Early line posted for Arizona football’s 2022 opener at San Diego State

It’s never too early to start looking ahead to the start of college football season. In fact, the oddsmakers are already primed for those first games in late August and early September.

DraftKings Sportsbook has point spreads out for a selection of those Week Zero and Week 1 contests, including Arizona’s 2022 opener at San Diego State. And not in the least bit surprising, the Wildcats are an underdog.

The UA is listed as a 7-point dog against the Aztecs, who will be christening their new home field, the 35,000-seat Snapdragon Stadium. It’s actually a scaled-down version of their old home, Qualcomm Stadium, which no longer needed 70,000-plus seats after the San Diego Chargers moved to Los Angeles a few years back.

SDSU is coming off a 12-2 campaign in 2021, during which it won 38-14 in Tucson in the first home game under Jedd Fisch and later played in the Mountain West Conference title game as well as the Frisco Bowl.

This will be the third year in a row Arizona is not favored in its season opener. It covered the previous two, as 13.5-point dogs against BYU last September in Las Vegas and as 15-point dogs at home against USC in the COVID-delayed 2020 season, but didn’t win either.

SDSU is part of a challenging nonconference slate for Arizona, which hosts Mississippi State on Sept. 10—Mike Leach alert!—in its home opener and then takes on defending FCS national champion North Dakota State. Take those games into consideration when looking at the Wildcats’ season win total projection, which according to BetOnline is 2.5.