Week 8 College Football Picks

 

🏈  Week 8 College Football Picks 🏈

Pick Sheet: Located in the bottom of the post. We have 58 games this week with some meaningful conference match-ups:

BIG10: Indiana vs. Nebraska 

SEC:  Texas vs. Georgia, Tennessee vs. Alabama 

ACC: Louisville vs. Miami, Clemson vs. Virginia  

Dislocation; Last week, games with a spread differential greater than 4, won at a 75% rate. This week, we have 16 games with these characteristics. These are the most obvious places to park money given Vegas has not adjusted their line to match.. Or, Vegas knows something that I don't. Could be possible, but HIGHLY unlikely. 

Games With Spread Differential > 4

Using the Match-Up tool for Duke vs. Florida State:

Week 8 Pick Sheet

Gamble responsibly. Odds may be subject to change. Past performance is not indicative of future results, unless you're as sharp as me.  

Week 7 Recap. SP+ Betting Results

 

🏈Week 7 Recap & SP+ Model Results 🏈

What a weekend of college football! My buckeyes unfortunately lost to Oregon at the last second (should have listened to my model and not my heart). LSU sneaks a win out vs. Ole Miss in what was a sneaky important game in the SEC and playoff picture. Penn State continued to limp through their schedule struggling with a 2-loss USC team. Texas showed why they are the #1 team in the country, and don't sleep on those nerds from Vanderbilt!

Let's dive into the data. The model picked every single game this week and hit at a 60.8% clip💰. Again, if you like beating Vegas, it may be time to start taking notice. 

 

Week 8 Predictions will be out soon. 

Match-up Data: Using row one as a guide (Liberty vs. FIU) 

Home/ Away: Home & Away team for the match-up. The green highlighted team is who the model is picking to cover the spread based on Differential and Home Line (below).  

Home/ Away SPS+: Encompasses an array of data all filtered into one metric. This number tells you how much better a given team is relative to the average college football team. For example, Through 7 weeks, Liberty is 3.3 points better than the average team and FIU is -15.6 (15.6 points worse than the average team).  

Differential: Calculates a match up based on SP+ (Home team SP+ - Away Team SP+). I additionally layer in 3 points for home field advantage as this is what long-term data would tell you about college football games. Using the first column below, the model says that Liberty should beat FIU by 21.9 points. ex: 3.3 (-) -15.6 + 3 

Home Line: Looks at the home team spread. At the time was Liberty -19.5 favorites.

Spread Differential: Takes the SP+ Differential and subtracts the Vegas line to make the pick. ex: 21.9 (-)  -19.5 = 2.4. This tells you that the model believes that Liberty has 2.4 points of cushion vs. the spread, meaning they will cover it. 

Result: Did the model pick correctly based on the outcome of the scores.