Week 10 College Football Opening Odds and Spreads

• Opening lines for Week 10 of college football have been released.
• The Pac-12 begins its season this week with six games on the schedule, while Clemson plays another week without Trevor Lawrence.
• A complete look at all games involving Power Five and ranked teams is listed below.

Say what you will about college football this season, but one thing that has made it more interesting has been the gradual infusion of Power Five conferences over the last few weeks.

In Week 10, the Pac-12 enters the fray, and even though the lines for its opening schedule have been out since last week, there are still some things to keep an eye on. No. 14 Oregon opens up at home against Stanford and the conference’s only other ranked team, No. 21 USC, gets things started in The Coliseum against Arizona State.

The College Football odds for all the games feature a few marquee matchups this weekend, and your first look at the opening lines for all are listed below.

Week 10 College Football Opening Lines

Odds taken from FanDuel on Nov. 1

Concern for Oregon

Betting the first weekend of play for a conference has been a dicey proposition. The majority of favorites won outright but didn’t do well to cover when the SEC began play in Week 4, and in the Big Ten’s first week of play, favorites only won and covered in four of the seven games played.

The Ducks are the Pac-12’s highest-ranked team and were 11.5-point favorites when the lines were released for the rest of college football on Sunday. However, this isn’t the Oregon team everyone remembers from last season.

Quarterback Justin Herbert is off to the NFL, and as of Saturday, head coach Mario Cristobal still hadn’t named a starter for the opener. Making matters worse for either Tyler Shough or Anthony Brown, is the Ducks have had a lot of turnover on their offensive line. Most notably, offensive tackle Penei Sewell — flagged as a first-rounder — has opted out of this season.

Nobody has been more impactful on the Oregon defense than Brady Breeze tonight. Laying wood. pic.twitter.com/64xdYMSzFg

— Bobby Football (@Rob__Paul) December 7, 2019

Opt-outs have hurt Oregon on the defensive side of the ball as well, particularly in the secondary. Rose Bowl MVP Brady Breeze is out at safety, as are starting DB’s Thomas Graham and Jevon Holland.

That could be a bad mix against Stanford senior quarterback Davis Mills, who completed 65-percent of his passes for nearly 2,000 yards, 11 touchdowns and just five interceptions in eight games last year. Oregon was a bottom-third defense nationally in quarterback pressure last year, and losing a lot of coverage ability due to opt-outs makes this a tasty scenario for Mills.

Lawrence-less Clemson takes on Notre Dame

One of the biggest storylines coming out of last Saturday was Clemson’s come-from-behind win against Boston College without star QB Trevor Lawrence. After the game, Tigers head coach Dabo Swinney confirmed that Lawrence will also be unavailable this week against the Irish.

Somehow, the Golden Eagles jumped out to a 28-10 lead before halftime on Saturday, but Clemson clawed its way back in front by the beginning of the fourth quarter to hold on to win, 34-28. True freshman D.J. Uiagalelei took the snaps for the Tigers, and had an impressive showing. He completed 73-percent of his passes for 342 yards and two touchdowns.

D.J. Uiagalelei keeps it himself to make it a one score game! pic.twitter.com/g0FayQc3p7

— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) October 31, 2020

Meanwhile, Notre Dame failed to cover on Saturday for the fourth time in six games this season against Georgia Tech. Head coach Brian Kelly caught some flack on for attempting to score on Notre Dame’s final drive, but the Irish had the ball on Tech’s 21-yard line with two minutes to play and showed little interest in doing so. A field goal was all that was needed to cover the 20.5-point spread, but ND was content to just run the ball up the middle and roll clock.

Notre Dame left Atlanta with an 18-point win against a team Clemson beat 73-7. The stakes are high at home for the Irish, however, whose only College Football Playoff appearance came in the 2018-19 season. The likelihood that these two teams meet again in the conference championship game on December 19 is high, but their uneven results on Saturday have kept books from posting a line yet. Either way, Notre Dame is going to feel pressure to capitalize on a shot at Clemson without Lawrence.

Can Florida State rebound vs. Pitt?

Pitt head coach Pat Narduzzi speculated last weekend that it would ‘be a stretch’ to expect quarterback Kenny Pickett to return to action this week against the Seminoles. Redshirt freshman quarterback Joey Yellen has stepped in for the Panthers in their last two games after Pickett injured his ankle against BC. Pitt lost each of those games outright and failed to cover, meanwhile, FSU has gone 2-1 against the spread in its last three games.

The Seminoles have improved since making the move to Jordan Travis at quarterback and are a narrow half-point favorite against the Panthers, but they didn’t show up in their last game against Louisville. Travis has struggled a bit in his last two outings, but has at least has found some success as a runner. Pitt’s defense has done well to keep mobile quarterbacks in check this season, and that could be trouble for Travis, who has completed less than 55-percent of his passes in each of FSU’s last three games.