2 College Football Best Bets for Tuesday, October 24

We’re in the midst of a beautiful stretch of football on TV every single night! Week 9 of the college football season starts us off with a couple of Conference USA matchups.

Louisiana Tech will host New Mexico State and Liberty will hit the highway to take on Western Kentucky. Check out our 2 college football best bets for Tuesday, October 24.

New Mexico State +3 over Louisiana Tech

The Aggies are riding a 3-game winning streak as they head into this road matchup with Louisiana Tech. They held UTEP to just 2/12 on 3rd down in the 28-7 victory last week.

Diego Pavia completed 60% of his passes for 186 yards and 2 touchdown passes. He added 96 yards on the ground along with 2 additional scores. His legs have been a big part of the Aggies’ ranking in the Top 35 rushing teams in the country.

While they held UTEP just 1 score, they did allow 120 yards to Deion Hankins on the ground on just 16 carries. They will need to sure up the run defense against LaTech.

The Bulldogs are 3-5 on the season and are staring at a potential 3-game losing streak for the 2nd time this season. Last time, they had lost to North Texas and Nebraska before heading into UTEP and defeating them 24-10.

However, they have since dropped their last 2 with a 31-23 loss to MTST being their latest. They never got the run game going as they were held to just 79 rushing yards. Tyre Shelton and company must be more productive to compete with the visiting Aggies.

New Mexico State has done a solid job slowing down their opponents’ run game which would be a serious problem for the Bulldogs. New Mexico State seems to be rounding into form at the mid-point of the season and should be favored in this spot rather than the short dog. However, we will again take the points here and back Diego Pavia in this spot.

Key Trends:

• NMST is 5-0 ATS in their last 5 games.
• NMST is 4-1 ATS in their last 5 games on the road.
• LaTech is 4-11 ATS in their last 15 games played in October.
• LaTech is 2-5 ATS in their last 7 games against an opponent in the Independents (FBS) conference.

Liberty @ Western Kentucky UNDER 60.5

The top of Conference USA is where you can find the Liberty Flames. At 7-0, the Flames are coming off a win over Middle Tennessee State which was a great back-and-forth battle. The Flames went off on the ground for over 400 rushing yards.

Kaidon Salter, starting QB, led the rushing attack with 160 yards on the ground and was backed by Quinton Cooley’s 134 yards and 3 touchdowns. They rank 5th in the country in rushing yards per game while also converting on 48.8% of their 3rd down attempts which is 22nd in the country.

The Hilltoppers fell 20-17 against Jacksonville State last week after coming off a bye. They allowed over 250 yards on the ground while only picking up 89 yards of their own. Austin Reed was decent under center but was far from good enough to pick up the road win.

Despite having a Top 50 passing game, the Hilltoppers were only able to put up 17 points in the loss. Malachi Corley is averaging nearly 100 yards per game but was held to only 47 yards on 6 receptions last week.

If the Hilltoppers are going to stay in this game, it is going to be by stifling the ground attack of the Flames. With them being short home favorites and seemingly being a trap game for Liberty, we just do not trust them to win this one outright. We believe the smarter play here is the under as both teams have the blueprint to slow the opposing offenses down.

Key Trends:

• The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Liberty’s last 6 games.
• The total has gone UNDER in 4 of Liberty’s last 5 games played in October.
• The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Western Kentucky’s last 6 games at home.
• The total has gone UNDER in 5 of Western Kentucky’s last 6 games played in October.