2025 College Football Preseason Picks (Part 1)
Intro
2024 was a banner year for my college football picks. I wagered around 250 units for the year and finished +43.04 units on the year. I had two main takeaways from my strong performance in 2024:
First off, there is more opportunity in betting futures than there is in betting on individual games. I went +40 units betting on futures and +3 units betting on individual games. I think there is a simple explanation here. Betting on individual games is well understood and relatively easy to model. Betting on longer-term outcomes (such as odds to make the playoff) is harder to model. Since last year was the first year of the 12 team playoff, I think that the sportsbooks had trouble pricing things at times and I was able to take advantage. My best bet of the year was Indiana to make the playoff 30/1 in mid-September. I made a lot of these longshot bets throughout the year, because I felt that there were some big mispricings there. Most of them didn’t hit, but I bought several cheap lottery tickets, and this one hit.
Secondly, my instincts were right and I should have bet earlier. I generated an enormous amount of closing line value last year, both on my individual game bets and on my futures bets. I had tons of things move in my favor after betting them and very little move against me. There were a handful of times where I hemmed and hawed about a bet and ended up regretting it because the line moved in my direction afterwards.
I have spent a lot of time in the offseason building up the infrastructure of my model to better calculate things such as odds to make the playoff or odds to win a conference title. I was estimating a lot of these probabilities last year but now have a more robust way to calculate them that should save me a lot of work.
Today I’ll go through some of my preseason bets- I want to get these picks out there before the lines move too much. Later in the spring I will post my preseason projections for all 136 FBS teams.
Betting History
2018: -5.88 units
2019: +30.71 units
2020: +34.36 units
2021: -34.75 units
2022: +9.31 units
2023: -2.52 units
2024: +43.04 units
Total: +74.27 units
As you can see, 2024 was the best year in the history of my model- only 2019 and 2020 can compare. I don’t think I’ll be able to put up a 2024 type performance every year, but I feel pretty confident I can turn in another positive year in 2025.
SEC Preseason Picks
Texas under 9.5 wins +160 (4 units)
Suppose I told you the following facts about a team:
-They were the fourth best team in the country last year
-They lose 12 NFL draft picks, including 6 in the first 2 rounds
-They face arguably the toughest schedule in the country, including 4 top 15 teams away from home
I think it would be reasonable to expect this team to take a pretty decent step back this year. I certainly would not have this team as a top tier national title contender.
I understand that this argument doesn’t mention the 10,000 pound gorilla in the room, Arch. I do expect 2025 Arch Manning to be a better QB than 2024 Quinn Ewers was, perhaps a much better one. But Texas was only “very good” last year- they were not elite. And they lose so much outside of Arch that I still think they will regress this year. Texas has all the money in the world to bring in talent to replace those guys, but my model only sees them as the third most talented SEC roster, behind Alabama and Georgia. Texas will be a good team this year but not quite to the level of last year.
I will likely throw in another unit on Texas to miss the playoff when that line gets listed. I expect to get that at +125 or so.
Oklahoma over 6.5 wins -130 (3 units)
Oklahoma to win SEC +4500 (0.25 units)
On the other side of the Red River, I am bullish on Oklahoma this year. The Sooners went 6-7 last year and HC Brent Venables knows his job is on the line this year. Venables completely overhauled the offense. The Sooners signed the top portal class in the country on the offensive side of the ball, according to my rankings. The highlights are former Washington State QB John Mateer (with his OC, Ben Arbuckle also now in Norman) and former Cal RB Jaydn Ott. The Sooners are the most experienced team in the SEC, and grade out as the fifth most talented according to my numbers. I like their chances to make a playoff run this year, and I will likely throw an extra unit on them to make the playoff when those lines are listed.
Alabama to win the SEC +500 (1 unit)
Alabama is normally +500 to win the national title in the preseason. I can get them at +500 to win the SEC? Sign me up!
I know that 2024 was a disappointment to Alabama fans, as they went 9-3 and finished 8th in my ratings. But they lost comparatively little to the draft (by Alabama standards, at least) and have the best tackle, second best receiver and second best edge rusher in the sport. I honestly think that they have the best roster from 1 to 85 of any team in the country. The big question is QB. It sounds like Ty Simpson will win the job. Whoever is under center will have the luxury of having Ryan Williams to throw to.
Alabama’s floor is certainly lower than it has been in over a decade now that Saban is gone. But I think their ceiling is still that of the best team in the sport and I like the value here.
Big Ten Preseason Picks
Minnesota over 6.5 wins -150 (3 units)
One of the staples of the college football preseason is the annual debate of “which Big Ten West team is going to be good this year?”. The normal answer is Wisconsin or Iowa. This year, I am going a bit out of the box and suggesting Minnesota.
You probably forgot how good Minnesota was last year. I certainly did, because they did it in the most boring way possible- going 8-5, running the ball and playing defense. They finished the year 26th in my ratings. They return pretty much all the key contributors from last year’s defense and will have a top 10 unit in the sport on that side of the ball this year. I expect them to be a boring 8-4 team once again this year.