2019-20 Bowl Picks

So for the season:

Lock 7-7-1 (-$70)

Overall: 133-129-4 (-$50)

These picks will be updated daily.

2019 Final Ratings

REC - this is a calculation that gives more weight to results later in the season.  This season it was based off of the EFF metric.

OOC - a team's non-conference strength of schedule.

This might not even be the best OSU team of the last five years.  2016 also featured a team that was ranked #1 regardless of calculation, but against the third-hardest schedule in that season.  They then proceeded to get shut out by Clemson in the Fiesta Bowl so...

Florida International and Liberty would be the lowest ranked teams to ever make a bowl using the classic PRI metric.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 15

This will be the final lock of the week post, not only of the season, but ever.  Next year my gambling picks will have a new format.

Since eight games are featuring ranked teams, I've gone ahead and decided to pick all ten conference championship games.  So let's have a little fun:

Florida Atlantic -8 v. UAB

UAB is a creditable 9-3 and defending conference champion, but this is a list of the FBS teams they have defeated this year:

at Akron

South Alabama

Rice

At UTSA

Old Dominion

UTEP

Louisiana Tech

At North Texas

The first six listed are six of the worst ten teams in FBS.  I think 8 points is good value for Lane Kiffin in what could be his curtain call at FAU.

Last week:  Clemson -27 @ South Carolina (correct)

Season 5-7-1 (-$170)

Overall: 128-123-4 (-$70)

2019 Week 14 Ratings

So far, the predictions I offered on the season a couple weeks ago have come true.  Alabama and Oregon fell by the wayside and now we have 7 teams for 4 spots.  I'm not particularly exercised about the composition of the playoff quartet.  If pressed, I guess I'd prefer to see LSU dispose of Georgia.  As of right now I don't think they are Top 4 standard, but I'd like to see how a Georgia win would be reflected in the ratings.  Utah has been a road grader out west and I wouldn't mind seeing how they'd match up.

And while it would be hilarious if the Committee called Dabo's bluff that isn't going to happen.

Final ratings will be out after Army-Navy and before the bowls.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 14

Clemson -27 @ South Carolina

A lot of points to give a road team in a rivalry game, but South Carolina has seen their offense completely go into the tank over the last month, scoring 20+ points once against Vandy and ranking 118th in yards/play over the season.

Last week:  Utah -23 @ Arizona (correct)

Season 5-7-1 (-$370)

Overall: 114-117-4 (-$500)

2019 Week 13 Ratings

The annual cull of SEC teams after the penultimate week of the regular season had its usual effect.

Maybe Baylor and Georgia can play in the Sugar to see which of those two pretenders are worse.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 13

I had something all typed out for Minnesota over Northwestern but saw that Morgan might not play due to concussion.  It even included a "you can't row a boat through a cornfield, but can on a lake" line.  Wasted.

Utah -23 @ Arizona

Arizona looks lost in the ether right now and this is a mismatch on paper.

Last week:  Cincinnati -14 @ South Florida (incorrect)

Season 4-7-1 (-$370)

Overall: 105-105-4 (-$500)

2019 Week 12 Ratings

I find Clemson to be interesting.  They are tearing apart a weak schedule as they should, but the nice thing about the Playoff structure is that we actually get to see what that means against the elite tier of the season.  I'd like to see the Committee rank them 4th in the final poll with their schedule cited as the key factor.  Not only do I not expect to see that happen, but I'm also expecting wacky things like A&M and the ACC Coastal champion ranked in the 20-25 range to help justify the Clemson placement.

Thinking about it this morning, I think my prediction for the playoff field is:  Ohio State, Clemson, Georgia, LSU.  LSU has suddenly become unable to stop the run which presents a problem against Georgia as ball control will mitigate whatever issues Georgia has passing/keeping up with LSU.  I sorta think Alabama loses the Iron Bowl so they'd be out.  I don't think Oregon gets through their next three games without a further blemish (Herm Edwards is lurking this weekend) and my hunch is LSU wouldn't be dropped out of the top 4 in favor of 1-loss Oklahoma or especially 1-loss Utah, although the latter is an excellent team.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 12

I was due a good week last week.

Cincinnati -14 @ South Florida

What little I've seen of South Florida this year, their offense looks like it is stuck in the mud.  And Cincinnati has a top-25 defense.

Last week:  Texas -7 v. Kansas State (correct)

Season 4-6-1 (-$250)

Overall: 94-96-4 (-$610)

If I didn't have a chance to finish above .500 this year, I'd lock up Ohio State -53.  For perspective, earlier this year Alabama v. New Mexico State was -55.5.

2019 Week 11 Ratings

As tedious as ESPN's desire to fit things into the "Who's your top 4" prism with increasingly far-fetched hypotheticals, I much rather prefer that to trying to pick two of LSU, Ohio State and Clemson with ephemeral arguments that can neither be won nor lost.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 11

Texas -7 v. Kansas State

Gonna keep taking these dogs...or 'cats in this case.  7 points is way too much to give with the Texas defense in the shape it's in.

Last week:  Utah -3.5 @ Washington (incorrect)

Season 3-6-1 (-$360)

Overall: 89-91-4 (-$1810)

2019 Week 10 Ratings

I think we will have more to discuss next week.  I do like a system that dings a team that plays FCS opposition, especially late in the year (Clemson) more than a team that narrowly lost to a quality opponent on the road (SMU).

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 10

Same as last week:  get the big upset and the lock and underwhelm overall.  This almost went up last night but warts about Baylor (penalties) and App State (weather) wisely led me away from locking them.

Utah -3.5 @ Washington

None of the trends I've looked at this season point me in this direction.  Just history:  Utah is 1-12 all time vs. Washington.  Utah also doesn't feel like an eventual 11-1 team even considering their pedestrian schedule.

Last week:  Minnesota -16.5 v. Maryland (correct)

Season 3-5-1 (-$250)

Overall: 78-83-3 (-$1330)

2019 Week 9 Ratings

I grant that it is a top heavy season with a lot of backloaded schedules, but some of those schedule strength numbers at the top of the table are abysmal.  Alabama's in particular is alarming, and they haven't even had their SoCon Challenge game yet!

No one can hold a candle to UAB however:  of their 7 opponents so far, 5 lack a FBS win.

I think SMU/Cincinnati/Memphis will be the G5 king this year.  The former two both still have to go to Memphis, but wouldn't play each other until the AAC Conference Game.

PRI+ might have some value as a gambling aid in finding teams that are over/undervalued.  Fading teams like MSU and Georgia might be good plays.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 9

Last week was poor overall, but I nailed the lock and the biggest upset of the day.  I'll take that.

Minnesota -16.5 v. Maryland

Two teams moving in opposite directions.  The statistical profiles I look at have Minnesota as the likeliest favorite of the weekend, and even that doesn't figure in how excellent Minnesota has been (against nobodies, but Maryland fits that description) recently and how bad Maryland has been in the same time frame.

Also factor in that this is a hilariously long conference road trip for Maryland.

Last week:  Florida -4.5 @ South Carolina (correct)

Season 2-5-1 (-$350)

Overall: 71-75-2 (-$1150)

2019 Week 8 Ratings

Auburn getting that sweet schedule strength bounce.

Here are some teams from something that caught my eye while working this out:

Boston College

Michigan State

Florida State

Michigan

Iowa

Generally speaking, watching these teams on offense has been like watching a car with bad sparkplugs sputter down the road.  And yet they all rank between 40-60 in ESPN Offensive FPI.  How fun it must be to watch teams well below that standard.  Also buttresses my thinking that there just aren't a lot of great offensive coordinators at the moment.

Illinois is 111th, it should be noted.  Which makes sense for a team that had zero plays in the red zone Saturday.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 8

After the noon kickoffs last week, I went 7-4.  Maybe that's some sort of omen?  This is up far later than usual because I agonized over what to pick, as one tends to do when they haven't picked a winner in 6 weeks.

Florida -4.5 @ South Carolina

Not learning my lesson about back-to-back road teams apparently.  Or noon games.  Or betting against South Carolina at home (I missed on Alabama in week 3 to start this run of futility). But this is more of a situational play with the public being a bit too high on South Carolina due to their enjoyable-yet-fortunate upset last week.

I like this pick better than any of the large spreads I'm fading.

Last week:  Memphis -5.5 @ Temple (incorrect)

Season 1-5-1 (-$430)

Overall: 63-62-2 (-$520)

2019 Week 7 Ratings

Not much to add this week.  EFF still seems to be the way to go.

Week-to-week deltas for all three ratings are available for your perusal.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 7

I honestly would take this week off if it were actual money as nothing really fills me with a great degree of confidence.  But if I were to bet:

Memphis -5.5 @ Temple

Eventually, Temple's offense fails to keep up with Memphis' is my thinking for this week.

Last week:  Utah State -27.5 @ LSU (incorrect)

Season 1-4-1 (-$340)

Overall: 54-53-2 (-$430)

2019 Week 6 Ratings

I'm trying out a different presentation format since I'll be sharing all three of my calculations right from the start.

PRI - the classic formula

PRI+ - includes expected margin of victory vs. actual

EFF - includes each team's offensive and defensive efficiencies as determined by ESPN FPI

I have the document sorted by EFF as that clearly seems to be the more accurate reading of the season at the moment.  Otherwise, I think this would have been too early in the season to begin calculations with early season byes/FCS games/insane schedule strength/unusual home-road splits skewing things even more than they historically have early in the season.

Will EFF become the main model?  Time will tell but I'm pleased with how it looks so far after one week of use.  It still throws out some wackiness like #11 Tulsa, but definitely places Rice in a more accurate (yet still inflated) position.

Still, the old formula gave us #1 SMU v. #2 Tulsa in the game of last weekend, so there is that.

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 6

Utah State +27.5 @ LSU

I'm taking a huge group of 5 underdog on the road against one of the best teams in the country.  Let me explain:

-Teams favored by what I consider to be Super Large spreads (≥27 points) do not successfully cover the later a season gets

-Of the eight projections I look at for each game, each one has Utah State covering.  While the standard deviation of those projections is not ideal for locking, all of them being in agreement is a good trend:  of the 91 games tracked so far, only one has had all the models miss.

-The statistical matchup does not suggest this is a 4TD spread against such a disciplined team like Utah State.

Last week:  Wisconsin -24.5 v. Northwestern (incorrect)

Season 1-3-1 (-$230)

Overall: 48-43-2 ($70)

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 5

Wisconsin -24.5 v. Northwestern

This opened at -21 and I still think it's too low.  2 reasons why I think this is depressed:

-Let down after a big win over Michigan.  But this is also a division game and a revenge spot for Wisconsin.

-Northwestern's defensive numbers look good on first glance.  I believe they are inflated thanks to playing some pretty poor offenses.  MSU was the best they've faced thus far.  Think about that.

Of course, the next good offense Wisconsin plays will also be their first.  Northwestern will not be the first, however.

Last week:  Oklahoma State +6 @ Texas (push)

Season 1-2-1 (-$120)

Overall: 38-36-2 ($-160)

2019 Lock Of The Week, Week 4

Oklahoma State +6 @ Texas

Take the points in a shootout.  Important to note that Texas is 105th in the country in passing yards allowed per attempt (7.8 to Rice last week who only had 12 completions).  OkState has won the last 4 in the series overall and the last 5 games in Austin, last losing in 2008.

Last week:  Alabama -25.5 @ South Carolina (incorrect)

Season 1-2 (-$120)

Overall: 31-24-1 ($460)