College Football Bets and Rooting Guide- Conference Championships
It was a great week for my picks. I owe most of that to the ACC, where my Duke to win the ACC ticket at 100/1 odds is extremely live after they got the exact combination of results they needed (Duke win, Miami win, Cal win) to reach the conference title game.
Futures*: +94.25 units
Week 0: -3 units
Week 1: -2.57 units
Week 2: +2.61 units
Week 3: +1.05 units
Week 4: +3.43 units
Week 5: -3.13 units
Week 6: +3.83 units
Week 7: +2.04 units
Week 8: +8.16 units
Week 9: +0.84 units
Week 10: 0 units
Week 11: -4 units
Week 12: -1.13 units
Week 13: -2.05 units
Week 14: -1.09 units
Season Total: +99.24 units
*Note: Futures PnL is a mark to market estimate
New Bets
Virginia ML -164 (62.7 units)
I’m hedging my Duke exposure. I’ll win 100 units if Duke beats Virginia and wins the ACC, and lose 1 unit if they don’t. My model is pretty ambivalent on hedging, but my gut is telling me to hedge. I expected this line to be around -195 or so- Duke is not that talented, and Virginia has looked a lot better in recent weeks. I’m locking in 38 units of profit here.
Miami to miss the Playoff -138 (2 units)
Vanderbilt to make the Playoff +610 (1 unit)
I also have two bets that I made live on Saturday- so the lines are quite stale. I don’t normally make live bets, but playoff odds were moving around a ton during the Saturday afternoon games and there were some good opportunities to be had. I do know it is pretty much impossible for my followers to tail these, so I apologize for that. However, I’ll put them on this page, just so they’re documented.
Rooting Guide
North Texas (-2.5) @ Tulane
The winner of this game will be in the playoff. We win 30 units if North Texas wins this game (from our UNT to make playoff 30/1 ticket), and we win 11.4 units if Tulane does. I also would personally like to see the G5 team(s) do well in the playoff, and I think that North Texas has a much better chance in a hypothetical playoff game than Tulane does.
Indiana vs. Ohio State (-4)
We win 15 units if Indiana wins this game (from our Indiana to win the Big Ten 15/1 ticket) and 1.8 units if Ohio State does. This line has been dropping all week- I saw it around 5.5 or 6 on Sunday. I’m not surprised- that line felt a little too large to me.
BYU vs. Texas Tech (-12.5)
We bet 7 units on the Big 12 to have under 1.5 playoff teams at -220 back in October. That bet will hit if Texas Tech wins here, and lose if BYU wins. The good news is that this line has been consistently moving towards Texas Tech.
Kennesaw State (-2.5) @ Jacksonville State
This was the best possible matchup for us in CUSA. We’ve been long both teams for a while- we win 11 units if Jacksonville State wins this game, and 5.1 units if Kennesaw State does.
UNLV @ Boise State (-4.5)
It’s been a wild season for our Boise State to win the Mountain West ticket. We have 5 units at -125, that we bet all the way back in May. Boise looked great until starting QB Maddux Madsen got hurt. This line got as long as +650 at one point in November, before the Broncos found their rhythm, and got some help from the tiebreaker gods.
Alabama vs. Georgia (-2.5)
We bet on both teams to win the SEC at +500, but bet a little bit more on Alabama. We win 8.2 units if Alabama wins this game, and win 5 units if Georgia wins.
Troy @ James Madison (-23.5)
These are the two teams we bet to win the Sun Belt in the preseason- JMU at +400 (for 2 units) and Troy at +1400 (for 1 unit). Given our other bets on James Madison to make the playoff, we are pretty indifferent as to who wins here. This line has been consistently moving towards JMU all week.