Week 1 Thursday is the best bad idea in sports. Four months of nothing, then somebody hands you Akron at Wake Forest at seven o'clock and asks you to have opinions. I have opinions. What I do not have yet, as of this morning, is a single CFB best bets today candidate that has cleared my number, and I would rather tell you that plainly than dress up a shrug as analysis.

So here is the radar. Spots, not plays.

What I'm eyeing on the CFB slate today

  1. Colorado at Georgia Tech, Thursday 8:00 PM ET. The only game on this Thursday board between two teams who both showed up to be measured. Atlanta in early September is a legitimate third opponent, and Colorado is walking into it off a flight, under lights, in a stadium that gets loud early. What turns it into a play: a home price that charges me only for talent and hands me the heat and the travel for free.
  2. Miami at Stanford, Friday 9:00 PM ET. A cross-country trip to Palo Alto for a body-clock kickoff. Every year the market treats the coast-to-coast Friday nighter like a normal game, and every year a few of them are not. What turns it into a play: a total that assumes both offenses are already in midseason rhythm in the first week of September. They are not. Nobody is.
  3. Toledo at Michigan State, Friday 8:00 PM ET. The MAC road dog in a Big Ten body bag game is the oldest soft spot on the frontier, and it is soft because Toledo is usually the more experienced football team for about a quarter and a half. What turns it into a play: a first-half number that prices the whole game instead of the part Toledo can actually win.
  4. The cupcake totals. Bethune-Cookman at UCF, Eastern Illinois at Minnesota, Arkansas Pine Bluff at Missouri, LIU at Kansas. Nobody bets these sides. The totals are where the market is thinnest, because scoring depends entirely on how fast the favorite empties the bench. What turns it into a play: a number that ignores running clocks and backup quarterbacks.
  5. Fresno State at USC, Friday 9:00 PM ET. Purely a tempo watch for me right now. Filed, not touched.

The one I lean on most

Colorado at Georgia Tech. Not a play. A lean, and the reason is unglamorous: heat, travel, and a Thursday primetime crowd are three real things the opening number on a marquee-ish game tends to underweight, and Week 1 is when the market knows the least. If the price makes me pay for all three, I pass and I sleep fine.

The thing that isn't a game

The SEC has filed suit against LSU over the school's stated intent to use players who recently spent time in NFL training camps. I do not have the filing in front of me and I am not going to pretend otherwise, but the shape of it is enormous: roster eligibility litigated by a conference against its own member. That's a tell that nobody has settled what a college athlete is anymore.

Also, GameDay has Lainey Wilson picking in Week 1, which is the correct energy for a Saturday.

What I'm watching next: the Colorado at Georgia Tech number as Thursday afternoon gets hot, and whether anything on the Saturday noon window gives me something honest. Bet only what an entertaining Saturday is worth to you, 21+ where legal.

You know where to find me.