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 –1.0% when weighting by confidence (1 for low, 2 for medium, 3 for high) across 6,284 published picks, not including pending futures; and an average return on investment, per pick, of +2.3% across 2,266 completed high and medium-confidence picks (low confidence picks these days are mostly 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’re only doing single-game college football today. No futures due to time constraints. No college basketball because there are no college basketball games. Here’s how we’re doing on the year.
Single-game college football bets: On the season, we’re 83–83–3. Thanks to our bowl game moneyline underdogs, we’re up 1.39 units on the year. It’s been a dramatic comeback, but there’s a lot of time left.
Bowl Games
We were hopeful about this strategy of blindly picking moneyline underdogs in FBS bowl games, but it’s gone better than we anticipated. We thought the spreads would be roughly correct and that moneylines would just understate the chaos potential. So far, it’s been spreads overestimating their own abilities as well. Bowls are unhinged right now. We don’t know if it’ll stay that way, but we aren’t going to mess with what’s been working. Not today, anyway.
Pick: Bowling Green to win +105. Low confidence.
Pick: Rice to win +150. Low confidence.
Pick: UNLV to win +320. Low confidence.
