Best College Football Bets for Arizona vs. Kansas State

Arizona and Kansas State meet Friday night in a game that won’t count toward the Big 12 standings due to a scheduling issue, but will surely change the perception of the conference race before play begins.

Two powerful offenses will meet in Manhattan, Kansas, on Friday night, each looking to secure a College Football Playoff-worthy victory. With stars on both offenses, I’m targeting the biggest names on the player market.

Read on to find out how I’m betting on Avery Johnson, Noah Fifita and Tetairoa McMillan in this primetime showdown.

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook.

Avery Johnson OVER 45.5 rushing yards

Johnson is a run-first quarterback. The second-year quarterback has completed 44 passes in two games, and 28 of them have been under 10 yards (including behind the line of scrimmage). While the team hasn’t used Johnson in designed running plays like they did almost exclusively in his rookie season, I think that will change with a high-leverage game against Arizona.

Additionally, Arizona’s rushing defense has looked much worse than its secondary so far, which could lead to a lot more carries for the quarterback who ran it eight times for 40 yards last season.

This is an important game with College Football Playoff expectations, I think we’ll see K-State’s full playbook and more rushes from Johnson.

Noah Fifita OVER 269.5 yards passing

Kansas State’s defense has some issues, as I noted in our betting preview earlier this week.

Zona has Fifita and McMillan to design an elite passing game that shows little drop-off from last season and will feast on a K-State defense that allowed Tulane to average over 10 yards before the dropback and post a 14 percent explosive play percentage. Both numbers rank in the 93rd percentile in both metrics compared to last season’s games, according to Game on paper.

This Arizona team wants to throw the ball and I’m not sure Kansas State has the ability to slow down this passing game. If the team is down as the point differential indicates, Fifita will throw the ball over 40 times in this game.

Last season, under a different offensive coordinator, Fifita exceeded that total in six of his nine games. The team was flexible, even resting key players last week against Northern Arizona, where he passed for just 173 yards. In Week 1, he pummeled New Mexico’s defense for 422 yards.

The game script calls for passing, and this Arizona offense should find success.

Tetairoa McMillan OVER 92.5 receiving yards

Well, if Fifita throws, McMillan catches.

It’s safe to say the nation’s leading receiver might not follow up his 300-yard performance against New Mexico, but the volume is just too high for him not to flirt with the 100-yard mark.

He had just four targets in the celebrated practice game against Northern Arizona after a massive 15-target share in Week 1. Last season, McMillan had 130 targets, an average of 10 per game. In a pass-happy scenario, I’m siding with the best player on the field to hit his quota.

Game odds are updated periodically and are subject to change.

Follow Reed on Twitter @ReedWallach and get all of his college football bets bettor@rw33

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