Colorado vs. Arizona State point spread: Picking Buffaloes vs. Sun Devils

Colorado has had the attention of the entire college football world, playing during some of the prime windows — no pun intended — over the first four weeks. This week, Deion Sanders and the Buffaloes will be on the Pac-12 Network with a 6:30 p.m. ET kickoff against Arizona State in an interesting matchup.

Colorado is a 4.5-point road favorite over Arizona State, according to FanDuel, as the Buffs look to bounce back from last week’s loss to USC. They’ll go up against a Sun Devils team that has some question marks and has played multiple quarterbacks to start the year.

That uncertainty, according to SiriusXM’s Geoff Schwartz, is why it’s hard to pick against the spread, especially against Colorado’s defense.

“They’ve had such turnover at quarterback. With all the injuries they’ve had, they started Jaden Rashada, and then Drew Pyne played, then Trenton Bourguet started last weekend,” Schwartz told Andy Staples on Andy Staples On3. “But Kenny Dillingham has taken over the offense the last two weeks and it’s been much better. It’s been much, much better — 20 against USC, 21 in a loss to Cal last weekend.

“Colorado’s defense is just not good. But I don’t trust Arizona State to just play well on offense. I kind of just don’t yet, Andy. … They just don’t have a lot of playmakers on offense side of the ball. But lowkey, they’ve been pretty good on defense for kind of what we thought they were going to be this year. They’re not a great defense, but they’re okay. They’re better than we thought.”

Add in Colorado’s move out of the spotlight for this week, along with high temperatures, and Schwartz said it’s worth wondering how the Buffaloes will look to start against Arizona State. That’s why he’s not planning to play the spread.

“This is a big come-down for Colorado,” Schwartz said. “You go from playing basically, five straight weeks in prime time with … every week, you had some sort of pregame show there. You had GameDay or Big Noon Kickoff. Now, you’re going on the road? You’re playing a 3:30 kickoff in Arizona … It’s going to be a little bit warm. It’s going be a bring-your-own energy type of game.

“I’m staying away, I’m not wagering on this game. I’m just kind of staying away from this game. But there’s a lot of things I’m very curious to see about both these teams when they play each other on Saturday.”

Staples, however, thinks Colorado will be able to win by more than the 4.5 points the Buffaloes are giving. It also adds to the impressive start to the season for Sanders’ group considering how low the preseason win total was.

“I think Colorado is gonna go in there and cover,” Staples said. “And what I’m interested in, is seeing these next few weeks for Colorado because if they just handle business and they come out of this stretch with five wins. I mean, if you’d have told me before the season started they would have five wins on the season, I would say that’s a great year for them. 5-2? That’s a really great year for them.”

The post Colorado vs. Arizona State point spread: Picking Buffaloes vs. Sun Devils appeared first on On3.