Why you should take Utah in the college football opener against Florida. The Gators have turnover and don’t feel like a team that can travel competitively. 

Utah Should Beat Florida In Their College Football Opener

The Utah Utes are currently favored over Florida by 4.5 in their opener against the Florida Gators on August 31st. This feels like a safe bet to me, as Florida is starting a new quarterback and has exposed serious talent flaws on their roster over the last couple of years. Utah is also a ranked opponent while Florida is nowhere close, giving them a serious opportunity to start their season off the right way.

Cameron Rising is entering his third year as the starter for Utah and was very productive last year, while the Gators are moving off NFL fourth overall pick Anthony Richardson onto Graham Mertz, who was outcasted from Wisconsin for subpar play despite decent support. Florida is also known for having talented weapons, but it will take a few weeks for them to build real chemistry with their quarterback. 

The Home Edge

Utah is the home team in this game, giving them an edge as is the case in almost every sport. Especially in college football, where fans will be riled up to see their team open up what should be a promising year, tensions will be high and the home team will be more comfortable.

There is plenty of reason to believe this will be an easy win. These two teams faced each other last year in the opener, and despite Utah having the more talented team, Florida squeaked out a close win at home. With the roles reversed, I expect Utah to get the home boost with the talent advantage again. 

Different Phases

These are also two teams in different stages of their development as rosters. Utah is riding a high with more talent than they are historically used to having. Meanwhile, Florida is starting a new quarterback and just had a great recruiting class, meaning they are probably a few years away from doing anything serious.

Their head coach, Billy Napier, is also fairly new, and has had issues implementing his system in recent years with big mistakes made by the team on both sides of the ball. Meanwhile, Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham has held the position since 2005, and has his system established to succeed early. Utah needs this win, while Florida has lower expectations and a way looser schedule after this week, with games such as Charlotte and McNeese State coming up. 

All of these factors point to a comfortable Utah win, and although Florida may have their moments, it should be a safe bet that Utah wins by 5 points or more. The game should be lower scoring as offenses sometimes take longer to gel than defenses, and there is more turnover on that side of the ball.

Either way, it should be a fun game and a great start to college football betting season, with a safer pick than normal to really get you started.