Best Big 12 Football Bets for Week 6

Posted on October 4, 2023

Welcome to October! Let’s get to it after a pretty frustrating Week 5 with the biggest game of the Big 12 season to kick things off.

No. 12 Oklahoma vs. No. 3 Texas

Saturday, October 7th at Noon ET

Texas -6.5, Total: 60.5 (Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook)

The Game of the Year in the Big 12. The Red River Rivalry descends onto the Texas State Fair in Dallas as both Oklahoma and Texas are undefeated and both teams look legitimately like Top 10 teams in the country. Oklahoma pummeled Iowa State 50-20 last week after the Sooners defense had a slow start in Norman. It was very impressive for OU to just take it to a worse team in such a massive look-ahead spot. The Oklahoma defense looks like a Venables defense through the first five weeks and Dillon Gabriel has been excellent as well.

On the Texas side of things, to me, the Longhorns have been the best team in the country through the first month of the season. They have the best win (at Alabama), and they have handled everything in their path with flying colors. It was a strange game last week against Kansas, but Texas handled their business and won comfortably over the Jalon Daniels-less Jayhawks. Quinn Ewers is currently the third-favorite for the Heisman Trophy at DraftKings, and if he plays great in this game I wouldn’t be shocked for him to climb to the second-favorite.

Alright, now to the pick for this game. Even with the strides that have been made in Norman this year, Oklahoma is not on the level of this Texas team. I expect the Longhorns to be able to move the ball against the stout Sooner defense and I think OU will struggle to block the Texas front. I like the Longhorns to win and cover the 6.5 points as Texas will take a tight hold on the Big 12 regular season title.

PICK: TEXAS -6.5

UCF at Kansas

Saturday, October 7th at 4:00 pm ET

Kansas -2.5, Total: 65 (Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook)

What an absolute disaster for UCF last week in their Big 12 home opener. The Knights somehow blew a 28-point lead to a mediocre Baylor team and lost 36-35. Timmy McClain has been good since the injury to John Rhys Plumlee, Plumlee is expected back at practice this week but it is still uncertain if he will play or not. The UCF defense needs to be better, especially late in games, regardless of who is at QB for KU, it will not be easy this week for the Knights.

Kansas lost to Texas last week as the Jayhawks were without Jalon Daniels who re-aggravated his back injury in pregame warmups. Jason Bean did not play well against Texas but it was an absolutely brutal position for him to have been thrust into. We don’t know yet who will play even though Daniels missed practice on Tuesday but if it is Bean at QB, I expect him to be better prepared for a UCF defense that is not near the quality of the Texas defense. I like a KU bounce-back this week. They win and cover against UCF to move to 5-1 on the year.

PICK: KANSAS -2.5

Texas Tech at Baylor

Saturday, October 7th at 8:00 pm ET

Texas Tech -1, Total: 59 (Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook)

The Red Raiders won their first game without Tyler Shough as they handled Houston 49-28 a week ago. Texas Tech’s coaching staff completely out-adjusted Dana Holgorsen at halftime as the Tech defense shut out the Cougars after Houston did whatever they wanted on offense in the first half. Behren Morton was solid in his first start of the season but it was the running backs that won the game for the Red Raiders.

On the Baylor side of things, the Bears pulled off the absolute miracle in Orlando last week as they came back from 28 down to upset UCF 36-35. Blake Shapen struggled early in his first start back from a knee injury but got better as the game went along. The Baylor defense still had all sorts of issues as UCF moved the ball at will until they went into the prevent offense too early. I’m not sure if the Bears have the pieces on defense to slow down the better offenses in the Big 12 but thankfully for them this week, Texas Tech isn’t one of them. I like Baylor to win their second straight game and cover the +1 in Waco.