Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 586 completed bets (this doesn’t include outstanding futures picks), Joe’s picks published here and back at All Things NIT, our former site, have an average return on investment of 7% when weighted by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high). This, compared to other picks consistently published online, is pretty good. It would not be an exceptional annual ROI for an investor. But it’s not too shabby when coming between four hours and seven months after making the picks.
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Only one pick today.
As always:
- Lines come from the Vegas Consensus at the time this is written, or the best approximation I can find of it online.
- Data and predictions from FanGraphs, Baseball Savant, Team Rankings, and ESPN is/are often used and/or cited.
- The blurbs often aren’t justifications of the picks. Often, they’re instead just notes about something or someone related to the pick. Something that interests me. I don’t explain the picks because in general, the rationale behind each pick is the same, so it would be boring to say over and over again that the numbers I use project a good return on investment and I see no red flags significant enough to make me hold off.
Southern Miss @ Louisiana Tech
It’s rivalry time in Conference USA. Just a four-hour drive apart, Louisiana Tech and Southern Miss first played in 1935, and while the series is historically lopsided—in Southern Miss’s favor—the 2017 matchup went to two overtimes and the game last year was decided by just a point.
The teams are tied atop Conference USA’s West Division, and nearly tied in our model’s conference championship probability, raising the stakes. Louisiana Tech’s a slight underdog at home in the sportsbooks, but they win in 54% of our 1,000 simulations.
Southern Miss has allowed the third-most yards per pass attempt in the FBS. With Louisiana Tech throwing on 56% of its plays, the 16th-highest portion in the country, this should work in the Bulldogs’ favor.
Pick: Louisiana Tech to win (+115). Low confidence.
Rice @ UTSA
Rice and UTSA are, collectively, a mess. While Rice has some respectable showings—an eight-point loss to Baylor, a seven-point loss to Army, an overtime loss to Louisiana Tech—they’ve yet to win a game. UTSA’s won two, but one was against FCS Incarnate Word, and the other was against worse-than-almost-half-the-FCS UTEP. The most points Rice has scored in a game is 21. The most UTSA has scored against anyone better than Incarnate Word is 14. But with comparably woeful defenses, and Rice closer to Incarnate Word in quality than they are to anyone UTSA’s lost to, it’s fair to expect the Roadrunners to crack two touchdowns, and almost a coin flip that they’ll keep the Owls winless.
Pick: Six-Point Teaser, UTSA +11, Over 36.5 (-110). Low confidence.
East Carolina @ UCF
In something of a plot twist, UCF’s defense is better than their offense this year, at least by SP+’s ratings (which are the best we have for this sort of thing). East Carolina, meanwhile, has the 109th-best offense in the FBS, again by SP+. Will ECU score? We’ll see.
Pick: Under 64 (-110). Low confidence.
