Editor’s Note: Since November 2018, Joe has been publishing picks here and back at All Things NIT, our former site. Overall, the results have been mixed, with an average return on investment, per pick, of –1.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,300 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.3% across 2,266 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks these days are mostly in experimental markets for us).
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’re afraid you might have a gambling problem, seek help.
Odds for these come the better option between Bovada and BetOnline. We used to use the Vegas Consensus, but it’s no longer consistently available in an accurate form online. We use Movelor heavily to make college football picks. We use kenpom heavily to make college basketball picks. We use FPI heavily to make NFL futures picks, but not spreads and totals.
Active markets today: College football; college basketball; college football futures. We’re taking the day off college football futures again due to there not being anything all that new in the markets. Here’s the context on each area we are playing.
Single-day college football bets: On the season, we’re 85–92–3. We’re down 1.31 units on the year, but we’re up 7.73 units on FBS bowls so far. We bet moneyline underdogs. It’s what we do! For FBS bowl games other than the CFP semifinals. Elsewhere, we mostly bet against the spread. Maybe we should have been betting moneyline underdogs the whole time.
Single-day college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 25–29. We’re down 5.71 units, and we’re 5–16 over our last 21 plays. We are, however, 4–2 over our last six. Average odds of +108 on those four winners.
College football futures: We started the season with 300 units in our college football futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 200 of those over the season’s fifteen weeks and keep 100 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. We’re down about 22 units so far, but we have upside remaining. More importantly: All of the bets we list here grade out as positive-value bets unless we explicitly mark them as a hedge. So, if you’ve been faithfully following, we’re still on track to not lose more than 25% (and we retain upside), but if you’re new, these are a good place to start.
Bowl Games
Our original plan, when bowl games started, was to make a few exceptions to the moneyline underdog approach. We think Ohio State and Penn State are undervalued by markets in something of a habitual way right now. But then the Cotton Bowl line swung a long ways towards the Buckeyes, and also—we’re up 7.73 units across 28 games using this strategy. We can’t back away from it when it’s going that well.
Pick: Kentucky to win +148. Low confidence.
Pick: Oregon State to win +190. Low confidence.
Pick: Memphis to win +320. Low confidence.
Pick: Missouri to win +185. Low confidence.
Washington State @ Utah
Washington @ Colorado
We’re nervous about both of these—they both present a lot of risk for the home team—but ultimately, we don’t think Washington’s that good, and we believe in Utah, though that might partially be a reaction to how well they played against BYU in a game in which we bet on BYU. We’ll take chalk on these legs, stay away from Arizona/Cal, stay indifferent to ASU/Stanford, and wait for more big conference games tomorrow.
Pick: Parlay – Utah to win; Colorado to win (–172). Low confidence.
CFP Semifinals
More of the same on this front. We’re now at a spot where Michigan beating Alabama is better for our eventual outcome, on average, by about 18.5 units, and where Texas beating Washington is better, on average, by about 46.5 units. We’ll probably keep shrinking the former gap, but we’re going heavy on the Longhorns to beat the Huskies. It’s talent vs. gameplan, and we don’t think Steve Sarkisian is actually all that likely to be outcoached by Kalen DeBoer. We think that’s what’s being talked about because that’s the strength Washington brings and it’s easy to talk about both teams’ strengths.
Pick: Texas to win –170. Low confidence. x8
Pick: Alabama to win +108. Low confidence. x3
