Is 4.5 the Right O/U for Colorado Wins This Year?

Colorado won five games last year, and didn't get worse

Gambling odds are designed to attract an even number of bets on each side, so  it wouldn't be correct to say that "Vegas" is "predicting" that Colorado will win "4.5 games" this year. 

That said, these people are pretty good at this stuff. And despite my series on why Colorado will win the Pac-12 championship this year, 4.5 is a deeply irritating number for this. On the one hand, it seems low, given that CU has some star power on offense and won five games last year. On the other ... CU won just five games last year (the o/u last year, by the way, was four). 

So this actually sounds like it's about right, but what about a closer look?

To start with, the Buffaloes play Colorado State, which was an easy win last year, and should be this year, and should be every year. So that's one. Then comes Nebraska. Again, this should be a win, as it was last year, especially considering the game is in Boulder. So that's 2-0. 

Now we're on to Air Force, which went 5-7 last year (3-5 in the Mountain West), with losses to Florida Atlantic and Army, and one of the five wins coming over FCS Stony Brook. So I'm giving CU this one too. 

3-0. 

Now we're looking for 1.5 more wins, and it's getting tougher. 

CU is on the road three of the first four weeks of Pac-12 play, but the good news is the home game is against Arizona. It helps that Arizona is coached by Kevin Sumlin, and that they were pretty bad on the road last year, losing games by 27, 32 and 41 points. However, the Wildcats are actually decent. Athlon has them No. 46 in the country, which puts Arizona squarely into the realm of a team capable of beating or losing to anybody. 

So I'm calling this a half win for CU. 

Now for the one win that will make this a push and give Colorado a 4.5-6.5 record, shattering the time-space continuum and severely confusing Stephen A. Smith. 

Unfortunately, CU doesn't play Oregon State this year. But it does get the next best thing.

UCLA. 

The game is in the Rose Bowl, so that doesn't help. But Colorado spanked the Bruins 38-16 last year and should have the advantage again. 

So that gets us to 4.5 without accounting for home games against Stanford, Washington and USC. No easy games in there, but ... that USC game is a night game on ESPN2. With a juiced crowd and an average USC team coming in, Colorado will have about as good a chance to beat USC as it's likely to ever get. 

So we're going to set the o/u in these parts at 5.5 and take it to the bank.