Preseason College Football Picks- Conference USA
Longtime readers know that my favorite bets of the year are my preseason college football bets. In particular, I’ve always liked the smaller conferences, as they’re less efficiently priced than the power conferences.
Conference USA is a good league to bet on some longshots since these teams all get raided in the portal every year. There’s this so many new players on each team that no one can be quite sure how good they’re all going to be, so the volatility is systematically underpriced.
Florida International to win CUSA +1100 (1 unit)
FIU was a pleasant surprise last year, posting their first winning record since before COVID. FIU had been in a fifteen year funk since they stupidly fired Mario Cristobal back in 2012, but now looks to be in decent shape.
The main reason why is they finally hired a good coach. Willie Simmons was a proven winner at the HBCU level at Florida A&M. I like hiring coaches with success at small schools at G6 schools, as mining the FCS thanks for talent has become a big part of the job. FIU also brings in a power conference level athlete at QB in former 4 star JJ Kohl. This team is a sleeper in CUSA.
Kennesaw State to win CUSA +1000 (1 unit)
Kennesaw State over 7.5 wins +235 (1 unit)
Speaking of coaches who had success at the HBCU level, Kennesaw State head coach Jerry Mack had a nice run at NC Central before moving on to be an NFL assistant. He then transformed Kennesaw State overnight- winning CUSA last year as a 100/1 longshot.
I’m bullish on his ability to keep the success rolling in year 2. I was pleasantly surprised to see how much talent they returned from last year, most successful G6 teams got raided in the portal. They have experience on the lines and a good coach, and that can get you far at this level.
Western Kentucky under 5.5 wins +310 (1 unit)
Western Kentucky under 6.5 wins +140 (1 unit)
I feel like I’m betting against Western Kentucky every year- this is the third year in a row I’ve had their win total under.
I don’t see much to excite me here, though- almost no one returns from last year’s team, except mediocre QB Rodney Tisdale (no relation to Ashley, at least as far as I’m aware). There’s a reason no one wanted him in the portal, and it has to do with his miserable 9 TD/7 INT ratio. Florida State washout Brock Glenn (who sucks) has been brought in to compete with him.
I also like taking an alt win total under here on a team that’s pretty much 100% portal, as the floor is quite low on teams like that.
Sam Houston over 4.5 wins +260 (1 unit)
Sam Houston to win CUSA +8000 (0.1 units)
Sam Houston was solid in 2024, and then lost longtime head coach KC Keeler to Temple (you know things are bad when Temple has more money than you). Phil Longo, known for his air raid offenses, struggled in year one, but that was to be expected given how different his scheme was from Keeler’s.
I like betting on the worst team in CUSA on principle alone, as this conference is such a random number generator that predicting who is going to be at the bottom is a fool’s errand.
Middle Tennessee to win CUSA +5500 (0.1 units)
Missouri State to win CUSA +2800 (0.25 units)
CUSA- where weird things happen. No one knows how good any of these teams are, myself included. The betting favorites for the league are Liberty (who is in a weird spot with HC Jamey Chadwell potentially unavailable due to health issues) and Western Kentucky (whose quarterback sucks). I like betting on the other random CUSA teams to win the league.