College football lookahead is the essential grab bag of numbers, trends, reads and concepts each Monday throughout the season.
In Week 7, we put the losers of last week's marquee games under the microscope of handicapping best practices, and we shout-out an offensive coordinator who suddenly has the personnel to relive his innovative glory days and a head coach whose longtime line-crossing behavior is finally alienating people in his own house.
All lines and totals from Circa Sportsbook as of Sunday.
Openers
First impressions from the schedule and opening lines.
A season-high four games pit ranked teams this week, though the oddsmakers aren't impressed by the pollsters' definition of a marquee game, hanging double-digit prices on three of them. Week 7 also sees the return of Wednesday night football and Virginia Tech plays the slate's only added game versus an FCS foe.
Colorado State Rams (-4) at New Mexico Lobos
8 p.m. ET Friday (CBSSN)
The Rams have won nine straight in this series and covered five of the past six, but the past two meetings have been decided by two and three points, respectively. A graphic posted during last week's New Mexico-San Jose State telecast reminded viewers that the Lobos haven't had a quarterback make more than four consecutive starts in the past 25 games (and have sported six starters under center in that span), but the Rams have quarterback issues as well and have dropped four straight since losing Colin Hill for the season at Arkansas in Week 3.
