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 –0.7% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 5,942 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.
We’ve got college football. We’ve got college basketball. We’ve got the NFL. For two of those, we have futures as well. It’s a big day. Here’s the context on each market.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 6–6. We’re down 0.50 units and we’re down 4%. We’ve won five of our last seven, though.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 65–63–3. We’re down 3.42 units and we’re down 3%.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 12–16–6. We’re down 5.41 units and we’re down 16%.
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. This is circular, but if we use Movelor probabilities and include today’s plays, our mean expected return on the 300 units (based on what we’ve bet so far) is –1.67 units, or –0.6%.
NFL futures: We began the season with 150 units in our NFL futures portfolio, with the intent being to spend 100 of those over the season’s eighteen weeks and keep 50 in reserve for hedging and arbitrage opportunities. Again, this is circular, because we use FPI to make the picks, but FPI’s probabilities show us with an expected return on the 150 units of –0.25 units, or –0.1%.
Furman vs. Liberty
Furman looked great against Belmont, but Liberty is such a consistently strong program these days. We think the Flames control the pace, get Furman frustrated, and get the win. We’ll take the chance that they don’t do it by exactly one point.
Pick: Liberty –1.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Boston College @ Pitt
We don’t like either team here, but we do think that the defenses aren’t as good as one might think based on their normal scores. We expect turnovers, and we expect those to lead to points. Not a ton of points, but enough to hit this “low end of normal” number.
Pick: Over 46.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Cincinnati @ Baltimore
This line feels wide, but the game *is* in Baltimore, and as we look at Cincinnati’s hot streak with the benefit of hindsight, now that they’ve lost to the Texans, the only impressive result is the one against the 49ers. The Bills are a mess, the Seahawks aren’t that great…we like the Ravens to bounce back after last week’s debacle, and if the Bengals do the same, we prefer bounced-back Baltimore.
Pick: Baltimore –4 (–105). Low confidence.
CFP National Championship
There’s positive value on Michigan right now, in the eyes of our model, and we could really use that, having been very invested in Penn State and remaining very invested in Ohio State. When the scenarios become small enough next week for us to count, we might do some outright hedging, but for now, we’re taking a good-value route and shoring up some of our edges.
Pick: Michigan to win +260. Low confidence. x3
College Football Playoff
This is the same situation as above, but insert Mississippi instead of Penn State and Alabama instead of Ohio State. We like hypothetical 12–1 Georgia’s chances to get the nod. We think the market and the narrative are both underrating the potential for chaos in the Pac-12 and the ACC.
Pick: Georgia to make playoff –230. Low confidence. x4
Mountain West
These make all four of UNLV, San Jose State, Air Force, and Fresno State at least break-even options for us in the Mountain West. So, our only concern is Boise State, who just fired their coach.
Pick: UNLV to win +450. Low confidence. x2
Pick: San Jose State to win +800. Low confidence.
Pac-12
We have upside on Oregon State, Oregon, and Arizona, and there’s value here as well. Yet again, a straightforward option.
Pick: Washington to win +205. Low confidence. x2
AAC
Here, it’s a little messier, because we aren’t as confident in how equipped our model is for the tiebreaker scenarios, but bettors seem to be getting cold feet about SMU heading into their game against Memphis, and we think that gives us value in a space we could use it.
Pick: SMU to win +175. Low confidence.
AFC
Last week, we went in heavy on the Ravens to win the AFC North. They promptly blew a huge lead to the Browns, lowering their division lead to half a game and making us very nervous heading into tonight. This week, we’re going to shore up our Chiefs edge, where we don’t have anything on the reigning champs to win the AFC. This pushes the Ravens to an unprofitable scenario for us in the AFC, and we’re very ok with that.
Pick: Kansas City to win +230. Low confidence. x3
AFC East
We’re not going as heavily in on the Dolphins as we went on the Ravens, but we’ll put a few units on them as well. If the Ravens don’t win this week, we’re going to be looking for more weights to balance against that play over the next few weeks. At the moment, we’re projecting to finish the regular season portion of the portfolio right around even.
Pick: Miami to win –375. Low confidence. x3
