Editor’s Note: For three years now, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been positive, with an average return on investment, per pick, of 2% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 1,901 published picks, not including bets that remain pending, like futures. 2% doesn’t sound amazing, but relative to what else you get on the internet?
Use these picks at your own risk. Only you are responsible for any money you lose, and you should not bet more than you can afford to lose. If you have a gambling problem, get help.
Lines for these come from the Vegas consensus or the closest approximation available at the time picks are written, unless otherwise noted. KenPom is heavily used in making college basketball picks. ESPN’s SP+ is heavily used in making college football picks of all kinds, and FPI is used in making conference championship futures picks.
Just college football today—the college basketball well is dry (no good odds for our method in the few games there are tonight).
Bahamas Bowl: Middle Tennessee State vs. Toledo
We’re trying something here, and to be completely honest, I don’t know if it’ll work. We’re betting bowls based on coaches’ records in previous bowl games in their career (and a few other things, but that’s the main thing). Here, Rick Stockstill has one of the worst bowl records among FBS coaches this bowl season (2-6), and while Jason Candle’s isn’t actually better (1-3), it’s a smaller sample size.
Pick: Toledo -10.5 (-110). Low confidence.
Cure Bowl: Northern Illinois vs. Coastal Carolina
Same idea here. Jamey Chadwell’s 0-1 in bowls, Thomas Hammock is coaching his first bowl. From everything I’m seeing, it sounds like Grayson McCall’s going to play for Coastal Carolina, and I share the surprise of many at this line not being wider, given that. We’re trying a little system, though, and we want to try it on a wider net if we can afford it.
Pick: Northern Illinois +11 (-110). Low confidence.
FCS Semifinal: James Madison @ North Dakota State
We’re outside of bowls with this one and going to SP+, which only has NDSU favored by 5.8, but does have them favored to cover the spread. One suspicion of mine with SP+, which I haven’t tested out, is that it struggles at the wide ends of the spectrum. This, I’d imagine, is a hard piece of any rating system, since it’s hard to get good data from teams routinely whooping or being whooped—they’re just playing different kinds of games. From what we can glean from results this year, it should be noted that while NDSU’s had its fair share of struggles this year (lost to South Dakota State by eight, only beat North Dakota and Missouri State by one score each), the Bison are used to steamrolling teams, and they’ve steamrolled teams plenty in recent playoffs. James Madison, meanwhile, has bounced back well from their early-October loss to Villanova, and smoked Montana last week in Harrisonburg, but the Dukes just haven’t faced the same competition as a team playing an MVFC schedule. Montana, by SP+, would be ranked fifth in the MVFC.
Add in to all of this that NDSU could win a one-score game by six or seven (and even an overtime game by six or seven), and it leans Bison. If the line bumps up to six and a half, though, you might want to just lay off.
Pick: North Dakota State -5 (-110). Low confidence.
