College football · Week 7
College picks: Week 7, 2026
Every game with a Top 25 team, against the spread. Locked at kickoff, graded after the final whistle.
This week 0-0
Season 34-27
Week 7 stacks six ranked-against-ranked games, opening with Ohio State at Indiana at noon for the top of the Big Ten and closing with Notre Dame at BYU in Provo. The big numbers are all at home: Miami 21 over Florida State, Georgia 20.5 over Auburn, Texas Tech 14.5 over Arizona State, LSU 14 over Mississippi State. Home favorites laying two scores have been the worst side on this card all season, so the points get taken in every one of those spots. The two-score prices worth laying are on the road, where Utah, Wake Forest and Notre Dame travel as the better team. Three quarterbacks move numbers this week: Nico Iamaleava is done for the year with a torn ACL, Kamario Taylor's foot has pushed LSU four points, and Florida's Aaron Philo is questionable in Austin.
Saturday, October 17
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16 Mississippi St at 22 LSU
Mississippi St +14
Anthony Evans III has 40 catches for 574 yards and Mississippi State ranks 16th in offensive efficiency, which is not the profile of a team held to two scores. LSU gave up 35 in an overtime loss at Kentucky and Sam Leavitt has thrown eight interceptions, most in the SEC, so the second-half burying this number needs is not in evidence. Kamario Taylor's foot is unresolved and the line has already moved four points off 10.5 on that news, roughly the full value of the drop. If Taylor plays this is a clear overlay; if he sits it is near fair.
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Florida at 7 Texas
Florida +10.5
Texas averages 379.2 yards a game, 79th nationally, and wins with Colin Simmons and a defense allowing 16 points, not by stacking scores. An 11-point cushion is a lot to ask of that offense against a Florida team averaging 41.7 points with the tenth-best special teams in the country. Aaron Philo is questionable with a shoulder injury, and if he cannot go Florida's case thins considerably. The ratings prefer Texas by 15, so this is the standing rule on big home favorites overruling the number.
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Virginia at 24 SMU
Virginia +8.5
SMU throws for 318 a game with Kevin Jennings at 75 percent and still scores only 34.6, because it has nine turnovers and five empty red zone trips. Virginia's secondary has seven interceptions, three of them from Brandyn Hillman, and that is the unit that turns a pass-first offense into field goals. SMU's front is sixth nationally in sacks per game against a line that gave up ten at Florida State, so this will not be comfortable. The ratings make SMU a 4.6-point favorite and the board is asking nine.
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4 Ohio State at 5 Indiana
Indiana +3.5
Indiana has allowed 11.8 points a game and Josh Hoover has thrown 17 touchdowns without an interception, which is how a home team keeps a game inside 3.5. Ohio State gets right tackle Phillip Daniels back from his Week 2 injury and still has to win by four in Bloomington against a team that has not lost. Efficiency ratings make this Ohio State by half a point with Indiana's home field counted, three points short of the price. Close enough to call it a coin flip.
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25 Northwestern at Michigan St
Northwestern -7.5
Northwestern ranks tenth in offensive efficiency under Chip Kelly and Aidan Chiles went 17 of 23 for 272 yards and three scores last week. Michigan State has given up 30 or more to Nebraska, Wisconsin and Illinois with a defense that keeps thinning out, and its one strength is a twelfth-ranked special teams unit. The ratings put Northwestern up 10.4 on the road against 7.5 on the board. The gap is under three points, so this is closer than the matchup reads.
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Auburn at 1 Georgia
Auburn +20.5
Auburn ranks 23rd in defensive efficiency and Byrum Brown ran for 107 yards against Tennessee, which is enough to keep an offense on the field and a scoreboard from running off. Georgia is laying three scores with a backfield that got through Alabama on 206 rushing yards from reserves, Dwight Phillips Jr. leading the team at 280 for the season. The ratings have Georgia by 19.4, just inside the number, so the points are the thin side of a thin call.
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13 Missouri at 9 Ole Miss
Missouri +6
Jamal Roberts has 828 rushing yards and back-to-back 200-yard games, and Ole Miss is giving up 176.4 on the ground and 28 points a game. Missouri's defense is eighth nationally against the run at 78 yards a game, which is the harder half of this matchup to solve, and Austin Simmons has 14 touchdowns against one interception. The ratings make Ole Miss a 2.7-point home favorite and the board wants six.
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6 Alabama at 14 Tennessee
Tennessee +8.5
Tennessee is eighth in defensive efficiency and gets Alabama in Neyland at night, where a road favorite laying nine has to reach the high twenties to clear it. Alabama's offense is third in the country per play, so this is not a mismatch argument, it is a price argument: the ratings say Alabama by 7.2 and the board says 8.5. Tennessee's quarterback is unsettled, with Faizon Brandon back at practice from a shoulder injury and George MacIntyre having already won at Arkansas. If Brandon starts the points look better. Close one.
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Arizona St at 10 Texas Tech
Arizona St +14.5
Texas Tech wins with a sixteenth-ranked defense and thirteenth-ranked special teams, not with an offense that sits 66th per play behind a quarterback at five touchdowns and five interceptions. Two scores asks that offense to do something it has not done, and the 29-7 win at Colorado is the shape of a Texas Tech blowout. Cutter Boley has 12 touchdowns against three interceptions for Arizona State. The ratings strongly disagree and have Texas Tech by 21, so this is the rule on big home favorites against the number, and it is the shakiest pick on the card.
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Florida St at 3 Miami
Florida St +21
Ousmane Kromah has 565 rushing yards and Florida State still ranks 19th in offensive efficiency at 3-3, so three scores is not the gap between these offenses. Miami scores 49.6 and allows 9.8, which is why the number is this big, and a 49 percent chance of rain at Hard Rock argues against a track meet. The ratings put Miami 21.5 clear, right on top of the price, so there is no edge in the number either way. A genuine coin flip settled by the standing rule on home favorites.
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15 Kentucky at Oklahoma
Kentucky +6.5
Oklahoma sits 84th in offensive efficiency and John Mateer threw for 155 yards against Texas, which is not an offense that builds a seven-point cushion with a 43.5 total on the board. Kentucky scores nearly 35 a game and CJ Baxter ran for 123 and two scores in the overtime win over LSU. Oklahoma's defense is fourth in efficiency and will keep this ugly, so the points matter more than the side. The ratings say Oklahoma by 5.6. Close one.
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2 Notre Dame at 8 BYU
Notre Dame -10.5
BYU is without LJ Martin for a second week, which leaves Bear Bachmeier's legs as the run game against a front graded first in the country against the run and first in pressure. Notre Dame scores 44 a game and allows 11, and CJ Carr has 19 touchdowns against one turnover. Provo at night with a 46.5 total is the argument against, and the ratings only have Notre Dame by 11.6 against 10.5, so the edge is about a point. Laying it on the road is the version of this price worth taking.
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18 Oklahoma St at 20 Houston
Houston -4.5
Houston allows 74 rushing yards a game, fourth nationally, which takes Caleb Hawkins out of it and leaves Drew Mestemaker throwing into a 62.5 total with the whole offense on his arm. Conner Weigman has 16 touchdowns and no interceptions against an Oklahoma State defense that gave up 28 to UCF and 31 to Oregon. The ratings make Houston an 8.7-point favorite and the board is asking 4.5, the widest gap on the card that points at a favorite.
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Wisconsin at 12 UCLA
Wisconsin +2.5
Nico Iamaleava is out for the season with a torn ACL, so Ty Dieffenbach makes his first start and UCLA leans harder on Wayne Knight, who has 548 yards at 7.7 a carry. Wisconsin has allowed 42 points across its last four games and Colton Joseph ran for 141 against Michigan State, the most ever by a Wisconsin quarterback in a Big Ten game. The line has moved only a point on the quarterback news and the ratings had these two dead even before it. Pasadena near 90 degrees at kickoff cuts the other way. Close.
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11 Utah at Colorado
Utah -15.5
Utah has the Big 12's most efficient offense, seventh nationally per play, against a Colorado defense with eight sacks all season and the 136th-ranked special teams unit in the country. Colorado's offense is 95th per play, so its points have to come from somewhere other than the field position Utah will own. Boulder's altitude is no edge against a team that plays its home games at 4,200 feet. The ratings have Utah by 17 against 15.5, so the margin is thin, and this is a lay on the road rather than at home.
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21 Wake Forest at California
Wake Forest -9.5
Gio Lopez has accounted for nine touchdowns over two games, five passing and four rushing, the most of any power conference player in that span, and Wake Forest has not allowed a second-half point in either of them. Cal is on backup Jackson Brousseau with Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele still in concussion protocol, and Adam Mohammed has missed two straight at running back. The ratings make Wake Forest a 13.3-point favorite against 9.5, and road favorites are the right side of a two-score number.
How picks are graded
Each pick is made against the spread available when the card is published Wednesday evening, and it locks at kickoff. After the game, the picked team's final margin plus the line decides it: above zero cashes, below zero is a mea culpa, exactly zero is a push. Scores come from ESPN's college scoreboard. Rankings are the AP Top 25 at publication.
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