Editor’s Note: Over a sample size of 585 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 6% 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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Two picks today. Both college football futures.
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, Spotrac, 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.
Now, the picks:
We haven’t published a futures bet on here in a while. Since baseball’s All-Star Break, in fact. There are reasons for this.
The first: I realized that because this series of blog posts effectively works with an infinite bankroll, it was easier for me to publish a lot of futures bets than it would be for someone following at home to place all those bets with a consistent unit. In other words, I needed to figure out how to balance opportunity cost.
The second: Having managed to set these picks up to “profit” if the Astros, Yankees, or Dodgers won the World Series, and to succeed in a big way if the Nationals pulled it off (we got a nice little NLCS boost last night, which is what doubled the average ROI per pick from 3% to 6%), there wasn’t much to be gained from publishing more in the MLB.
Now, though, we’re far enough into college football season that there are futures picks to be made that make sense even when accounting for the opportunity cost. Two of them, specifically:
The first:
Ohio State is currently rated as the best team in the country by SP+. Their schedule to date, at first glance, isn’t all that impressive, but they beat Indiana (25th in SP+) by 41 on the road and Cincinnati (36th) by 42 at home. Michigan State (27th) similarly gave them little trouble. Those aren’t as high-quality of measuring sticks as, say, LSU has in Florida (11th) and Texas (22nd), but they aren’t nothing.
Yet Ohio State is listed in many places as a six-to-one underdog to win the national championship. Some have longer odds. Some have shorter odds. But six-to-one seems to be the median right now. What gives?
Since the books seem to have Alabama slightly undervalued as well (their expected return, from our model, at +240 odds is 11.5%, which is great but not worth the opportunity cost between now and January for a daily bettor), with Clemson as the favorite, it makes the most sense to compare Ohio State to Clemson. In doing that, one finds that Clemson’s path to the playoff is much easier than that of the Buckeyes: there are, as has been said repeatedly on this site, no good teams in the ACC beyond the Tigers, which means Clemson’s projected to waltz their way to a perfect regular season and conference title. Ohio State, on the other hand, has to host both Wisconsin and Penn State before season’s end, the latter contest coming just one week before The Game in Ann Arbor, which in turn would be just one week prior to the Big Ten title game, should Ohio State qualify.
Is our model underappreciating the difference in difficulty? Quite possibly. But if Ohio State loses to Wisconsin, only to win a rematch in Indianapolis, that loss will likely be forgiven. If they lose to Michigan but win the Big Ten, again, probably forgiven. If they lose to Penn State and miss the conference championship game entirely, things are dicey, but one needs to look no further than the national champions from two years ago to find a team that was among the best in the country on paper, lost a late-season game to a quality opponent, missed their conference championship, and was still included in the field. No, Ohio State doesn’t have much of a margin for error, but some margin for error exists. Contrarily, any loss by Clemson should, based on precedent, ruin their chances unless it comes with Trevor Lawrence or a similarly impactful player sidelined. They may get more of a benefit of the doubt because they’re the defending champions, but that’s not guaranteed. And while the Tigers may improve from here, the fact that SP+ has them closer to Oregon than Alabama in quality is a bad sign.
In other words, while I acknowledge that our model may be over-representing Ohio State’s chances and undervaluing those of Clemson, the market is doing the opposite. If you’re willing to tolerate a little risk, Ohio State’s worth the opportunity cost.
Pick: Ohio State to win the National Championship (+600). Low confidence.
The second:
Ohio State’s handcuff in the Big Ten East is not Michigan, though the Wolverines could change that with an upset Saturday in Happy Valley. Instead, it’s Happy Valley’s own Penn State.
The Nittany Lions are more likely than not to miss the playoff. If they make it, it’s more likely than not they’ll have to do it as an 11-1 team that’s gotten a lot of help from chaos elsewhere, as their playoff probability is 29.8% while their Big Ten title chances are only 12.3%. Still, at fifty-to-one odds, there’s a lot to like about James Franklin’s team and its chances.
Including Saturday’s visit from Michigan (13th in SP+), five of Penn State’s six remaining games come against teams rated by SP+ to be among the 27 best in the country. In those games, they’re favored against all opponents but Ohio State, meaning the chalkiest way this could go would be for Penn State to finish 11-1 with a full plate of quality wins.
A question, of course, is whether the Selection Committee would view all these wins as quality. Yes, Michigan State and Indiana might be good teams, but they aren’t very likely to find their way into the top 25. Still, overall strength of schedule metrics should give Penn State a boost, and if they upset Ohio State (currently about 25% likely, even in Columbus) they could sustain a loss elsewhere and still likely make the Big Ten Championship. With a path this clear, and a team this good (sixth in SP+, eighth in the aggregate ratings our model uses), 50-to-1 is worth a long look. It isn’t a safe bet. It’s the opposite of that. But it’s a good value play, just as the Nationals were at 45-to-1 to win the World Series back on May 30th.
Pick: Penn State to win the National Championship (+5000). Low confidence.
