, but they did look better in Week 2, and quarterback Kaden Anderson has been efficient at moving the ball.

Anderson took over as a redshirt freshman late in 2024, so it’s reasonable to expect him to be up and down, but he should get better with each passing game.

He’s in a decent situation to succeed thanks to an experienced offensive line.

If Dampier balls out, we’ll just tip our caps and move on to Week 4, but this game script should be conducive for our underdog.

Utah runs the ball quite a bit, which should keep the clock moving, and the Utes also have a massive Big 12 game on the other side of this trip to “Laradise.”

Cowboy up.

The Play: Wyoming +23.5 (-110, FanDuel)

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Michael Leboff is a long-suffering Islanders fan, but a long-profiting sports bettor with 10 years of experience in the gambling industry. He loves using game theory to help punters win bracket pools, find long shots, and learn how to beat the market in mainstream and niche sports.