The Western Michigan Broncos head to Iowa City for a matchup with the Iowa Hawkeyes, who the books expect to do some serious scoring on Saturday. I don’t know if I agree. Every week, I’ll post my top college football picks by Monday and provide an update before each game — you can check out all of my college football Week 3 picks here. Let’s dig into today’s Western Michigan-Iowa odds as we make our predictions and pick the best college football Week 3 bet!
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Western Michigan-Iowa Pick & Betting Prediction | College Football Week 3
Western Michigan-Iowa Betting Odds
Odds via FanDuel Sportsbook
Western Michigan: +1600 | Iowa: -4500
Western Michigan +28.5: -110 | Iowa -28.5: -110
Over 42.5: -110 | Under 42.5: -110
Expert: Isaiah Sirois
Western Michigan-Iowa Pick & Prediction
The Western Michigan Broncos will have to line up against the No. 25 Iowa Hawkeyes on the road this weekend, and they’re 28.5-point underdogs for the matchup. This raises an obvious question: Can Iowa actually score 29 points? Even in the absolute best-case scenario in which the defense stifles Western Michigan for zero points, Iowa’s offense would have to put together five scoring drives (or score at least one two-point conversion) to cover this spread — assuming, of course, that the defense doesn’t chip in with a score of its own.
This spread is stunningly wide for an Iowa team that routinely fails to deliver on offense. The Hawkeyes dropped only 24 on Utah State and 20 on Iowa State with new quarterback Cade McNamara at the helm. The Hawkeyes cleared the 29-point threshold just once all last season, doing so at home against Northwestern, but they only won that game by 20 points. Offensive coordinator Brian Ferentz last led Iowa to a win of at least 29 points in a 2021 throttling of Maryland that featured six interceptions.
In Iowa’s defense, Western Michigan is not a good football team this year — but Iowa isn’t 28.5 points better than them. In Week 0, the Broncos took care of business against FCS St. Francis, totaling 509 yards on 5.5 yards per play in a 17-point win. They then imploded against Syracuse in Week 2, racking up 318 yards on 4.4 yards per play in a 41-point loss. Western Michigan coughed up 6.5 yards per play to Syracuse, which isn’t horrendous, but it is worse than the 5.5 they allowed last year. Meanwhile, Iowa’s offense is averaging 4.3 yards per play this year after averaging 4.2 last year.
Iowa is getting way too much credit at this number. The Hawkeyes will likely need at least one defensive score to cover this spread, which, while not impossible, isn’t something you can trust to happen. Western Michigan doesn’t have much exciting talent on the offensive end, but running back Jalen Buckley has flashed some explosiveness early, and any points that the Broncos can put on the board will make Iowa’s job that much harder. The Hawkeyes couldn’t even prevent a rebuilding Utah State team from scoring 14 in Week 1 or a suspension-ridden Iowa State team from scoring 13 in Week 2.
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The spread for this game hasn’t budged since the early week column went up, so you can still buy the 28.5 across the market. Pregame reports that 59% of the tickets but only 49% of the cash are on the Broncos, suggesting they’re the public team, but sharps who expect Iowa to cover are forgetting that all of McNamara’s contributions run through Brian Ferentz, who has routinely demonstrated his shortcomings as an offensive mind. The Hawkeyes have gone 2-4 against the spread as a home favorite since last year, and I don’t expect them to buck that trend with the books expecting so many points from them.
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Western Michigan-Iowa Week 3 Pick: Western Michigan +28.5 DraftKings
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