Ole Miss vs. Alabama: College Football Week 4 Odds & Picks (2023)

Gear up for another awesome weekend of college football action with BettingPros! We’ll have you covered with all of our top picks for the week along with our projected spreads and totals to help guide your college football bets. Below are our top picks and predictions for Saturday’s game: Ole Miss vs. Alabama.

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Top College Football Odds & Picks: Ole Miss vs. Alabama

We promised over the summer that we'd be fading Alabama early and often. That continues this week.

This is a deeply-flawed Crimson Tide team. Offensively, the Tide rank No. 75 in success rate and No. 84 in explosion. The running attack is decent, especially when QB Jalen Milroe plays. But the passing game is bad - No. 112 in success rate, No. 58 in explosion.

Milroe helps masks Alababama's mediocre offensive line when he's in, and he gives an obvious boost to the run game while opening up the possibility for deep shots (he has a strong arm). But Milroe's lack of accuracy and slow field-processing in the pocket neuter Alabama's ability to stay on schedule through the air. Which in turn makes their play-calling far more predictable.

Defensively, Alabama's run defense takes away explosive ground gains and hinders opponent's passing efficiency. But you can nick the Tide all day with short ground gains, and they're susceptible to allowing explosive passes.

Ole Miss RB Quinshon Judkins is going to chip away at that down Alabama front-seven all game - the Rebels rank No. 28 in rushing success rate and No. 14 in power success rate. And when Alabama cheats to try to slow Judkins, they're going to leave themselves susceptible on the back-end to big plays in the passing game. Ole Miss - behind an improved QB Jaxson Dart - ranks No. 5 in passing explosion.

Nick Saban is 28-2 SU against his former assistants, a stat you may known from memory. But both of those losses have come since October 2021. And this is his worst team in years.

This is Lane Kiffin's best chance to break through to beat his mentor after getting oh-so-close last year in squandering a 24-17 mid-3Q lead in an eventual 30-24 defeat.

We think Kiffin gets that done and the Rebels knock off the Tide this weekend in Tuscaloosa. So we've also got a moneyline ticket.

The pick: Ole Miss +6.5 (play to +3.5)

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Best Ways to Bet College Football for Beginners

Game Total

Bettors new to the hobby can be confused by spreads, but game totals are simple. Every football game has a total posted for the combined final score between the two teams. Bettors have the option to choose the OVER or UNDER, generally at -110 odds (risk: $110; win: $100). So if the total is 42 and you take the OVER, you need 43 points to win the bet. If you put a bet down on the over to win $100 and it goes over, you get back the money you initially risked, plus $100. If it stayed under, you would have lost your $110 and that's it. If by chance the game ended with 42 total points, it's called a push; when a game pushes, you get the money you risked back but nothing more.

ie: California vs. Illinois, Over 42 or Under 42

tip: Over bets can be a really fun social event with your buddies. Have everyone throw in a few bucks, then take the over together. Instead of getting pumped when one side scores, everyone is pumped for ANY score, all game.

Moneyline

The moneyline is the easiest way to test your college football knowledge: who will win the game? That's it. The moneyline doesn't use favorites or underdogs, it's totally straight up. That said, the risk-reward can be challenging because they're weighted. Instead of every game being around -110, like game totals and spreads, moneylines vary depending on the matchup.

For our example, California was favored by seven points over Illinois, meaning oddsmakers think the Golden Bears are a touchdown better than the Fighting Illini. If you took Cal on the moneyline, points don't matter, they just need to win the game. But because it's safer to take them straight-up without points, you'll have to risk more when you make the bet - remember, they're seven points better than Illinois in the eyes of the oddsmakers. In this case, Cal is -280 on the moneyline, so if you want to win $100, you have to risk $280. On the flip side, moneyline bets can be valuable when taking the underdog because it's a riskier bet - they're seven points worse than their opponent. In this case, Illinois is the underdog - +220 on the moneyline. You'd win $220 on a $100 bet if you picked Illinois on the moneyline and they pulled off the upset.

ie: California (ML -280) vs. Illinois (ML +220)

tip: Check their history against one another. Keep an eye on the injury report and the weather.

Player Props

Player props are some of the most exhilarating bets you can place during a college football game, but they're also easy to understand. For major conferences, you'll have a wide array of options to choose from. Quarterbacks, running backs, receivers, and sometimes tight ends will have props to choose from. It's simple, fun and easy to follow, and odds on player props don't vary as much as moneylines. Generally, prop bets are in the -110 range like generic spread and total bets.

ie: How many passing yards will Brandon Peters have against California?  Over 250 or Under 250 

tip: Check how players have performed in the situation they're going to be in. Use split stats on any reliable site to see their numbers at home, on a neutral-site, in December, etc.

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