College Football Betting Guide: Thursday 9/22/22

numberFire has built comprehensive algorithms to pinpoint the bets with the highest probability of returning money, whether you are digging into college football spreads or any other NCAA football odds, such as the moneyline and point total.

For those new to numberFire, we use a five-star system to show which bets you should be targeting for any given game. Stars represent how much you should risk on a wager relative to what you would normally bet.

For example, if you would normally bet $110 to win $100 on a -110 spread wager and if we give a three-star ranking, we suggest risking three times that amount: $330 to win $300. Here are the best bets for Thursday with guidance from our model.

Note: Lines are subject to change throughout the day after this article is published. Please check here to make sure you're seeing the most updated information.

West Virginia (-2.5) at Virginia Tech

Over 50.5 (-110): 4 Stars out of 5
West Virginia Moneyline (-125): 3 Stars out of 5

The 2-1 Virginia Tech Hokies have bounced back from an opening game loss to the Old Dominion Monarchs (20-17). They beat Boston College 27-10 and Wofford 27-7 in consecutive home games. Their homestand continues, but it's the visiting West Virginia Mountaineers who are favored, despite a 1-2 record of their own.

West Virginia started off the year with a close 38-31 loss to the Pittsburgh Panthers (then ranked 17th in the nation) and a 55-42 loss to Kansas. They handled Towson 65-7 last week.

The Massey consensus ratings have the Mountaineers ranked 63rd and the Hokies 75th, making this a pretty close matchup but siding with West Virginia overall.

The algorithm here likes West Virginia, naturally, more than Virginia Tech. The Mountaineers rank 45th in nERD; Virginia Tech is 83rd.

The primary play is the over, meaning we don't have to care too much about the team strength.

Coastal Carolina (-2.5) at Georgia State

Coastal Carolina Moneyline (-137): 3 Stars out of 5
Under 62.5 (-115): 2 Stars out of 5

Once more, we have a road favorite on Thursday night.

The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers hold a 3-0 record, and the Georgia State Panthers are 0-3. Why the close spread given such a big discrepancy in record?

Coastal Carolina has beaten Army (38-28), Gardner-Webb (31-27), and Buffalo (38-26). The best squad of the three is Army, who ranks 82nd in the Massey consensus ratings, so that might have something to do with it. However, quarterback Grayson McCall holds an 87.9 passing grade from PFF, and overall, the Chanticleers rank 28th in offensive grade.

They're also without running backs Braydon Bennett and Aaron Bedgood.

Georgia State has respectable losses overall, too, so the record is a bit misleading. Those include a 35-14 defeat at South Carolina (65th in the Massey consensus ratings), a 35-28 loss versus the North Carolina Tar Heels (44th), and a 42-41 loss versus the Charlotte 49ers (126th).

Their offensive grade of 63.7 ranks outside the top 100, and they're just around average in pass rush. They may not be able to limit the Coastal Carolina offense well enough to hang, and their offense might struggle to score points in return.

We are seeing 72% of spread bets and 67% of spread money on the Coastal Carolina spread.