The Arizona Wildcats and Oklahoma Sooners face off this Thursday in the 2023 Alamo Bowl, which will represent each program's final game in their current conference, and we have you covered with our Arizona vs. Oklahoma prediction for the Alamo Bowl based on the best college football odds.
After nearly three decades as a founding member of the Big 12, Oklahoma (10-2) is bound for the SEC and will play its last game for the longtime conference in the nearby Alamo Bowl in San Antonio. Arizona (9-3) will assume the Sooners' spot, entering its final game as a member of the Pac-12 before moving to the Big 12.
Both teams enter Thursday's matchup with winning runs to close out the year, although Oklahoma will look to maintain its momentum despite facing key opt-outs on the offensive side of the ball. Meanwhile, the Wildcats enter the game mostly intact after winning six straight to conclude the regular season.
As part of our look at all college bowl game odds, here is our best Arizona vs. Oklahoma prediction and our college football picks for Thursday's Alamo Bowl (odds via our best college football betting sites; pick confidence based on a 1-to-5-star scale).
Arizona vs. Oklahoma prediction: Alamo Bowl
This profiles as one of the best matchups of this entire bowl season, and you can make one heck of an argument in either direction on the spread.
The betting market has shown a clear early preference for Arizona, which enters Thursday's game as one of the hottest teams in the country under third-year coach Jedd Fisch – who has engineered one of the best turnarounds in college football two years after a 1-11 season.
After a 3-3 start to 2023, the Wildcats ripped off six straight wins behind backup-turned-starting QB Noah Fifita (2,515 yards, 23 TDs), wh o finished the year ranked eighth in the NCAA's passing efficiency metric (167.51) and fourth in completion rate (73.6%). His play is a big reason why the market has rallied around Arizona, even as its defense showed some warts against Pac-12 competition.
A look under the hood reveals some concerns with that optimism. While Fifita was uber-efficient and turnover-averse in his eight starts, the redshirt freshman also had the fifth-lowest big-time throw percentage (2.3%) among 92 QBs with at least 300 dropbacks, while his average depth of target (7.6) was eighth-lowest among that group.
That's to say nothing of his receivers, who dropped just six of his passes – also the fewest among those 93 qualified passers.
Fifita will need to show more aggressiveness on Thursday to keep pace with Oklahoma, which featured an even more explosive offense than Arizona did in 2023. The Sooners ranked third in scori ng (43.2 PPG) and fifth in yardage (502.4 YPG), which helped this team boast the fifth-highest scoring margin (plus-20.9 PPG) against FBS competition.
Those numbers came mostly under QB Dillon Gabriel – who has since transferred to Oregon – though Oklahoma is in good hands with former five-star prospect Jackson Arnold, a top-10 recruit out of high school who has drawn rave reviews in practice leading up to this game.
He could be without three starting offensive linemen on Thursday, but he'll face a Wildcats defense that ranked 72nd in passing yards allowed (229.6 YPG) and lost a handful of players to the transfer portal, too. New Sooners play-caller Seth Littrell, a former OC with an Air Raid background, should take full advantage of that mismatch on Thursday even with a new QB.
Oklahoma's defense struggled late in the season, but it should be almost fully intact for the Alamo Bowl. I'd expect head coac h Brent Venables – one of the best defensive minds in college football – to have a plan to force Fifita out of his comfort zone and into trouble in his first-ever bowl game.
This game opened at Oklahoma -1.5, which feels closer to the right number than what we've seen since the market galvanized around Arizona. Consider, too, that these teams feature team totals within 1-2 points of each other at our best sportsbooks, even as OU is catching 2.5 points across the board.
It feels like the market has overreacted to some key opt-outs for a team that remains the superior side on paper. This is just a three-star play given the uncertainty surrounding Arnold, but it's a bet I'd still make ahead of Thursday's game.
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Arizona vs. Oklahoma best odds
| DraftKings | FanDuel | BetMGM | Caesars | bet365 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oklahoma +2.5 | Oklahoma +2.5 | Oklahoma +2.5 | Oklahoma +2.5 | Oklahoma +2.5 |
| -102 | +100 | -105 | -105 | -110 |
Oklahoma was dealing at +3 via DraftKings all the way up until around 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday, but the market has since settled at Sooners +2.5 across our best sports betting sites.
That said, the juice isn't the same at every shop. We'd recommend grabbing the even-money price at FanDuel, though it's always worth checking out our best sportsbook promos to see if there's a compelling bonus offer to cash in on for this year's Alamo Bowl.
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Arizona vs. Oklahoma odds
Arizona vs. Oklahoma odds analysis
Oklahoma opened as a 1.5-point favorite to win the 2023 Alamo Bowl, which came before starting Gabriel announced his intent to transfer to Oregon. Since then, we've seen a 4-point swing in Arizona's favor – though, as we've mentioned above, that isn't showing enough respect for the highly touted Arnold ahead of his first start.
The total also dropped four points, from 64.5 at open to as low as 60.5 at FanDuel, though the rest of our best sports betting apps are hanging a total of 61. That signals some potential value for Over bettors via FanDuel, which tends to be a market outlier for college football and otherwise.
Alamo Bowl game info
- When: Thursday, Dec. 28 at 9:15 p.m. ET
- Where: Alamodome, San Antonio
- How to watch: ESPN
- Weather: Indoors
Arizona-Oklahoma prediction made Tuesday at 4:05 p.m. ET.
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