Week 4 College Football Parlay Picks: Rice and Houston Tune Total

Much of the country will be in conference play this weekend, and there are several meaningful Power 5 matchups on tap in Week 4. 

The No. 21 Wake Forest Demon Deacons will host the No. 5 Clemson Tigers in a pivotal ACC battle, while two SEC contests — the Florida Gators at the Tennessee Volunteers and the Arkansas Razorbacks taking on the Texas A&M Aggies — signal that we’re into the meat of the college football season.

We won’t be looking at any of those games in this article, however. Instead, let’s take a look a bit deeper into this weekend’s schedule and find value in some unexpected places as we make our best college football parlay picks for Week 4. 

Week 4 college football parlay picks

• Kent State vs. Georgia Under 62 (-107) + UNC -1.5 (-107) = +274
• Old Dominion -4.5 (-115) + Rice vs. Houston Over 51.5 (-110) = +257

Click on each pick to jump to the full analysis.

Parlay Pick 1

PARLAY: Kent State vs. Georgia Under 62 (-107) + UNC -1.5 (-107) = +274 (at PointsBet)

Kent State vs. Georgia Under 62 (-107)

If you care about college football enough to read this article, you already know that the Georgia Bulldogs are going to beat the Kent State Golden Flashes. Georgia has beaten up on all three of its opponents so far, starting with a 49-3 dismantling of the Oregon Ducks. Since then, the consensus No. 1 team in the country has shut out Samford and opened its SEC season with a 48-7 win over South Carolina. 

Kent State beat up on the Long Island University Sharks 63-10 last week to get its first win of the year. While the Golden Flashes were no match for their first two opponents, they managed respectable losses to both the Washington Huskies and the Oklahoma Sooners. In particular, holding Oklahoma to just 33 points on the road had to feel like a moral victory for the MAC school.

Georgia has only allowed 10 points in total over its first three games. That leaves little doubt that they can keep Kent State in check. However, Georgia hasn’t run up the scoreboard in any of its wins, topping out below 50 points in all three of its games so far.

Even throwing out the LIU game, Kent State has only allowed 39 points per game against strong FBS competition in Oklahoma and Washington. With Georgia likely to shut down the Golden Flashes and unlikely to hit the Over on their own, I’m jumping on the Under here.

UNC -1.5 (-107)

The North Carolina Tar Heels opened as a one-point underdog, but are now favored against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish on Saturday. UNC is now 3-0 on the season, though it’s had to survive close encounters with the Appalachian State Mountaineers and the Georgia State Panthers in its past two games. 

Those may not seem like impressive wins, but they do at least go into the victory column. Notre Dame, on the other hand, is just 1-2 on the year after losses to the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Marshall Thundering Herd to start the season. The Fighting Irish bounced back to beat the California Golden Bears last week, but still failed to cover the 13.5-point spread in a 24-17 win.

These two teams have shown very different profiles early in the season. Notre Dame is solid on defense, allowing just 21.3 points per game, but hasn’t been able to move the ball, scoring 18.3 points per game while averaging only 300 total yards of offense. UNC ranks sixth in the country in scoring at 51.3 points per game, but is just 119th in scoring defense, giving up an average of 37.7 points.

The problem for Notre Dame is that its defense isn’t good enough to contain the Tar Heels, which means we could be in for a shootout. In that case, it’s doubtful that the Fighting Irish can keep up, even against a struggling UNC defense. With North Carolina at home, I’m taking the Tar Heels -1.5. 

Parlay Pick 2

PARLAY: Old Dominion -4.5 (-115) + Rice vs. Houston Over 51.5 (-110) = +257 (at DraftKings)

Old Dominion -4.5 (-115)

Old Dominion may be just 1-2 on the season, but the Monarchs have looked solid in the early going. They’ve shown their best stuff in two games against in-state rivals. Old Dominion upset the Virginia Tech Hokies to start the season, and nearly repeated that feat against the Virginia Cavaliers last week, falling 16-14 on a last-second field goal.

This week, the Monarchs play at home against the Arkansas State Red Wolves. Arkansas State is also 1-2, blowing out Grambling before suffering consecutive losses to the Ohio State Buckeyes and Memphis Tigers in the past two weeks. 

While Old Dominion may have lost its last two games, it has gotten increasingly good play out of Sophomore quarterback Hayden Wolff. He’s thrown for five touchdowns against a single interception over that time while completing 62% of his passes against tougher defenses than the one he’ll see on Saturday.

Arkansas State has struggled to stop the passing game so far this season, giving up 260.7 yards per game in the air. The Red Wolves haven’t been dynamic on offense either, scoring just 22 points per game against FBS competition. I expect Wolff to put up big numbers in this matchup and help Old Dominion cover the 4.5-point spread. 

Rice vs. Houston Over 51.5 (-110)

The Houston Cougars will look to extend a six-game winning streak in the Bayou Bucket rivalry when they host the Rice Owls on Saturday. The Owls are off to a promising 2-1 start after suffering a 66-14 loss to the USC Trojans in their opening game. Losses to the Texas Tech Red Raiders and the Kansas Jayhawks have dropped Houston to a surprising 1-2 record early in the year, though the Cougars remain one of the top teams in the AAC. 

These two teams have both proven they can put up points this season. Rice has averaged 33 points per game, and the offense has improved dramatically since T.J. McMahon took over for the struggling Wiley Green at quarterback during the USC game.  McMahon has thrown for seven touchdowns in his last two games, though the junior also threw three interceptions against UL Lafayette. 

Houston is also averaging over 32 points per game on the season, though two overtime games have aided that number. Even in last week’s loss to Kansas, the Cougars put up 30 points on 446 yards of total offense.

Not only can both teams score, but each ranks outside the Top 100 in terms of scoring defense as well. The total on this game opened at 57 and has come all the way down to 51.5. Yet neither team has played a single game this year that went Under that number. The public may be betting the total down, but I’m taking the Over here. 

Pages related to this topic