It’s the perfect time to dip our toes into the water with college football.

None of the major sports are on TV, which means 90 percent of your friend group is already through their first three seasons of the new NCAA college football game.

Only one of the three local teams (Penn State, Rutgers and Temple) will be good in 2024, and there’s strong case to be made they are the only watchable program of the trio too.

But we certainly do not discriminate against bad teams in the betting space because money can be made anywhere, so here’s a look at where the Nittany Lions, Scarlet Knights and Owls stand.

Penn State 

Win Total: Over/Under 10.5


Penn State is finally in a college football landscape where being the third-best team in the Big Ten is good enough. That will get the Nittany Lions into the expanded 12-team playoff.

A not-so-daunting schedule is in front of James Franklin’s team in 2024.

The Nittany Lions only have five true road games and truthfully only three of them will be somewhat difficult against West Virginia, USC, and Wisconsin.

The West Virginia road trip is sneakily tough because it happens in Week 1. There’s always a few uncontrollable variables in play for the opener.

But by all accounts the Penn State offense should be even better than last season. Drew Allar is expected to take another step at quarterback, Kaytron Allen and Nicholas Singleton are back at running back and the new top wide receiver is Ohio State transfer Julian Fleming.

The Nittany Lions also brought in a new offensive coordinator, Andy Kotelnicki, who helped revive Kansas’ program in recent years.

Defense typically isn’t an issue for the Nittany Lions, which is why they have gained a reputation of beating 95 percent of the teams beneath them in the standings for most of the James Franklin era. Beating the top teams is where Franklin mightily struggles.

Ohio State at home on November 2nd and USC on the road on October 12th will be Penn State’s two toughest games. Michigan is not on the schedule in 2024, which is unfortunate because the Nittany Lions likely would’ve beaten the depleted reigning national champion. Washington comes to Happy Valley on November 9th, but the Huskies are not projected to be anywhere close to their runner-up level of 2023.

So the easy approach to Penn State’s win total is that they have to beat one of USC or Ohio State and maintain the normal level against everyone else, but 10.5 also presents the most slender of margins of error. 10-2 should be enough to get Penn State into the playoff, so it might be better to drink the juice at -140 and bet Penn State to make the playoff instead of taking the over 10.5 at plus money.

You could also double down on the win total and playoff future at PA sports betting apps if you’re that high on Penn State because 11-1 guarantees you a spot in the playoff no matter which conference you play in.

Rutgers

Win Total Over/Under 6.5

Greg Schiano hasn’t exactly brought Rutgers back to the promised land.

The Scarlet Knights won seven games last season after three straight sub-.500 years under the second-time Rutgers coach.

They’ll likely land somewhere in the wide-open middle of the Big Ten. Fortunately, Rutgers does not have to play Michigan, Penn State, or Ohio State. I’d argue they should play Penn State every year for geographical reasons, but no one at Penn State considers Rutgers anything remotely close to a rival.

Rutgers has one of the more difficult road schedules. The September non-conference trip to Virginia Tech is tough. The Hokies will be a very popular preseason darkhorse pick in the ACC.

Rutgers then visits Nebraska, USC, Maryland, and Michigan State in Big Ten play. I can only confidently say the Scarlet Knights will be better than Michigan State. So let’s assume a 1-4 road record.

That would mean Rutgers can only lose once at home for the win total over to hit. The deciding factors in that will be the early Big Ten home contests with Washington and Wisconsin. If wins come in both games, Rutgers should beat UCLA, Minnesota, and Illinois at home.

But a lot of those results should be toss ups, especially at the start, when Rutgers tries to find what it has in Minnesota transfer Athan Kaliakmanis at quarterback. He had a 53.1 completion percentage, 14 touchdowns, and nine interceptions last season. Not exactly inspiring numbers when looking at these totals on NJ sports betting apps.

Temple 

Win Total Over/Under: 2.5

Temple just needs to win three games to hit the over.

Laugh all you want, but the Owls achieved that feat last season under Stan Drayton.

Like Rutgers, Temple has to figure out its quarterback situation with new transfers after E.J. Warner moved on to Rice. Warner was decent enough to keep the Owls in some games last season. I’m not sure you can say that in 2024.

Temple runs an early-season gauntlet with road trips to Oklahoma and Navy and home games against perennial Group of Five powers Coastal Carolina and Utah State. After that, there’s another meeting with the triple option against Army.

There are only three American Athletic Conference home games after October 5th and only the trip to East Carolina on October 26th is winnable on paper away from home.

The Owls could always surprise people if the quarterback play figures itself out, but even as the house degenerate at Crossing Broad, I wouldn’t suggest betting on any aspect of Temple football.