Washington vs. Oregon State: College Football Week 12 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: Washington vs. Oregon State.

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Top College Football Odds & Picks: Washington vs. Oregon State

Oregon State (-2) vs. Washington

ATL: OSU -2.5

Washington comes in 10-0. It is three wins away from writing a storybook ending to its final season in the Pac-12 and punching a Cinderella ticket into the CFP.

Oregon State, the jilted lover left behind amid the Pac-12's disbandment, is 8-2.*

But the Beavers, welcoming the Huskies to Corvallis this weekend, are closer qualitatively to Saturday's opponent than the standings would have you believe. Washington has 8.5 second-order wins, while OSU has 8.2.

In large part, this is because Washington has escaped scares the past two weeks against USC and Utah. The Huskies finished with postgame win expectancies of 55% or lower in each.

Washington hasn't beaten an opponent by more than 10 points since September 23. The Huskies have won their three road Pac-12 games - against Stanford, USC, Arizona - by an average of a mere 8.0 PPG (with the exact same postgame adjusted PPG margin).

Oregon State, meanwhile, has beaten every opponent it has played in Corvallis in 2023 by double-digits - that includes Utah and UCLA.

In addition, if you were to construct the perfect antidote to this Washington team, it would look a lot like this exact Oregon State roster.

The Beavers' defensive strength is its pass defense. The Beavers are top-10 efficient on offense while playing bottom-25 adjusted tempo. That means that OSU's explicit strategy is to dominate time of possession to keep the ball out of your offense's hands. That is going to drive UW HC Kalen DeBoer nuts on Saturday.

Washington is oh-so-very close to a Cinderella ending to its Pac-12 story. But as Max Baer said in the movie Cinderella Man before he, himself, was knocked out by a heavy underdog: "It’s no joke, pal. People die in fairy tales all the time."

The pick: Oregon State -2 (play to -2.5)

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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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