Here we go with our best college football props for Week 0 of the NCAAF season, which starts on Saturday, Aug. 24.
Our Props.com analysts were asked to list their top three NCAAF picks for the weekend. This will be the start of an article series you can check back for every week for all of our best player picks.
We sifted through all of the top plays for today’s slate to find the best college football picks for Week 0 at our top DFS sites.
Best College Football Props: Week 0
These best college football player props were compiled earlier in the week, so there’s a chance the lines have shifted since publishing this article.
Roydell Williams More Than 67.5 Rushing Yards
Our first prop of this small Week 0 slate will be an over on Florida State’s brand new RB1, Roydell Williams. He is transferring in from Alabama and should provide the Noles with an instant impact player in the backfield. He looks to be sharing backfield duties with Lawrance Toafili, a 5th-year senior, but if the Noles coaching staff were that crazy about him, Williams would have never been brought in. He’s the new RB1 in Tallahassee.
Florida State takes on Georgia Tech tomorrow in Ireland. This Georgia Tech defense returns eight starters, but they were BAD last year. They should be better now after bringing in a DE transfer from Auburn and a CB from Tennessee, but the rest are returning. Georgia Tech gave up an average of 221 rushing yards per game last year. That is not a typo… 221 yards per game. Although this defense returns many starters, that doesn’t mean they will be miraculously better this year.
Now flip to this Florida State offense. They bring in a brand new quarterback, DJ Uiagalelei, who has been a big letdown so far in his college career. I wouldn’t be surprised if he struggled a bit out of the gate, even though he will be supported by an excellent offensive line, which we’ll get into shortly.
The Seminole O-line returns three starters in Darius Washington, Maurice Smith, and Jeremiah Byers. They also have five rotational guys from a year ago all with multiple starts/appearances for this FSU team. This O-Line unit is big and has a lot of experience. Last year they had a bunch of injury issues, and could not stay healthy across the board. Once again, on paper, this FSU O-line looks extremely talented and there is no worry about injury issues this early in the year.
They averaged 157 rushing yards per game last year (excluding the Georgia game) and look to be a lot better this year. As a 10.5-point favorite tomorrow, I expect FSU to be ahead, which will allow them to lean on these guys early and often. I like Williams to have about 15-20 carries and cruise over this line for us against a very sub-par Georgia Tech run defense.
Pick: Roydell Williams More Than 67.5 Rushing Yards | PrizePicks
Haynes King More Than 16.5 Yards Longest Rush
Our second favorite spot of the week is Haynes King to break out for a big run against this Florida State defense. Although on paper this FSU defense is extraordinary, after breaking it down, they were not that great against the run last season. Opposing teams averaged 135 rushing yards per game (excluding Georgia who ran for 372 yards).
In terms of opposing QBs, they allowed Jayden Daniels (LSU), Thomas Castellanos (BC), Cade Klubnik (Clem), and Kyron Drones (VT) to all break out for a long run against them (20+ yarder). Although the list is short, there were not many other dual-threat ACC quarterbacks last year.
On the other side, King cleared this line in 6 of his 13 games last season. He’s extremely mobile and will have some opportunities to break free tomorrow. Designed runs will be in the playbook along with broken play scrambles, which is where he’ll most likely break one.
He averaged 9.23 “attempts” per game a year ago, a number that includes sacks. However, this Georgia Tech O-line ranked 17th in the country allowing sacks, just 1.3 per game in 2023. So in reality, King actually carries the ball about 8 times per game. In games where King has over 42.5 rushing yards (his current line), he has cleared this number in six of those seven games last season. The rushing yard line (42.5) is also a good look, however, I do like the longest rush over 16.5 to save us from sacks (which count as negative in college).
Pick: Haynes King More Than 16.5 Yards Longest Rush | Sleeper
Preston Stone More Than 230.5 Passing Yards
Our last best prop of Week 0 College Football is the gunslinger from one of the newly acquired ACC teams, the SMU Mustangs. We’re going to Preston Stone to eclipse 230 passing yards in his first game of the season against Nevada.
Nevada gave up an average of 254 passing yards per game last year in an extremely weak Mountain West, and allowed this number in 8 of their 12 games. The best offense they played last year was USC and Kansas. Caleb Williams threw for 450 yards and Jalon Daniels threw for 298 yards. After that, they allowed some pretty bad teams to throw all over them: Idaho, Texas State, Fresno State, UNLV, and New Mexico all threw for over 250 yards.
Stone cleared this line in 10 of his 12 starts a year ago. Also, in games that SMU won by 14+, he cleared this line in seven of those eight matchups. This is relevant because SMU is a 27-point favorite tomorrow, and some suggest they will be up big and just start running the ball. Clearly, this isn’t how Rhett Lashlee treats blowouts. They will air this thing out all night against this brutal Nevada defense. I think SMU will score around 50 points tomorrow night and that Stone will be a huge contributor to the blowout win.
Pick: Preston Stone More Than 230.5 Passing Yards | Sleeper
Author: Kyle Krogstad