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 –0.6% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,920 published picks, not including pending futures, and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.2% across 2,249 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks, these days, are 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.
It’s college football and college basketball tonight. Here’s the context on each.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 2–4. We’re down 2.14 units. Won our last one, though.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 61–56–2. We’re down 0.06 units. At the end of today, we will either be profitable or we won’t be. 50%-ish chance.
We’ll start with the football.
Indiana @ Illinois
Luke Altmyer is out today, and I’m not sure that’s all that bad for Illinois? I’m sure it’s not great—I’m not in a position to make an argument John Paddock should be starting based off of just one drive—but it seems overvalued here.
Pick: Illinois –4.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Michigan @ Penn State
We’re so far in on Movelor’s love of Penn State that we feel we have to place this. We owe it to our model. That is a dumb way to think, but we’re still betting on sports despite a –0.6% all-time return, so clearly this isn’t our smartest enterprise.
Pick: Penn State +4.5 (–105). Low confidence.
Temple @ USF
We aren’t sold on a Temple renaissance based on one good game.
Pick: USF –7 (–115). Low confidence.
Arizona @ Colorado
I don’t know if Colorado is getting worse, but there isn’t a lot of reason to think they’re going to improve this week. That situation isn’t a mess, but it takes time to build a program. You can be a fan of Deion Sanders and still acknowledge things aren’t perfect for the Buffs.
Pick: Arizona –9 (–108). Low confidence.
FIU @ Middle Tennessee
We haven’t bet Conference USA in a minute, with their weeknight games over, but we remain very low on FIU.
Pick: Middle Tennessee –10.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Miami @ Florida State
Similarly, we’re among the lowest on Miami. Like betting on Penn State, we owe it to Movelor to agree that Miami stinks.
Pick: Florida State –14.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Rutgers @ Iowa
I still think Iowa’s undervalued, and I think part of it might be that their wins look less impressive because the margin is always limited by their offensive ineptitude. Movelor is extremely margin-dependent, too, which makes us trust it on these guys.
Pick: Iowa –1 (–110). Low confidence.
Tennessee @ Missouri
Missouri has the double effect here of 1) potentially facing a letdown game and 2) facing a probably underrated team as a team that themselves has overachieved.
Pick: Tennessee –2.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Texas State @ Coastal Carolina
Grayson McCall’s still out, but he’s been out for a minute, and Movelor still has the Chanticleers as a 10-point favorite here. We do think Movelor’s maybe struggling to catch up to Texas State under G.J. Kinne (we love G.J. Kinne’s work around here), but we still think this is an opportunity.
Pick: Coastal Carolina +2.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Nebraska–Omaha @ North Texas
We liked UNT and UNI both in their opening game, and this is a little eye-testy, which we don’t love, but we’re struggling to find opportunities using kenpom, and the bottom line is that we think kenpom could be a little slow to adjust to UNT’s win. Basically, we think it might be a little low on both UNT and UNI. Just a little, but combined with UNT being so defensively focused, they don’t need to “run up the score” to twist the knife.
Pick: North Texas –14 (–110). Low confidence.
