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 5,957 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 a lot today. There’s college basketball. There’s college football. There’s the NFL. There are futures to be placed in the latter two. Here’s the context on each market. The short version is: Our college basketball single-game bets and our NFL futures are both fine. Our college football futures portfolio is struggling but retains upside. We’re doing a bad job of winning bets on individual football games.
Single-game college basketball bets: On the season, we’re 10–9. We’re up 0.03 units and we’re up 0.2%.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 67–69–3. We’re down 7.64 units and down 5%.
Single-game NFL bets: On the season, we’re 14–17–6. We’re down 4.48 units and we’re down 12%.
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 –4.12 units, or –1.2%.
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 0.91 units, or 0.3%.
Florida Atlantic vs. Butler
We’re still not very confident in 2023–24 FAU. They should be a good team, but there just isn’t enough on paper to justify the perception they get in the media and in the markets. We’ll take another shot against them, hoping Butler’s really taken the step forward.
Pick: Butler +6.5 (–110). Low confidence.
Mississippi @ Mississippi State
Yes, it’s the Egg Bowl, but for all the chaos this implies, there’s no guarantee of a one-possession game. Movelor has the spread favoring Mississippi by a little more than eight, and while we’re sure Mississippi State will have plenty of motivation (with a bowl berth accessible through beating their biggest rival), our guess is that most teams perform a little worse after a coaching change. There’s a lot of uncertainty here, but this is where we’re putting our chips.
Pick: Mississippi –9.5 (–115). Low confidence.
San Francisco @ Seattle
We do think the 49ers are back on track, as we write below. But the Seahawks are better than this line implies, and they’re playing at home off a short week. We agree with the free agent market on the value of running backs, by the way.
Pick: Seattle +7.5 (–120). Low confidence.
CFP National Championship
We’ve been all about longshots this year in our college football futures portfolio, and that hasn’t served us very well. Most of our longshots have come up empty or are—in Kansas State’s case in the Big 12—about to come up empty barring something highly unexpected these next three days. So, with value available on a favorite (and a lot of upside in our portfolio already on Alabama, Georgia’s primary obstacle), we’re taking this and going in hard. Seven units.
Pick: Georgia to win +260. Low confidence. x7
College Football Playoff
We have a lot of upside on Louisville to win the ACC, so while this isn’t a direct hedge, it could end up functioning as such and will end up functioning as such if FSU survives Florida this weekend, which is more likely than not. Either way, we like the value on this. FSU’s close to 50% likely to win both of the next two. If they do, it’s borderline inconceivable that they wouldn’t end up in the playoff field.
Pick: Florida State to make playoff +160. Low confidence. x3
Mountain West
We’re deathly afraid of Boise State here, on whom we have major downside and who looks suddenly competent again. We do, though, really think UNLV will be in the conference title game, and getting more value on them this way thereby helps us out.
Pick: UNLV to win +190. Low confidence. x4
Big 12
With our remaining units, we’ll play the low but positive value on Texas. It doesn’t do a whole lot, but it’s something, and with Oklahoma State likely to be the opponent, we’d imagine next week’s moneyline is shorter than this.
Pick: Texas to win –200. Low confidence. x2
NFC
The Eagles have been a major liability for us, so getting this chance at postseason value is big. Now all three of the Eagles, the 49ers, and the Lions are profitable options for us in the NFC, and we have some Cowboys upside in the Super Bowl market to help cover that vulnerability.
Pick: Philadelphia to win +225. Low confidence. x2
Super Bowl
Speaking of that Super Bowl market, the best value there this week’s on the 49ers, who do face a tough situation tonight but do look like they’ve figured a lot of things out. We’ll up the upside there.
Pick: San Francisco to win +450. Low confidence.
NFC South
We don’t have faith or confidence in the Bucs, but we do like this value, and it only creates minor downside for us on the Saints and Falcons. We don’t have much on any of these three teams, so this is somewhat a diversification effort.
Pick: Tampa Bay to win +400. Low confidence.
NFL Playoffs
Last for today, the Broncos. The AFC is good. The Broncos are fine. The narrative’s getting carried away with this team.
Pick: Denver to win –350. Low confidence. x2
