Week 2 College Football Predictions

The second week of the college football season has one blockbuster game, a handful of big rivalries getting their 2024 renewals, and a few Group of Five darlings trying for splashy upsets.

(Boise State’s trip to Oregon to face the Ducks got extra interesting when Oregon struggled to put away Idaho in Week 1.)

Here’s a look at who Opta Analyst’s TRACR model sees as the best bets in the biggest college football Week 2 contests. TRACR (Team Rating Adjusted for Conference and Roster) is a net efficiency metric that evaluates how well a team performs based on who it plays.

The model is based on an EPA (expected points added) calculation weighed by who teams play. A team with a TRACR of 0.0 is considered an average team in the FBS. So if TCU is at 14.0 and Indiana is at 0.0, then TRACR projects the likeliest outcome on a neutral field to be TCU over Indiana by 14 points.

Right now, the FBS ranges from Georgia (26.5 TRACR) at the top to Conference USA’s Kennesaw State (minus-21.9) at the bottom. (This week’s games are all much closer than that.)

No. 3 (TRACR) Texas at No. 16 Michigan, 12 p.m. ET Saturday, FOX

Davis Warren is Michigan’s quarterback, at least for now. Warren beat out last year’s top backup, Alex Orji, in the race to succeed JJ McCarthy behind center. Early returns weren’t great. Warren averaged 4.7 yards per throw and coughed up an interception in his debut, and he frequently was a bit off on his throws or firing the ball short of the first-down marker on passing downs.

That wasn’t a problem against Fresno State, but we’ll learn against the Longhorns if the Wolverines were just keeping plays off film or if Warren really is that limited. Warren’s 75.0% well-thrown rate and 8.1-yard average target depth were well below the average for Big Ten QBs in Week 1. There’s no hiding against fellow College Football Playoff hopeful Texas, so Warren will either elevate his level of play or the Wolverines will lose for the first time in nearly two years. 

Texas has no QB uncertainty despite Arch Manning sitting right there behind Quinn Ewers. But the Longhorns are still trying to sort out exactly how they’ll hold up in the defensive trenches after losing the best defensive tackle duo of 2023, Byron Murphy and T’Vondre Sweat, to the NFL.

In a Week 1 rout of Colorado State, Texas gave the most tackle snaps to fifth-year program veterans Alfred Collins (whom we’ve thought of as a breakout candidate) and Vernon Broughton. They’ll be the main men trying to make life hard on new Michigan center Dominick Giudice and the rest of a remade Wolverine offensive line.  

If the Wolverines can pull an upset as 7.5-point home underdogs, it’ll likely be down to their elite defense. That unit held Fresno State to 10 points and got back seven itself on a Will Johnson interception return for a touchdown late in the fourth quarter. Michigan, who hosts Arkansas State in Week 3, ranks fifth in defensive TRACR, compared to 30th on offense. 

TRACR’s Win Probability: Texas 69.7%

No. 54 Iowa State at No. 38 Iowa, 3:30 p.m. ET Saturday, CBS

In the first half of the opener against FCS Illinois State, the Iowa offense gained 4 yards per play and totaled six points. At halftime, something changed, and the Hawkeyes managed what counts for them as an explosion of offense under new coordinator Tim Lester: 10 yards per play and 34 points after the break.

Even against an overmatched opponent, it was an encouraging run of play for the program that’s had the single ugliest, least productive offense in the power conferences over the past few seasons. 

How much of that was real? We might get a sense against the Hawkeyes’ biggest rival, Iowa State out of the Big 12. The Cyclones project to have an average FBS defense, with a 0.6 TRACR entering Week 2. (Iowa is second in defensive TRACR at -8.7, only behind Georgia.) 

Meanwhile, the Iowa State offense has an enormous challenge on its hands. The ‘Clones haven’t scored more than 20 points at Kinnick Stadium since before the Iraq War (2002, to be specific) and have found themselves stymied by the Iowa defense in most of their recent meetings.

Two years ago, ISU won 10-7 in Iowa City, but that’s probably not a repeatable trick, with the Iowa offense looking a bit more competent now. The Cyclones will need someone to make a big play or two.

Quarterback Rocco Becht is coming off a promising true freshman season, and he’s got three receivers (Jaylin Noel, Eli Green and Jayden Higgins) who showed encouraging signs in a Week 1 win over FCS North Dakota. Higgins was the program’s best playmaker last season and put up a perfect 100% burn rate on his five targets in the opener. Now, all Higgins has to do is remain productive against one of college football’s two or three best defenses.  

TRACR’s Win Probability: Iowa 56.2%

No. 15 Tennessee vs. No. 32 NC State (Charlotte), 7:30 p.m. ET Saturday, ABC

Yeah, it was an FCS opponent. Yeah, it was Week 1. But every indication is that new Volunteers starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava has the goods.

The five-star redshirt freshman went over 300 yards and played a perfectly clean game against Chattanooga, nailing throw after throw with precise placement and timing. The ball explodes out of Iamaleava’s right hand, and he’s athletic enough that he should be able to do a good bit of business with his legs when FBS defenses give him a stiffer challenge. 

As bright as Iamaleava’s future is, it’s Tennessee’s running game that might pose the existential threat to ACC foe NC State on Saturday night. Led by veteran tailback Dylan Sampson, the Vols rank third in TRACR on the ground and figure to be extremely efficient on the ground as defenses worry about Iamaleava throwing the ball over their heads.

NC State, playing its first game without legendary inside linebacker Payton Wilson, found itself torched in the run game last week against its own FCS opponent, Western Carolina. The Catamounts ran for 6.3 yards per carry against the Wolfpack, a figure that included a 50-yard takeoff by quarterback Cole Gonzales.

The NC State rush defense also cratered at the end of last season, letting up between 6 and 8 yards per carry in each of the team’s final three games. Iamaleava deservedly will get the hype, but to have a chance, NC State needs to make sure Sampson doesn’t take yardage at will. 

When NC State has the ball, Tennessee’s biggest problem will be wideout Kevin Concepcion, who looks primed for an All-American season. The Wolfpack sophomore was a dominant force in the opener, almost singlehandedly saving the NC State offense and QB Grayson McCall on a night when lots went wrong. Concepcion posted an 84.6% burn rate against his overmatched FCS defenders and scored three touchdowns.

That was an enormous leap over a 52.4% burn rate in Concepcion’s freshman season. The Wolfpack use Concepcion mainly in the slot, where the nationwide burn rate last season was just 58.7% (he’s at 83.3% out of the slot so far this year). Getting open as often as he did last week from the middle of the formation is quite difficult, but Concepcion is a major talent and was due for a sophomore leap. He’ll be a handful for safety Boo Carter or whichever other defenders the Vols decide to put in the slot to guard him.

TRACR’s Win Probability: Iowa 56.2%

The Rest of TRACR’s College Football Picks

• TRACR No. 1 Georgia 99.5% (win probability) over FCS No. 52 Tennessee Tech
• No. 2 Alabama 91.8% over No. 71 South Florida
• No. 4 Oregon 84.8% over No. 55 Boise State
• No. 5 Penn State 92.0% over No. 93 Bowling Green
• No. 6 Ohio State 91.7% over No. 98 Western Michigan
• No. 7 Miami (FL) 98.7% over FCS No. 78 Florida A&M
• No. 8 Ole Miss 91.1% over No. 94 Middle Tennessee
• No. 9 Notre Dame 85.6% over No. 63 Northern Illinois
• No. 10 LSU 98.8% over FCS No. 24 Nicholls
• No. 11 Auburn 76.8% over No. 40 California
• No. 12 Kansas 85.4% over No. 69 Illinois
• No. 13 Texas A&M 98.5% over FCS No. 105 McNeese
• No. 14 Missouri 97.4% over No. 129 Buffalo
• No. 17 Oklahoma 80.3% over No. 66 Houston
• No. 18 Arizona 98.1% over FCS No. 43 Northern Arizona
• No. 19 USC 84.1% over No. 80 Utah State
• No. 20 Kansas State 71.3% over No. 44 Tulane
• No. 21 Louisville 88.4% over No. 102 Jacksonville State
• No. 22 Maryland 79.9% over No. 82 Michigan State
• No. 23 UCF 90.7% over No. 118 Sam Houston
• No. 24 Clemson 75.3% over No. 70 Appalachian State
• No. 25 SMU 76.9% over No. 78 BYU

AP Top 25 teams not ranked in the TRACR top 25: No. 11 Utah (vs. Baylor), No. 16 Oklahoma State (vs. Arkansas), No. 21 Iowa (vs. Iowa State), No. 23 Georgia Tech (at Syracuse)

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