Betzig Sports

Week 1: 7-1-1 +16.90 units Week 2: 3-6 -0.31 units Week 3: 3-4 -1.09 units Week 4: 4-5 +3.22 units Season Total: 17-16-1 +18.72 units My 3 top picks last week all won straight up as underdogs. Cal and Appalachian State won close games and San Jose State won outright as a 21 point underdog at Arkansas. New Mexico @ Liberty This is one of the more surprising lines I've seen this season. Liberty is pretty widely regarded as a bowl team, I have them projected for 7.6 wins. New Mexico required a shootout to beat an awful New Mexico State team at home last week and won't be favored in another game all year. I think this line should be Liberty by 2 touchdowns, not 1. Liberty -7 -116 (4 units) Texas Tech @ Oklahoma Texas Tech started the year with two wins over truly pitiful teams, and then laid an egg against Arizona two weeks ago. However, I still think they're a team that could make a bowl this year and are a tier above Kansas and West Virginia at the bottom of t...

Throughout the last few months I've been working on a tool to simulate the remaining weeks of the college football season. I decided to fire up the simulator to see what the state of the various conference races is in my model's eyes. The numbers listed below are rough probabilities, my model's current best guess to within a few percent. For all teams, the first number reported is their probability to win their division (or, in the case of the Big 12, make the conference championship game) and the second is their probability to win their conference. SEC West Alabama: 65%, 40% LSU: 20%, 10% Auburn: 10%, 5% Mississippi State: 5%, 2% Texas A&M, 1%, <1% Ole Miss: <1%. <1% Arkansas: <1%, <1% Alabama is unsurprisingly the favorite to win the division, but I expected them to have a better than 65% chance to advance to Atlanta. They're favorites in every remaining game, but it's more likely than not that they drop a game somewhere alon...

There were more matchups of ranked teams in week 4, but still not a ton of movement in the top 25 as most of the main playoff contenders remain unblemished. This week is shaping up to be another slow one before an action packed week 6 awaits as October looms. Numbers in parenthesis next to each team indicates their ranking last week and their probability of winning out until the conference championship game. 1. Clemson (1, 86.2%) 2. Alabama (2, 35.4%) 3. Ohio State (4, 27.0%) 4. Georgia (3, 11.8%) 5. LSU (5, 2.3%) Clemson remains in a tier of their own, with Alabama in tier 1b behind them. However, the rest of the top 5 is catching up with the Tide. Ohio State and LSU continue to put up ridiculous offensive numbers, and Georgia passed their first big test against Notre Dame. There's only 2 games all year where these teams are less than 6 point favorites: LSU @ Alabama and Georgia @ Auburn. 6. Wisconsin (10, 4.8%) 7. Oklahoma (7, 4.8%) 8. Auburn (11, 0.3%) 9. UCF (6, 24....

Week 1: 7-1-1 +16.90 units Week 2: 3-6 -0.31 units Week 3: 3-4 -1.09 units Season total: 13-11-1 +15.50 units Last week was pretty run of the mill, Wake Forest was the only one of my picks that was close. All of my other picks either easily covered or didn't come close to covering. Cal @ Ole Miss Ole Miss is one of the worst teams in the Power Five, and it really surprises me to see them as favorites against Cal. While they were able to beat Arkansas two weeks ago, they were in a tight game with Southeast Louisiana last week and there are maybe 5 or 6 power conference teams I'd take Ole Miss over.  Cal, while not a top 25 team like the polls suggest, is solid and has a phenomenal defense and should take care of business. Cal +2.5 -102 (3 units) Appalachian State @ North Carolina Appalachian State was in my preseason top 25, as they return almost 90% of their offensive production from a team that went 11-2 last year. Everyone seems to have forgotten about the Mounta...

Week 3 was a bit quieter than week 2, with most of the interesting games being a series of mishaps as opposed to the good matchups we saw earlier in the season. The good news is that conference play really kicks off in many leagues this week, giving us more competitive games this Saturday than we've had any week so far. Numbers in parenthesis next to each team indicates their rating last week. 1. Clemson (1) 2. Alabama (2) 3. Georgia (3) 4. Ohio State (5) 5. LSU (4) Clemson breezed past one of their tougher games at Syracuse, and the gap between them and the rest of the ACC is historic. Their toughest remaining games are Wake Forest and South Carolina in November, and I have them as 27 point favorites in each. Georgia gets their big test at home against Notre Dame this week, I give them a 77% chance to win which is a bit under the 84% being implied by the market. 6. UCF (6) 7. Oklahoma (9) 8. Texas A&M (10) 9. Texas (11) 10. Wisconsin (8) There's been a dece...

Week 1: 7-1-1 +16.90 units Week 2: 3-6 -0.31 units Last week didn't go as well as week 1, but I hit by far my biggest pick in ULM +21.5 as they went to overtime with Florida State. Some of the games I missed I was just plain wrong on (San Jose State, Syracuse, Kansas, Vanderbilt) but the Buffalo loss sure was frustrating. The Bulls lead at the half, possessed the ball for over 40 minutes, outgained Penn State, and failed to cover +29.5. I don't have the data on how often a team outgains their opponent and loses by 30, but it's not particularly frequent. Western Kentucky @ Louisville Western Kentucky has had a confusing start to the season, losing to FCS Central Arkansas and then beating a projected bowl team on the road in FIU. Louisville is one of the worst team is the Power Five though, and while they looked OK against Notre Dame a few weeks ago, my rating for them is still heavily influenced by last year where they were possibly the worst ACC team of the last deca...

Week 2 was quite a bit more active than week 1, with a handful of top 25 teams losing and others looking very unimpressive. 4 of my top 20 teams lost, and there's a decent amount of shakeups in this week's top 25. We're entering the part of the season where there's the most movement in the rankings, as teams are playing games against meaningful opposition, yet we're still early in the season so there's a lot left to be learned about the teams. The number in parenthesis next to each team indicates their ranking last week. 1. Clemson (1) 2. Alabama (2) 3. Georgia (3) 4. LSU (4) Clemson, Alabama and Georgia's ratings remain essentially unchanged as all performed very close to my projected spread. The interesting team here is LSU- while they remain #4, the gap between them and Georgia has disappeared to essentially zero. They've also opened up a decent amount of space between them and the rest of the top 10, and I have them as at least 6 point favorit...

Week 1: 7-1-1 +16.90 units Week 1 went about as well as I could've hoped, going 7-1-1. I lost a 1 unit play on Georgia Southern +27 and pushed a 2 unit bet on Notre Dame -18, but my other 7 plays, including my biggest ones on the week, all hit. Two of my underdog picks, Nevada +11 and Georgia State +26 won straight up as well. ULM @ Florida State In my  preseason win total projections , my two favorite plays were Florida State under 7.5 wins and ULM over 5 wins. It should then come as no surprise that I am all over the Warhawks this week. Florida State already failed to cover last week against Boise State, and I'm likely going to be fading them repeatedly throughout the early part of the season. This is likely to be my biggest single game play of the season. ULM +21.5 -101 (7 units) Buffalo @ Penn State A common theme of my picks in week 1, which will persist through much of September, is picking mediocre G5 teams who are substantial underdogs. Like Georgia State or Ne...

At the top of college football, week 1 went largely by the books as only 2 of the teams in my preseason top 25 lost- Oregon, who lost to fellow top 25 team Auburn, and Missouri who lost a weird game on the road to Wyoming. Since most of the top teams were massive favorites in their opening games, there's not a ton to be learned from week 1 so as a result my ratings remain relatively static. As more information is learned about the top teams and we get some valuable non-conference data points in the coming weeks expect more movement in these rankings. The number in parenthesis next to each team indicates their ranking last week. 1. Clemson (1) 2. Alabama (2) 3. Georgia (3) I have the same top 3 as nearly every media member does right now, although I suspect that the gaps I have between the teams are significantly larger than the average perception. My spread on a potential Clemson/Alabama game on a neutral field is Clemson -5.5, and on a Georgia/Alabama game it's Alabama -...