We’re doing things a little different again today. Instead of waiting until tomorrow and Monday to post our NFL picks, we’re posting those today. Similarly, we’re posting a college basketball moneyline for tomorrow, with the acknowledgement that we’ll accept the odds, even if they surprise us. We’re trying to streamline these weekend bets a little, and with some (good) things going on outside of the blog this coming week, we want to make sure we get the Monday Night Football pick up.
So, then. Five college football spreads. Two college basketball moneylines. And our Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football picks. We plan to be back on Monday with more picks. No new published bets tomorrow.
Minnesota @ Rutgers
There’s concern that Minnesota’s too reliant on forcing turnovers, and I get that. But at the same time, Minnesota’s been playing really good football for about a month now, and for a coach as motivation-based as P.J. Fleck, I don’t think it’s that crazy to weight recency.
Pick: Minnesota –5.5 (–115). Low confidence.
Texas State @ Louisiana Monroe
All year, markets have loved Texas State, but their Movelor rating continues to hardly move an inch. We don’t get it. We feel like we’re missing something. In the meantime, ULM has been more competitive this year than expected, and the offensive line coach blowup last week seems like something some bettors could overvalue.
Pick: Louisiana Monroe +8.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Georgia State @ James Madison
Despite beating Vanderbilt earlier this season, Georgia State’s Movelor rating has dropped a lot over the course of the campaign. Movelor’s been too high on JMU, but there’s a better chance it’s overrating Georgia State than the Dukes.
Pick: James Madison –14.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Temple @ Tulane
Tulane’s shown a willingness to crush teams, and Tulane has some incentives to crush teams, and Temple should be crushable for a team as good as Tulane.
Pick: Tulane –27 (–110). Low confidence.
Virginia @ Pitt
Finally, if we’re comparing recent terrible performances, give me the team who got whacked by 8–1 SMU instead of the one blown out by UNC.
Pick: Pitt –7.5 (–105). Low confidence.
Fordham @ Seton Hall
This game’s in Walsh Gymnasium, which will mean something to a few of you. More than that, we see it as a game where Shaheen Holloway’s team takes care of business after surviving a disappointing opener against Saint Peter’s. For these weekend picks, we’re taking very short moneylines where we think there’s value. This is probably a temporary approach as we get through football season, but if it works…
Pick: Seton Hall to win –550. Low confidence.
Saint Francis @ Campbell
There isn’t as much to choose from tomorrow. We like how Campbell played against Virginia, though, and while SFPA’s road weekend in the Carolinas could be a good thing for the program when it looks back on it, their performance last night wasn’t particularly inspiring.
We’ll update the post when we have the odds.
Pick: Campbell to win (–420). Low confidence.
Detroit @ Houston
Our NFL bets are very straightforward: We bet Thursday Night, Sunday Night, and Monday Night, and we follow FPI. For some reason, this has worked very well over a now medium sample size this year.
The only nebulous thing about our approach is how to treat home-field advantage. Our impression is that it’s comfortably less than three points, which means the Lions are the side here.
Pick: Detroit –3.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Miami @ LA Rams
This one doesn’t come down to home-field advantage. The Rams are better than the Dolphins, per FPI. FPI isn’t currently incorporating a lot of data with Tua Tagovailoa, but what we’ve been seeing in a really, really small sample is some indication of markets overweighting things like that. We should stress how this injury-impacted sample is small, how our overall sample with this approach is not exactly large, and how placing these on Saturday might be missing line movement we usually get on Sunday and Monday. (We don’t know if we get it, but if we do, we’re missing it.) Those are the necessary caveats.
Pick: LA Rams –1 (–115). Low confidence.
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How we do this, and how we’re doing:
Single-game college football bets: We’re always mediocre on these, but we’ve been awful this year. We’re 31–40–1 so far, down 11.89 units. We’re 3–6 over the last seven days. We do use Movelor, our model’s rating system, to guide these, but we don’t always follow its lead. Maybe we should. Or shouldn’t! Or should simply flip a coin.
Single-game college basketball bets: These have been a rollercoaster for us historically, but on the aggregate, results have been negative. This year, we’re betting one or two games a day, at least to start. We may taper that off. We often use kenpom. We’re 1–3–1 on the season, down 2.05 units.
Single-game NFL bets: These have been going puzzlingly well. After getting smoked last year, we’re 17–12 so far this season, up 3.56 units. We lean on FPI to make these picks.
Overall: Over 13,904 completed published bets, we average a 0% return, weighting by unit (1 unit for low confidence; 2 units for medium confidence; 3 units for high confidence). Our sports betting history, however, is terrible. We’ve managed to make up for it with strong performance in election bets over the years, but it’s taken a lot of election bets.
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These are for entertainment purposes and are not at all investment advice. If you think you might have a gambling problem, please call 1–800–GAMBLER to learn more and/or seek help.
