PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlay Picks–September 22-26, 2016

After improving a bit last week and losing only $23 of our imaginary bank roll, we have decided to expand our plays to include a couple of underdogs we believe can win outright. Thus, two of our four chosen plays this week will return big payoffs of imaginary cash should they come through with winners.
First, we must take care of official business. Last week, we played five parlays, winning $277 and losing $300. For the year, we have now wagered $1,200 in imaginary money, and have a loss of $442 to date, meaning still no return on our unreal investment. We warned you that Money Line Parlays can be really tough, but we love to play them, especially since it costs us nothing.
Here are our picks for this week. Remember, don’t actually wager on these. This is just for fun, and we would never put a dime of real money on these plays, even if it returned over 40% on investment last year. It’s doing squat so far this year.

1. College Parlay at +450
Army over Buffalo
Tulane over Louisiana-Lafayette
Arkansas over Texas A&M

Arkansas is the underdog in this parlay and the reason it offers a return of 4.5 times the amount invested. The Razorbacks have been slowly developing a balanced offense with an improving defense. Winning at TCU is enough to show us that the Hogs are on the way back to great things. Texas A&M has struggled in their two wins over quality opposition, and we believe the Aggies are due for continued struggles.

Army is off to a great start, and the Black Knights now face a Buffalo team that has already lost to a FCS opponent. This could be the type of game that allows the Cadets to play their plebes. Coach Jeff Monken learned well from his mentor Paul Johnson, and the Army rushing attack looks like it could move the ball on most FBS teams this year. They should light up the scoreboard against Buffalo.

Tulane is also running the option under first year coach Willie Fritz. Fritz does not have all the pieces in place yet in New Orleans, but with his Texas ties, it is only a matter of time until the Green Wave are winning once again. For now, TU has an exceptional defense with a clock-consuming offense that allows that defense to stay fresh and strong enough to hold ULL to 10 points, which is few enough that we see the olive green and blue winning this week.

2. College Parlay at +126
Arizona St. over California
Cincinnati over Miami (O)
Minnesota over Colorado St.
Memphis over Bowling Green

Arizona State had to rally in the fourth quarter to win at UTSA, while Cal pulled off a nice home upset of Texas. With the Golden Bears playing in the heat in Tempe, and with ASU’s players more focused, we believe Todd Graham’s Sun Devils will play their best game of the season to date, while Cal has trouble with the heat and the speed of the ASU receivers.

Cincinnati should beat Miami of Ohio by 3 touchdowns, but even if the in-state rival underdogs play their best possible and the Bearcats stink up the joint, Cinti should win by at least 10.

Minnesota is a team flying under the radar. They win, but they don’t win convincingly and don’t win with flashy play. The offense is better than most think, and the defense is not shabby. This Gophers team is not yet the equivalent of the Sandy Stephens’ teams of the early 1960’s, but it could be as good as any in Minneapolis since Laurence Maroney and Bryan Capito were moving the pigskin.

This year’s Memphis team has not really been challenged yet, and Bowling Green is not the team to bring that challenge. The Tigers should have little problem disposing of the Falcons, as this is a different BGU team without Dino Babers at the controls.

3. NFL Parlay at +373
Indianapolis over San Diego
Oakland over Tennessee
Dallas over Chicago

Oakland is the second underdog we will use in our parlays this week. The Raiders’ starting offensive and defensive lines manhandled the Titans starting offensive and defensive lines in the preseason game. Preseason games don’t reveal a lot, but when you see one front consistently moving the opposing front in the same direction, it is a good bet that they will do so no matter the importance of the game. We believe the Raiders will score more points than the Titans are capable of scoring, and thus we go with the underdog.

Indianapolis faces a must-win scenario at home. Even with a sore Andrew Luck, we believe the Colts will find a way to eke out a small win. If not, then the AFC West is going to be one incredible 4-team race.

Dallas should handle the Bears with relative ease. Without Jay Cutler, Chicago will have to play conservatively and hope they can rattle Dak Prescott. We believe that the nifty rookie will continue to play brilliantly week after week and could be the odds-on favorite to win the Rookie of the Year Award.

4. NFL Parlay at +143
Miami over Cleveland
New York Giants over Washington
Carolina over Minnesota

If Cleveland couldn’t win with RGIII and John McCown at quarterback, then how can they win with Cody Kessler, who wasn’t good enough to make the active roster when all the QBs were healthy. Miami is not playoff worthy at this point, but Adam Gase can design a game plan that will make Kessler’s debut a nightmare.

The Giants look like the Giants of old when Eli Manning had multiple quality receivers to throw to, and the defense came up with big stops. Well, Manning has multiple quality receivers again, and the defense is coming up with big stops. NY could be looking at a season where they are playing at home in January.

The Carolina-Minnesota match worried us for hours today. The Vikings will have to go without Adrian Peterson, but their defense looks as strong as it has looked since the days of Eller, Page, and company. Meanwhile, there is unrest in Charlotte, and it could carry over to the team. We decided that in the end, we would go with the home team to capitalize on the weakened running game and thus to slow down Sam Bradford.

NFL Ratings And Spreads For Week 3: September 22-26,2016

Quarterback Issues Abound

It is almost inevitable that in today’s philosophy of passing the ball more than running, and with a 16- game schedule, that quarterback injuries would increase from the prior generation of NFL Football.

Certain teams lack pass blockers sufficient to deter the superior pass rushers of today’s game, and all sorts of inventive disguising of pass rush have contributed as much if not more to the troubles.

Just two weeks into the 2016 NFL season, two teams are already on quarterback number three, and others have gone to quarterback number two.

In Cleveland, where the Browns were weak enough before losing Robert Griffin, III and Josh McCown, rookie Cody Kessler will get the start this week at Miami.  Adam Gase’s defense is not the issue in Dolphinland.  Expect Kessler to be running for his life early and often.

New England is down to quarterback number three only due to Tom Brady’d suspension.  If the Pats can sneak through two weeks with Jacoby Brissett, then the king can return.  And, if something should happen to Brissett Thursday night against Houston, we may see wide receiver Julian Edelman move to quarterback.  Edelman has beaten Buffalo and Miami while playing quarterback, but that was when he was at Kent State, and the two teams were the Buffalo Bulls and Miami of Ohio Redhawks.

Jay Cutler’s thumb injury could be reason for John Fox to go with Brian Hoyer.  The Bears, already struggling on offense, may have a difficult time matching the Rams for points in the near future.

Then there is the case of a possible Wally Pipp injury.  When Tony Romo went down in Dallas, rookie Dak Prescott entered and drew comparisons to Roger Staubach.  Staubach once came in as a replacement to Craig Morton.  It took a little shuffling, but Morton soon became a bench-warmer before becoming a New York Giant and Denver Bronco.  Staubach led the Cowboys to two Super Bowl Championships and two others, where Dallas came very close to winning.

And, there is Sam Bradford in Minnesota.  This Vikings team may have to totally change the way it plays now with Adrian Peterson out for a lengthy time and maybe the season.  Bradford showed signs of returning to form in the Sunday night win over Green Bay.  The Vikings have been down this road before.  After the Joe Kapp, Dave Osborn, Bill Brown days of plodding offense, and the two-year babysitting of the job by Gary Cuozzo, Fran Tarkenton came back to Bloomington after a five-year sojourn in the Big Apple, and he teamed up with John Gilliam and Jim Lash, while the Purple People Eaters’ defense continued to dominate, leading the Vikings to the Super Bowl three times in four seasons.  Might this be the year the Vikings make it back?  The NFC looks like a wide-open race this year.

 

Two Weeks Are Not A Trend, But

Through two weeks of the season, the average score of an NFL game comes to less than 42 points per game, or less than 21 points per team.  The Los Angeles Rams have three field goals in two games.  The Seattle Seahawks have three field goals and a touchdown in two games, and that one TD came with 30 seconds remaining at home against Miami.  Is it because the Dolphins and Rams have great defenses that Seattle is averaging just 7.5 points per game?  Are the 49ers and Seahawks so strong defensively that LA averages just 4.5 points per game?

San Francisco gave up close to 50 to Carolina last week.  The problem at the L.A. Coliseum is an archaic offense that Jeff Fisher refuses to alter.  He is a Mike Ditka disciple, but he needs to realize that the 1985 Bears are not coming through the Coliseum locker room doors.  He does not have Eddie George in his backfield, even though Todd Gurley is talented.

Sports metric experts have shown that the key to winning in the NFL is being able to pass the ball and being able to stop the pass.  Running stats are padded by winning teams because they usually run the ball to eat the clock when they lead in the last 20 minutes of games, and the losing team abandons the run to try to catch up.  Fisher is basically the Gene Mauch of football.  Mauch took a lot of excellent baseball teams and guided them to respectable 90-win seasons, while the talent on hand was good enough to win 100 games.

Fisher isn’t alone.  Mike Mularkey and Rex Ryan think you can be the 1985 Bears or even 1963 Bears and win the Super Bowl.  It is true that Denver won last year without a dominating passing game, but they did not have a dominating running game.  They dominated by stopping the pass and by getting just enough passing yards to win.  Even a damaged Peyton Manning was good enough to accumulate necessary passing yards.  The Broncos did not run early and often.  They did not run on first down, run on second down and then pass conservatively on third down.  The metrics actually show that passing on first and second down and on third and less than five is the better percentage play, while running becomes the better option only on third and six to 12 yards.  And, for that matter, going for it on fourth down and less than 4 when outside your own 30 yard line is the  better statistical move (as is going for it on 4th and less than 4 when in field goal range).

Certainly, going against the traditional methods will occasionally cost a team a win, but in rebuttal, going against tradition will allow teams to win games they would have lost by using the old playbook tendencies.  And, the ignorant media will run a coach out of town on a rail for going against tradition and losing while never complimenting the coach that bucks the system and wins.  Hey, they are in the business, because they didn’t do so well in math class.

This Week’s Ratings

Current NFL PiRate Ratings
A F C
East	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
N. Y. Jets	103.9	101.6	105.1	103.5	62	42
New England	101.4	99.3	101.8	100.8	60	41
Buffalo	98.6	99.5	98.7	98.9	59	40
Miami	96.1	96.9	96.1	96.3	58	38
North	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Cincinnati	106.9	106.3	107.8	107.0	64	43
Pittsburgh	105.9	105.5	107.2	106.2	65	41
Baltimore	98.7	100.9	98.4	99.3	61	38
Cleveland	89.9	90.9	89.3	90.0	57	33
South	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Houston	101.8	103.0	102.1	102.3	64	38
Indianapolis	97.1	98.9	96.0	97.3	61	36
Jacksonville	95.1	96.9	94.4	95.5	58	38
Tennessee	93.9	95.9	93.4	94.4	54	40
West	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Denver	106.4	103.1	106.5	105.3	62	43
Kansas City	101.8	101.5	102.5	101.9	63	39
San Diego	99.9	100.9	99.7	100.2	64	36
Oakland	97.7	98.4	97.6	97.9	63	35
N F C
East	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Philadelphia	101.0	98.0	100.4	99.8	62	38
N.Y. Giants	99.0	98.3	98.7	98.7	62	37
Washington	97.3	98.1	97.0	97.5	61	37
Dallas	94.6	94.9	94.1	94.5	56	39
North	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Green Bay	104.4	103.7	104.4	104.2	64	40
Minnesota	102.9	101.9	103.4	102.7	60	43
Detroit	99.2	99.0	98.8	99.0	62	37
Chicago	95.4	93.3	95.1	94.6	56	39
South	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Carolina	109.4	108.2	110.3	109.3	65	44
New Orleans	99.1	101.5	98.4	99.7	64	36
Atlanta	96.9	99.8	96.8	97.8	62	36
Tampa Bay	95.9	96.8	95.1	95.9	59	37
West	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Arizona	110.0	107.5	110.9	109.5	69	41
Seattle	106.4	103.3	107.1	105.6	63	43
Los Angeles	97.9	99.4	97.4	98.3	56	42
San Francisco	95.6	96.8	95.7	96.0	56	40

 

This Week’s PiRate Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Score
New England	Houston	2.6	-0.7	2.7	23-21
Buffalo	Arizona	-7.9	-4.5	-8.7	20-27
Carolina	Minnesota	9.5	9.3	9.9	24-14
Cincinnati	Denver	3.5	6.2	4.3	21-16
Green Bay	Detroit	7.7	7.2	8.1	28-20
Jacksonville	Baltimore	-0.6	-1.0	-1.0	20-21
Miami	Cleveland	9.2	9.0	9.8	26-17
New York Giants	Washington	4.2	2.7	4.5	27-23
Tennessee	Oakland	-0.8	0.5	-1.2	20-21
Seattle	San Francisco	13.8	9.5	14.4	23-10
Tampa Bay	Los Angeles	1.5	0.9	1.2	17-16
Indianapolis	San Diego	0.2	1.0	-0.7	28-27
Kansas City	New York Jets	0.9	2.9	0.4	24-23
Philadelphia	Pittsburgh	-2.9	-5.5	-4.8	23-27
Dallas	Chicago	2.2	4.6	2.0	20-17
New Orleans	Atlanta	5.2	4.7	4.6	31-26

 

College Football Ratings & Spreads For September 22-24, 2016

What an incredible college football week has just passed!  We told you last week that it could be the best September slate of college football games in years, and it lived up to the hype.

Guess what?  This weekend won’t exactly be chopped liver.  There are some excellent games on tap, and more conference games will be played this week.

First, some information about you guys and dolls.  We asked you to go to our sister site at http://www.piratings.webs.com and tell us who your favorite college and NFL teams happened to be.  We have received dozens of replies so far, and a pattern has developed.

Among the colleges mentioned, a large majority of you are Big Ten fans.  The number one school mentioned so far, and by quite a large margin, is Ohio State.  Number two surprised us, as we expected that an SEC school or six would be among the top ones you fine folks follow.  No SEC team received more than three votes, and that three belongs to Florida.  Number two behind the Buckeyes was their arch-rival Michigan, and in distant third place was the other Big Ten East biggie, Michigan State.

The NFL followed suit with upper Midwest fan support.  In a close race so far, Cleveland, Green Bay, and Chicago rank one-two-three.

It could be that the PiRate Ratings have a lot of upper Midwest support.  There are ties to Ohio State in a minor way, much less than the ties to Wisconsin, but it is there.  However, we expected a lot more SEC support, and it just didn’t come.  Wherefore art thou Alabama, Tennessee, LSU, Georgia, and Aggie fans?

Okay, now to get down to business.  We will obviously comment on the 3 Big Ten schools first today, and then include other games of interest that you might want to follow this week.

Ohio St.

The Buckeyes get a well-timed week off after picking up the biggest win of the NCAA season against the Sooners in Norman.  Their next two games are home contests against Rutgers and Indiana, so Urban Meyer’s team will be 5-0 when they head up to Camp Randall Stadium on October 15.

The stats are intimidating to any future opponent: 56.7 points per game to 12.3 points allowed per game; 306 yards per game rushing to just 103 allowed per game; a total yards per game average of 545 to 279; the defense has intercepted nine passes in three games; and if that isn’t enough riches, the Buckeyes have the best kicking game in the nation so far with a 50+ yard punt average and a 47+ yard net punt average to go with perfect 100% accuracy on PATs and field goals.

Michigan

The Wolverines spotted improved Colorado a quick two touchdown lead before getting down to business and posting an impressive 17-point win at the Big House.  Penn State comes to Ann Arbor this week, after the Nittany Lions held off a pesky Temple team.  The Maize and Blue defense and special teams have scored or set up more points than they have allowed with interception returns, punt returns, and three blocked kicks so far.  At one time, in 1969, Penn State’s defense and special teams scored or set up more points than the defense allowed for the entire season.  That Penn State team finished undefeated, and if this Michigan team can continue to replicate that great 1969 Penn State team, there is no reason to think the Wolverines cannot run the table–at least head to the Giant Horseshoe at 11-0.  How much would another 11-0 vs. 11-0 matchup cost to purchase a ticket on the street this time?  Prices were highly inflated in 2006, when these two teams were undefeated and ranked 1-2.

As for this week, We don’t think James Franklin’s Nittany Lions will roar much.  They might hold Michigan under 40 points, but can they score more than 17?

 

Michigan St.

The Spartans looked like a different team between game one against Furman and game two against Notre Dame.  Now MSU hosts a Wisconsin team that must have overlooked Georgia State last week, but even overlooking the Panthers, UW should have won by 30.  Sparty’s defense held Notre Dame’s rushing game at bay all night, and a repeat performance against the Badgers will mean a double-digit win.  For the record, we do not believe they will stop the UW rush like they stopped the Notre Dame running game.

Tyler O’Connor looked like a pro prospect at times against the Irish secondary.  His one interception came on a deflection, and if you remove that deflection, he had a night Connor Cook would have been proud of.  Look for MSU to win another tight game by less than a touchdown.  The last three times these schools have played, the margins were all under a TD.

Other Games of Interest

Thursday Night:

Clemson at Georgia Tech

The CU win at Auburn does not look all that impressive after Texas A&M looked better in their win at Jordan-Hare.  The narrow win over Troy could not be erased by the slaughter over the FCS school that was so unprepared to play a Power 5 team, that their kick returner handed the Tigers a touchdown by tossing it to the back judge without downing the ball.  This Clemson team has started to resemble the Florida State team of 2014.  That FSU team was considerably weaker than the 2013 champion, but they still made it to the playoffs.  We are not sure this CU team is playoff worthy, but they have time to right the ship.

Georgia Tech is 3-0 and looks like a defensive juggernaut in the process.  However, a closer look shows their defensive performance has come against three teams that would have trouble scoring in 11 on 0 practice drills.  Tech’s next three games could see a reverse in defensive performance.  Still, the Yellow Jackets are mighty tough to prepare for, and when you take away two days of preparation, it could make this a rather interesting game to watch.

Saturday

Florida at Tennessee

Butch Jones’ legacy in Knoxville is like an almost finished book.  The one major chapter of his mystery novel is the one where you find out who did it.  If Florida did it, ole Butch may not get a chance to write the sequel.

Florida has won 11 straight games in this series.  The average score in this streak has been 29-16, although the last two have both been decided by a single point.  The Gators are going to have to make due with Austin Appleby at quarterback after starter Luke Del Rio injured his knee on a cheap shot tackle by North Texas.  Appleby would become the second former Purdue quarterback to start a game for an SEC team in the last two weeks (Danny Etling @ LSU).  After replacing Del Rio, Appleby completed passes of 11 and 19 yards against the Mean Green in his four attempts.  At Purdue, Appleby had a tendency to force throws where he should not have passed, and his interception rate was  4%, about 45% higher than the QB that sent him packing from West Lafayette.

Josh Dobbs has not been what he was expected to be this year.  It looks like the coaching staff has put a governor on his scrambling and is not calling for Dobbs to keep the ball on many designed running plays.  That might change this week, as the Vols need to pull out all the stops to move the ball against Geoff Collins’ defense.

Tennessee is not without major losses due to injury, and it affects a trio of excellent starting defensive players.  All-American punt returner and very good cornerback Cameron Sutton will be out for several weeks. All-SEC weakside linebacker Jalen Reeves-Maybin should be able to play, but he will be far from 100%, and the Vols are hurting depthwise here, as middle linebacker Darrin Kirkland and backup hybrid linebacker/safety Quarte Sapp will miss the game.

Expect a low-scoring, hard-fought game that comes down to the final few minutes.

Arkansas vs. Texas A&M in Arlington, TX (Dallas Cowboys Stadium)–The Southwest Classic

What can these two former Southwest Conference rivals do for a second encore after the last two games in Jerryworld went to overtime?  The Aggies won both games, and it would not surprise us again if the game was still to be decided late in the fourth quarter.  Arkansas has not beaten A&M since the Aggies joined the SEC.

Both teams have big wins already this year.  Arkansas won at TCU, while A&M topped UCLA, so they have been tested, and we expect a quality game from both sides.  It was hoped that Austin Allen would be able to approach his graduated brother Brandon’s stats at quarterback, but through three games, little brother has greatly surpassed expectations.  Add to this fact that running back Rawleigh Williams has done an admirable job replacing Alex Collins.  It has been the Razorback defense that has not quite lived up to expectations.

As for the Aggies, Kevin Sumlin has dealth with his critics in recent years since Johnny Manziel left College Station, and most of that criticism has come from subsequently weaker offenses year over year.  We may ask these critics why a 44-31 win is better than a 29-16 win?  This Aggie team can play defense, as most defenses led by legendary guru John Chavis tend to do.  Against Josh Rosen and UCLA, the Aggie defense produced five sacks and three interceptions.  Auburn tried to throw short, and A&M didn’t give up yards after the catch.

Arkansas will try to combine pounding the ball up the gut with vertical passes to Keon Hatcher combined with spreading the field and finding Drew Morgan, tight end Jeremy Sprinkle, and Dominique Reed.

Stanford at UCLA

The must-win games continue to allow Stanford a chance to stay in the playoff hunt.  A win over USC at home was just fine.  A win at UCLA and by a larger margin than the Bruins fell at Texas A&M, gives the Cardinal the much-needed ammunition to fight against the Clemson’s, Louisville’s, and Houston’s.  SU must run the table against a weaker Pac-12 slate, and a win at the Rose Bowl Saturday night pumps up their resume.  A loss, and it’s all up to Washington and Arizona State to carry the Pac-12 banner.

Boise St. at Oregon St.

The Broncos are now in a multi-team battle with South Florida, Houston, Memphis, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Toledo, and San Diego State for the NY6 Bowl Bid.  For that matter, throw in a surprising Army team into this mix and don’t eliminate the other two service academies just yet.

This game is Boise’s best resume builder for the rest of the season, even though the Beavers are at the bottom of the Pac-12.  It is almost required that BSU wins this game by at least 17 points, or they might have to be the last remaining undefeated team in December.

 

Here are this week’s PiRate Ratings

PiRate Ratings–Predictive
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	131.1	123.6	130.9	128.5
2	Louisville	127.9	121.7	128.1	125.9
3	Ohio St.	122.9	122.2	124.4	123.2
4	LSU	124.0	118.3	123.0	121.8
5	Michigan	121.9	119.8	122.5	121.4
6	Tennessee	121.8	117.1	121.8	120.2
7	Oklahoma	120.0	117.3	119.9	119.1
8	Clemson	122.2	113.9	120.7	118.9
9	Stanford	121.4	114.2	120.3	118.6
10	Washington	121.0	113.2	121.1	118.4
11	Miami	120.1	112.8	120.0	117.6
12	Houston	115.5	113.6	117.7	115.6
13	Oklahoma St.	115.3	116.3	115.1	115.6
14	Florida St.	117.9	110.6	116.8	115.1
15	North Carolina	117.2	110.5	116.9	114.9
16	Virginia Tech	114.5	114.1	114.8	114.5
17	Texas A&M	114.8	113.8	114.8	114.5
18	Pittsburgh	115.9	111.4	115.0	114.1
19	Iowa	115.1	112.0	114.8	114.0
20	Auburn	113.9	112.4	113.8	113.4
21	Mississippi St.	114.4	111.7	113.7	113.3
22	Notre Dame	114.9	111.2	113.6	113.2
23	Florida	112.6	116.3	110.8	113.2
24	Michigan St.	113.5	112.5	111.7	112.6
25	Texas	112.1	113.6	111.2	112.3
26	TCU	111.9	113.5	111.5	112.3
27	USC	114.3	109.9	111.6	111.9
28	Oregon	112.3	111.0	111.5	111.6
29	Arkansas	113.7	108.8	111.0	111.2
30	South Florida	111.6	109.0	112.8	111.1
31	Ole Miss	113.6	107.1	112.4	111.0
32	Georgia	111.0	111.1	110.9	111.0
33	UCLA	111.4	110.4	111.0	110.9
34	Baylor	110.4	110.5	111.5	110.8
35	Nebraska	111.8	108.4	111.9	110.7
36	Wisconsin	111.1	109.0	111.7	110.6
37	Georgia Tech	111.0	107.2	110.4	109.5
38	Boise St.	108.0	109.4	110.3	109.2
39	Colorado	110.1	105.6	110.6	108.8
40	Utah	110.8	105.1	108.7	108.2
41	Kansas St.	107.2	110.2	107.1	108.2
42	BYU	110.3	103.6	109.7	107.9
43	Penn St.	107.2	109.0	105.9	107.4
44	Arizona St.	107.5	108.1	106.3	107.3
45	West Virginia	107.2	106.6	106.8	106.9
46	Western Michigan	106.8	104.8	108.6	106.7
47	Washington St.	107.6	104.8	107.5	106.7
48	North Carolina St.	106.9	104.7	106.3	106.0
49	San Diego St.	105.8	102.9	108.2	105.7
50	Minnesota	105.1	103.1	104.8	104.3
51	Central Michigan	103.0	105.7	104.2	104.3
52	Northwestern	106.4	101.2	104.8	104.1
53	Texas Tech	105.5	103.3	103.4	104.1
54	Toledo	104.2	102.8	105.2	104.1
55	Missouri	104.1	103.3	103.9	103.8
56	Indiana	101.8	106.3	101.4	103.2
57	Arizona	104.3	102.0	103.1	103.1
58	Cincinnati	101.9	102.5	102.6	102.4
59	Maryland	101.4	105.0	99.2	101.9
60	Memphis	103.7	99.6	102.0	101.8
61	California	105.0	96.6	102.7	101.4
62	Air Force	100.9	101.3	101.4	101.2
63	Wake Forest	101.8	99.5	100.9	100.8
64	Tulsa	99.7	102.0	100.4	100.7
65	Vanderbilt	102.5	98.3	101.0	100.6
66	South Carolina	100.9	99.9	100.4	100.4
67	Boston College	100.5	99.5	100.0	100.0
68	Temple	99.9	99.6	100.3	100.0
69	Western Kentucky	100.8	96.4	102.0	99.7
70	Syracuse	101.4	97.6	99.2	99.4
71	Virginia	100.4	97.4	99.7	99.2
72	Duke	99.0	99.8	97.3	98.7
73	Navy	98.8	98.7	98.3	98.6
74	Appalachian St.	97.7	96.4	99.8	98.0
75	Army	93.8	102.0	97.1	97.6
76	Connecticut	97.5	95.3	97.7	96.9
77	Rutgers	98.0	95.5	96.4	96.7
78	Purdue	97.6	95.2	96.6	96.5
79	Illinois	97.6	94.3	96.6	96.2
80	East Carolina	95.1	97.2	95.5	95.9
81	Oregon St.	98.4	93.6	95.8	95.9
82	Kentucky	94.9	97.5	93.6	95.3
83	Ohio	91.5	100.1	92.5	94.7
84	Utah St.	93.9	96.7	93.5	94.7
85	Middle Tennessee	94.0	95.3	94.5	94.6
86	Iowa St.	95.0	94.7	93.8	94.5
87	Northern Illinois	93.7	94.9	94.4	94.3
88	Southern Mississippi	93.8	93.7	94.8	94.1
89	New Mexico	92.2	95.2	93.0	93.5
90	Nevada	91.6	95.1	92.8	93.2
91	SMU	92.6	91.8	91.9	92.1
92	Georgia Southern	91.3	91.3	93.6	92.1
93	UNLV	89.8	94.2	89.9	91.3
94	Troy	88.6	93.6	90.5	90.9
95	Louisiana Tech	89.8	92.0	90.9	90.9
96	Marshall	88.7	93.1	90.5	90.8
97	Arkansas St.	88.7	90.7	90.2	89.9
98	San Jose St.	89.8	89.8	90.0	89.9
99	Akron	86.7	93.1	88.1	89.3
100	Bowling Green	89.7	88.5	89.1	89.1
101	Central Florida	88.2	90.6	88.2	89.0
102	Colorado St.	86.0	88.7	86.5	87.1
103	Ball St.	85.9	87.9	86.8	86.9
104	Kansas	85.0	92.5	82.3	86.6
105	Tulane	85.5	88.6	85.7	86.6
106	Old Dominion	85.4	88.3	85.7	86.5
107	Kent St.	84.1	85.8	84.3	84.8
108	Rice	81.8	89.6	81.8	84.4
109	Miami (O)	83.6	84.4	84.7	84.2
110	Wyoming	83.9	83.6	84.1	83.9
111	Georgia St.	81.5	86.6	83.2	83.8
112	Florida Atlantic	81.7	85.1	83.3	83.4
113	UTSA	79.6	87.5	82.1	83.1
114	South Alabama	80.0	87.6	81.4	83.0
115	Florida International	80.2	87.1	80.9	82.7
116	Massachusetts	79.5	87.5	81.0	82.7
117	Eastern Michigan	79.9	85.1	80.8	81.9
118	Fresno St.	80.5	84.6	80.1	81.7
119	Buffalo	77.8	86.6	79.0	81.2
120	UL-Lafayette	75.8	84.4	77.7	79.3
121	Idaho	76.0	81.8	77.3	78.4
122	New Mexico St.	75.4	78.0	76.2	76.5
123	Hawaii	77.1	75.8	76.2	76.4
124	North Texas	74.6	77.0	74.6	75.4
125	UTEP	72.3	76.7	73.8	74.3
126	Charlotte	70.5	77.7	71.6	73.3
127	Texas St.	71.6	72.7	72.8	72.4
128	UL-Monroe	70.1	75.2	70.7	72.0

 

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team
1	Alabama
2	Ohio St.
3	Clemson
4	Houston
5	Michigan
6	Tennessee
7	Stanford
8	Washington
9	Louisville
10	Arkansas
11	Texas A&M
12	Wisconsin
13	Baylor
14	LSU
15	Florida St.
16	Georgia
17	Michigan St.
18	Utah
19	Florida
20	Oklahoma
21	Nebraska
22	Miami (Fla)
23	San Diego St.
24	Ole Miss
25	South Florida
26	Toledo
27	Western Michigan
28	North Carolina
29	Iowa
30	Oregon
31	Boise St.
32	West Virginia
33	TCU
34	Navy
35	UCLA
36	Central Michigan
37	Notre Dame
38	Arizona St.
39	Oklahoma St.
40	Virginia Tech
41	Memphis
42	California
43	USC
44	Georgia Tech
45	Western Kentucky
46	Auburn
47	Pittsburgh
48	Georgia Southern
49	Texas
50	Minnesota
51	Texas Tech
52	Colorado
53	Penn St.
54	BYU
55	Kansas St.
56	Air Force
57	Indiana
58	Washington St.
59	Mississippi St.
60	Maryland
61	Wake Forest
62	North Carolina St.
63	Cincinnati
64	Army
65	South Carolina
66	Arizona
67	Tulsa
68	Akron
69	Missouri
70	Utah St.
71	Appalachian St.
72	Northwestern
73	East Carolina
74	Troy
75	Southern Miss.
76	Temple
77	Marshall
78	Louisiana Tech
79	Nevada
80	Colorado St.
81	Vanderbilt
82	Middle Tennessee
83	Rutgers
84	Connecticut
85	Ohio
86	Duke
87	Bowling Green
88	Ball St.
89	SMU
90	Kentucky
91	Arkansas St.
92	Boston College
93	Syracuse
94	Illinois
95	Texas St.
96	Purdue
97	Oregon St.
98	San Jose St.
99	Wyoming
100	UL-Lafayette
101	Virginia
102	UTEP
103	Idaho
104	South Alabama
105	Northern Illinois
106	Tulane
107	New Mexico
108	Central Florida
109	Fresno St.
110	Iowa St.
111	UNLV
112	Old Dominion
113	Florida Atlantic
114	Rice
115	New Mexico St.
116	Kansas
117	Georgia St.
118	Massachusetts
119	UTSA
120	Eastern Michigan
121	Kent St.
122	Hawaii
123	UL-Monroe
124	Miami (O)
125	Buffalo
126	Florida Int’l.
127	Charlotte
128	North Texas

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	111.6	109.0	112.8	111.1
Cincinnati	101.9	102.5	102.6	102.4
Temple	99.9	99.6	100.3	100.0
Connecticut	97.5	95.3	97.7	96.9
East Carolina	95.1	97.2	95.5	95.9
Central Florida	88.2	90.6	88.2	89.0
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Houston	115.5	113.6	117.7	115.6
Memphis	103.7	99.6	102.0	101.8
Tulsa	99.7	102.0	100.4	100.7
Navy	98.8	98.7	98.3	98.6
SMU	92.6	91.8	91.9	92.1
Tulane	85.5	88.6	85.7	86.6
AAC Averages	99.2	99.1	99.4	99.2
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisville	127.9	121.7	128.1	125.9
Clemson	122.2	113.9	120.7	118.9
Florida St.	117.9	110.6	116.8	115.1
North Carolina St.	106.9	104.7	106.3	106.0
Wake Forest	101.8	99.5	100.9	100.8
Boston College	100.5	99.5	100.0	100.0
Syracuse	101.4	97.6	99.2	99.4
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	120.1	112.8	120.0	117.6
North Carolina	117.2	110.5	116.9	114.9
Virginia Tech	114.5	114.1	114.8	114.5
Pittsburgh	115.9	111.4	115.0	114.1
Georgia Tech	111.0	107.2	110.4	109.5
Virginia	100.4	97.4	99.7	99.2
Duke	99.0	99.8	97.3	98.7
ACC Averages	111.2	107.2	110.4	109.6
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	120.0	117.3	119.9	119.1
Oklahoma St.	115.3	116.3	115.1	115.6
Texas	112.1	113.6	111.2	112.3
TCU	111.9	113.5	111.5	112.3
Baylor	110.4	110.5	111.5	110.8
Kansas St.	107.2	110.2	107.1	108.2
West Virginia	107.2	106.6	106.8	106.9
Texas Tech	105.5	103.3	103.4	104.1
Iowa St.	95.0	94.7	93.8	94.5
Kansas	85.0	92.5	82.3	86.6
Big 12 Averages	107.0	107.9	106.3	107.0
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	122.9	122.2	124.4	123.2
Michigan	121.9	119.8	122.5	121.4
Michigan St.	113.5	112.5	111.7	112.6
Penn St.	107.2	109.0	105.9	107.4
Indiana	101.8	106.3	101.4	103.2
Maryland	101.4	105.0	99.2	101.9
Rutgers	98.0	95.5	96.4	96.7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Iowa	115.1	112.0	114.8	114.0
Nebraska	111.8	108.4	111.9	110.7
Wisconsin	111.1	109.0	111.7	110.6
Minnesota	105.1	103.1	104.8	104.3
Northwestern	106.4	101.2	104.8	104.1
Purdue	97.6	95.2	96.6	96.5
Illinois	97.6	94.3	96.6	96.2
Big Ten Averages	108.0	106.7	107.3	107.3
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Kentucky	100.8	96.4	102.0	99.7
Middle Tennessee	94.0	95.3	94.5	94.6
Marshall	88.7	93.1	90.5	90.8
Old Dominion	85.4	88.3	85.7	86.5
Florida Atlantic	81.7	85.1	83.3	83.4
Florida International	80.2	87.1	80.9	82.7
Charlotte	70.5	77.7	71.6	73.3
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Southern Mississippi	93.8	93.7	94.8	94.1
Louisiana Tech	89.8	92.0	90.9	90.9
Rice	81.8	89.6	81.8	84.4
UTSA	79.6	87.5	82.1	83.1
North Texas	74.6	77.0	74.6	75.4
UTEP	72.3	76.7	73.8	74.3
CUSA Averages	84.1	87.7	85.1	85.6
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame	114.9	111.2	113.6	113.2
BYU	110.3	103.6	109.7	107.9
Army	93.8	102.0	97.1	97.6
Massachusetts	79.5	87.5	81.0	82.7
Independents Averages	99.6	101.1	100.4	100.4
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio	91.5	100.1	92.5	94.7
Akron	86.7	93.1	88.1	89.3
Bowling Green	89.7	88.5	89.1	89.1
Kent St.	84.1	85.8	84.3	84.8
Miami (O)	83.6	84.4	84.7	84.2
Buffalo	77.8	86.6	79.0	81.2
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Michigan	106.8	104.8	108.6	106.7
Central Michigan	103.0	105.7	104.2	104.3
Toledo	104.2	102.8	105.2	104.1
Northern Illinois	93.7	94.9	94.4	94.3
Ball St.	85.9	87.9	86.8	86.9
Eastern Michigan	79.9	85.1	80.8	81.9
MAC Averages	90.6	93.3	91.5	91.8
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	108.0	109.4	110.3	109.2
Air Force	100.9	101.3	101.4	101.2
Utah St.	93.9	96.7	93.5	94.7
New Mexico	92.2	95.2	93.0	93.5
Colorado St.	86.0	88.7	86.5	87.1
Wyoming	83.9	83.6	84.1	83.9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	105.8	102.9	108.2	105.7
Nevada	91.6	95.1	92.8	93.2
UNLV	89.8	94.2	89.9	91.3
San Jose St.	89.8	89.8	90.0	89.9
Fresno St.	80.5	84.6	80.1	81.7
Hawaii	77.1	75.8	76.2	76.4
MWC Averages	91.6	93.2	92.2	92.3
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Stanford	121.4	114.2	120.3	118.6
Washington	121.0	113.2	121.1	118.4
Oregon	112.3	111.0	111.5	111.6
Washington St.	107.6	104.8	107.5	106.7
California	105.0	96.6	102.7	101.4
Oregon St.	98.4	93.6	95.8	95.9
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
USC	114.3	109.9	111.6	111.9
UCLA	111.4	110.4	111.0	110.9
Colorado	110.1	105.6	110.6	108.8
Utah	110.8	105.1	108.7	108.2
Arizona St.	107.5	108.1	106.3	107.3
Arizona	104.3	102.0	103.1	103.1
Pac-12 Averages	110.3	106.2	109.2	108.6
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Tennessee	121.8	117.1	121.8	120.2
Florida	112.6	116.3	110.8	113.2
Georgia	111.0	111.1	110.9	111.0
Missouri	104.1	103.3	103.9	103.8
Vanderbilt	102.5	98.3	101.0	100.6
South Carolina	100.9	99.9	100.4	100.4
Kentucky	94.9	97.5	93.6	95.3
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	131.1	123.6	130.9	128.5
LSU	124.0	118.3	123.0	121.8
Texas A&M	114.8	113.8	114.8	114.5
Auburn	113.9	112.4	113.8	113.4
Mississippi St.	114.4	111.7	113.7	113.3
Arkansas	113.7	108.8	111.0	111.2
Ole Miss	113.6	107.1	112.4	111.0
SEC Averages	112.4	110.0	111.6	111.3
Sunbelt Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	97.7	96.4	99.8	98.0
Georgia Southern	91.3	91.3	93.6	92.1
Troy	88.6	93.6	90.5	90.9
Arkansas St.	88.7	90.7	90.2	89.9
Georgia St.	81.5	86.6	83.2	83.8
South Alabama	80.0	87.6	81.4	83.0
UL-Lafayette	75.8	84.4	77.7	79.3
Idaho	76.0	81.8	77.3	78.4
New Mexico St.	75.4	78.0	76.2	76.5
Texas St.	71.6	72.7	72.8	72.4
UL-Monroe	70.1	75.2	70.7	72.0
Sun Belt Averages	81.5	85.3	83.0	83.3

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	SEC	112.4	110.0	111.6	111.3
2	ACC	111.2	107.2	110.4	109.6
3	Pac-12	110.3	106.2	109.2	108.6
4	Big Ten	108.0	106.7	107.3	107.3
5	Big 12	107.0	107.9	106.3	107.0
6	Independents	99.6	101.1	100.4	100.4
7	AAC	99.2	99.1	99.4	99.2
8	MWC	91.6	93.2	92.2	92.3
9	MAC	90.6	93.3	91.5	91.8
10	CUSA	84.1	87.7	85.1	85.6
11	Sun Belt	81.5	85.3	83.0	83.3

This Week’s Spreads

Thursday, September 22		PiRate	Mean	Bias
Georgia Tech	Clemson	-8.2	-3.7	-7.3
Friday, September 23		PiRate	Mean	Bias
Eastern Michigan	Wyoming	-1.0	4.5	-0.3
Utah	USC	-0.5	-1.8	0.1
Saturday, September 24		PiRate	Mean	Bias
Akron	Appalachian St.	-8.0	-0.3	-8.7
Buffalo	Army	-14.0	-13.4	-16.1
Cincinnati	Miami (O)	20.8	20.6	20.4
Connecticut	Syracuse	-1.9	-0.3	0.5
Indiana	Wake Forest	3.0	9.8	3.5
Kentucky	South Carolina	-3.0	0.6	-3.8
Michigan	Penn St.	17.7	13.8	19.6
Michigan St.	Wisconsin	5.4	6.5	3.0
North Carolina	Pittsburgh	4.3	2.1	4.9
Purdue	Nevada	9.0	3.1	6.8
South Florida	Florida St.	-3.8	0.9	-1.5
Temple	Charlotte	31.9	24.4	31.2
Tennessee	Florida	12.2	3.8	14.0
Virginia	Central Michigan	0.4	-5.3	-1.5
Virginia Tech	East Carolina	22.4	19.9	22.3
West Virginia (N)	BYU	-0.1	6.0	0.1
Western Michigan	Georgia Southern	18.5	16.5	18.0
Iowa St.	San Jose St.	8.2	7.9	6.8
Old Dominion	UTSA	8.3	3.3	6.1
Rutgers	Iowa	-14.1	-13.5	-15.4
Alabama	Kent St.	50.0	40.8	49.6
Auburn	LSU	-7.1	-2.9	-6.2
Baylor	Oklahoma St.	-1.9	-2.8	-0.6
Minnesota	Colorado St.	22.1	17.4	21.3
Ole Miss	Georgia	5.6	-1.0	4.5
Texas A&M (N)	Arkansas	1.1	5.0	3.8
Tulane	UL-Lafayette	11.7	6.2	10.0
Memphis	Bowling Green	17.0	14.1	15.9
Troy	New Mexico St.	16.2	18.6	17.3
Utah St.	Air Force	-4.0	-1.6	-4.9
Arizona	Washington	-13.7	-8.2	-15.0
Arizona St.	California	5.5	14.5	6.6
Oregon	Colorado	5.2	8.4	3.9
Oregon St.	Boise St.	-6.6	-12.8	-11.5
UCLA	Stanford	-7.0	-0.8	-6.3
Massachusetts	Mississippi St.	-32.4	-21.7	-30.2
Notre Dame	Duke	18.9	14.4	19.3
Western Kentucky	Vanderbilt	1.3	1.1	4.0
Fresno St.	Tulsa	-16.2	-14.4	-17.3
Florida Atlantic	Ball St.	-1.2	0.2	-0.5
Rice	North Texas	9.7	15.1	9.7
Texas St.	Houston	-41.9	-38.9	-42.9
Florida Int’l.	Central Florida	-6.0	-1.5	-5.3
Middle Tennessee	Louisiana Tech	6.7	5.8	6.1
Northwestern	Nebraska	-2.4	-4.2	-4.1
Marshall	Louisville	-36.4	-26.1	-35.1
SMU	TCU	-17.3	-19.7	-17.6
UTEP	Southern Miss.	-18.5	-14.0	-18.0
UNLV	Idaho	16.8	15.4	15.6

FBS vs. FCS	Week 4
Home	Visitor	PiRate
Boston College	Wagner	36
Ohio	Gardner-Webb	30
Missouri	Delaware St.	45
South Alabama	Nicholls St.	19
Arkansas St.	Central Arkansas	21
Northern Illinois	Western Illinois	13
Kansas St.	Missouri St.	42

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlay Picks–September 15-19, 2016

Our second week of parlay picks performed little better than the first week.  We chose five parlays at better than even money odds, and we only hit on one of them at +131.  It was the Baltimore over Buffalo and Green Bay over Jacksonville parlay that won.

For the season, we have put $700 in imaginary bankroll up for money line parlay investment, and we have won just $131 while losing $600 for a net of $-469.  Ugh, but at least we still have the same amount of real $$$, since this is just for fun.

Because, it is just for fun, we have another $500 in imaginary dough ready to put on the non-existent line this week.  Once again, as we like to always play parlays with better than even money odds, all five picks will pay back more than the $100 investment if they win.

Before we get to this week’s picks, we have been asked by a handful of you where we get our odds.  This is a  multiple part response.  First, we do not use just one sports book to find our odds.  We shop for the best odds we can get on each parlay, so one parlay might be with one book, while another parlay might be with another one.  All of our fake selections come from easily playable online sports books, plus Las Vegas.  It appears that some of you from Vegas read our parlay selections every week, and we can only imagine how peeved you must be, even though we begged many times for readers here not to use these selections.

As for the actual odds, you can figure these out yourselves with an easy but time-consuming process, but why do this, when you can find parlay calculators online?

For those math geeks like us that must know how to do it, here goes:

Let’s look at a 3-team parlay of favorites at -150, -180, and -200.  First we find the decimal divider for figuring the multiplier.  So, we take each number (150, 180, and 200).  You divide your total payout of winning by the amount risked.  We are always risking $100 on every parlay, so this becomes easier.  at -150, we win 100 for every 150 or 1 for every .667.  The decimal multiplier would then be the reward (.667) + the risk (1), or 1.667

For -180, we win 100 for every 180 invested or one for every .556.  The decimal multiplier would then be (.556 + 1) 1.556

For -200, we win 100 for every 200 invested or one for every .5.  The decimal multiplier would then be (.5 + 1) 1.5

Now, multiply the three decimal multipliers (1.667, 1.556, and 1.5).  The answer to this is 3.89.

Now, we subtract 1 for the risk invested and we get 2.89.  If we wager $100 on this parlay, and it wins, we will be paid $289.

 

Let’s say you are feeling strong about two underdogs winning outright.  The Money Lines are listed at +120 and +150.  This is easier to calculate.  If you play at +120 you are putting up 100 to win 120, and the multiplier decimal is 2.2 (1+1.2).  The +150 multiplier decimal is 2.5 (1+1.5), and when you multiply 2.2 by 2.5, you get 5.5.  Subtract the 1 for the risk, and you get 4.5.  For every $100 you wager on this parlay, you would win $450 if the two underdogs won outright.

Once again, you can find a parlay calculator online that will do this for you.

Here are our parlays for this week

Parlay #1: +142

Rutgers over New Mexico

Texas over California

Nevada over Buffalo

We are playing some angles here.  New Mexico lost to rival New Mexico State and now must go on the road to a so-so Big Ten team that lost at a ranked Washington team and won a cakewalk game last week.

We feel that Texas can play smash mouth football against Cal and wear their weak defense down.  Even though the game is in Berkeley, Texas has more muscle and speed than San Diego State who beat the Golden Bears last week.

Buffalo has to travel over 2,00o miles to Reno after beginning the season with a loss to an FCS opponent.  Nevada fared okay at Notre Dame last week, and the Wolfpack will have a bit of added confidence.  Going up against a slower offense and defense will do for the Nevada what two bats being swung does for a batter in the on-deck circle.

 

Parlay #2 +130

Virginia Tech over Boston College

Western Kentucky over Miami (O)

Oklahoma St. over Pittsburgh

Boston College really struggles to score points.  The Eagles’ defense is really good, but it will be on the field too much in Blacksburg.  The Hokies may be a little hungover this week following the big game, but their defense is almost as good as BC’s, and almost as good facing BC’s offense and playing on home turf is enough for VT to win.

Western Kentucky did a better job against Alabama at Bryant Denny Stadium than USC did against the Tide at AT&T Stadium.  Miami of Ohio is still a couple years of improvement away before the Red Hawks can think there is a chance to go to a bowl.  The Hilltoppers should win this game by at least 17 points.

I would not want to be the Alabama or Ohio State and have to play Oklahoma State in Stillwater this week.  The players are mad as hatters.  The coach is madder.  Add the obvious letdown by the Panthers after beating Penn State at home, and we would not be surprised if OSU wins by 20 or more points.

 

Parlay #3 +147

Utah St. over Arkansas St.

Central Michigan over UNLV

Texas Tech over Louisiana Tech

Alabama over Ole Miss

Arkansas State appears to be weaker than thought in the preseason, when the Sun Belt media gurus thought they would contend with Appy State for the conference crown.  They are 0-2, but it is a sneaky 0-2.  Losses to Auburn and Toledo doesn’t make ASU bad.  Playing at Utah St. gives the Aggies a greater than normal home field advantage.  USU never challenged USC last week, so this is a chance for the Aggies to rebound and bounce back.

Central Michigan must now be considered a contender for the NY6 Bowl bid.  A road win over a top 20 team, even if mistakes were made by the referees, is worth more than Houston’s win at hometown NRG Stadium over Oklahoma.  The Chippewas know they must win every week, and they have a tough conference schedule ahead with Western Michigan, Toledo, and Northern Illinois, plus the must-win game at Virginia next week.  CMU might be looking ahead to the Cavaliers next week, and that worries us a bit, because UNLV is not chopped liver like they have been in recent seasons.  The Rebels could end CMU’s quest for the Fiesta.  Still, we are going with CMU to win, maybe just by not as comfortable a margin as we would hope.

How many points will be scored in Lubbock this week?  How about 90 or more?  Texas Tech and Arizona State played to a basketball score last week, and the Red Raiders return home to face a somewhat weaker opponent.  It might be a nervous Nellie game, but we believe TTU wins 52-38.

Would you like to have a chance to beat Alabama three years in a row when the Tide was undefeated and ranked in the top 5?  Alabama has been ranked #2 and #3 the last two years when Ole Miss defeated the Tide.  The Tide will turn this week, and Alabama will get two years worth of revenge.  Nick Saban and staff has parsed every play of Florida State’e second half against the Rebels, and it would shock us less if ‘Bama wins by 35 or more than Ole Miss winning a third time in a row.

 

Parlay #4 +132

Penn St. over Temple

Marshall over Akron

Stanford over USC

Utah over San Jose St.

Must we say what happens if Temple goes into Happy Valley and tops Penn State after the Nittany Lions lost to Pitt last week?  The seat of James Franklin would become hot enough to make fried rice.  Temple is weaker than last year, but apparently so is Penn State, or at best they are on par with last year.  We believe the game could be ugly, but the big guys have to win, and they will.

Marshall looked fantastic as the Thundering Herd was the only FBS team to debut their season last week.  Akron had a tough week at Wisconsin, and the Badgers’ muscle guys probably left the Zips bumped and bruised.  We believe they won’t feel better after visiting Doc Holliday, as the Herd runs over the Zips.

Stanford had an extra week to prepare for USC, and teams tend to improve the most between game one and game two.  The Cardinal offense should put up about 25-30 points while holding the Trojans under 20.

Utah visits San Jose a little later in the evening than the Stanford game up the road, but you cannot go to both games and see them in full.  You might be able to see half of each one if you speed on down 280 or the Central Expressway.  The Spartans are one of those teams you worry about, but Utah is a solid team that plays well every week–never spectacular, but much like Wisconsin.  We’ll take the Utes.

 

Parlay #5 +120

Detroit Lions over Tennessee Titans

New England Patriots over Miami Dolphin

Carolina over San Francisco

Until Tennessee actually wins a game this year, we will select their opponents most weeks.  The Titans look to us to be even weaker than Cleveland without RG3.  Truth be told, if Josh McCown has anything left in his old legs, Cleveland may be a tad better.  The Titans have great difficulty spreading the field vertically with a bunch of distance horses and no speed horses.  Marcus Mariota is not good enough to make average receivers look like Peyton Manning made Dallas Clark.  The running game would be terrific if the passing game was even average, and the defense does not scare many people.  Matthew Stafford and company should have a fun Sunday.

New England is at home facing Miami.  Jimmy Garappolo wasn’t Tom Brady the Second, but he was at least as good as Matt Cassel 2008.  Miami’s defense may be considerably better than last year’s version, but can their offense keep up with the Patriots’ offense?  We say no way.

Carolina has everything in their favor for the last game in this parlay.  The Panthers played Thursday night, while the 49ers played four days later in a rivalry game that had been waiting for 22 years.  San Francisco must travel from one coast to another across three time zones, and they will face hot and humid conditions on Sunday with a chance of storms.  Unless Cam Newton suffers some ill effects from the illegal hits in the opener, we believe Carolina wins by double digits.

 

***** Warning *****

Remember, do not use these just for fun picks as real investment advice.  We are out nothing for the unsatisfactory results so far.  Don’t be a fool who is soon parted from his/her money.

Past results do not necessarily reflect future success.  Even if we finished 2015 with a 40% ROI, there is no legitimate reason to expect we will ever get on the plus side of 0 this year.

NFL Ratings And Spreads For Week 2: September 15-19,2016

Few Surprises In Week One

As NFL seasons go, week one was a rather tame beginning to the new season.  Because nothing is ever certain, there were a couple of eye-openers, but overall when compared to years past, this was a so-so beginning to the year.

The biggest news to come out of Week One was the across the board drop in TV ratings.  According to reports in Forbes Magazine, Thursday night’s Broncos-Panthers game on NBC was off 8%.  The Sunday afternoon games saw a ratings drop of 13%, and the Sunday night game was off 18% in the most important age group of 18-49 year olds.  We won’t pretend to have the answers, but we have heard many opinions about this today including:

1. Protests of the National Anthem
2. Americans have given up cable and satellite dish subscriptions in record numbers
3. The 2016 Presidential Election is more entertaining to follow
4. Americans are souring on the concussion issue
5. The game has become a one-dimensional game where all 32 teams play the same way

Or, it could just be that this past weekend was a really nice one to be outside enjoying nature, shopping malls, visiting relatives, or anything else.  Maybe, the Chicago Cubs, New York Yankees, New York Mets, and Los Angeles Dodgers are contending for the Major League Playoffs in September, and more sports fans in the three largest markets were watching baseball.  The Cubs and Jake Arrieta were on ESPN Sunday night.

We’ll see if the ratings return to normalcy in Week Two.  There are some really interesting contests this week, so let’s take a look at a reason to watch if you can get these games.

Jets at Bills

One of these teams is going to be 0-2, facing a mountain to conquer to get into the playoffs.  The odds for finishing 9-7 or better after an 0-2 start since 2000 is something like 5-7%, and when you consider that the Patriots are going to win double digit games, we are talking about a Wildcard prospect.  The loser of this game can almost count itself out in the 2016 playoff race rather quickly, as both teams must still play New England twice.  If Buffalo loses, the Ryan brothers may wish to try going over Niagara Falls in a barrel made for two.

 

49ers at Panthers

The odds are overwhelmingly stacked against San Francisco this week.  They played a late Monday night game, while Carolina played last Thursday night.  They must travel all the way across the country to face a mad Panthers’ team that felt like they blew their opener on the road.  Carolina is a good touchdown better at home than they are on the road, while San Francisco is young and still learning Chip Kelly’s philosophy on the fly.  If the 49ers can pull off a monumental upset, or even if they continue to play top notch defense and lose a close game, the folks in Phoenix and Seattle will certainly take notice, and the folks in the Bay Area will become fanatical once again.  If Carolina loses, then the South race becomes wide open.

 

Titans at Lions

The way the Lions came back in the closing seconds to top the Colts further reinforces our preseason beliefs that this team is capable of challenging for a playoff spot.  Detroit has the easiest path to a 2-0 record as the Titans continue to bring up the rear in the NFL.  Their archaic offensive playing style does not win in the NFL in the 21st Century, as football metrics show the teams that pass the ball and defend the pass the best are the teams that win big.  Running games may look like the way to go, but in most instances, rushing statistics are inflated by teams running the ball to eat the clock once their passing game and pass defense has secured a winnable lead.  The Titans have issues against the pass as well, while Detroit can put up 300 passing yards against almost any team. Expect a lopsided win for the home team in Motown.

 

Chiefs at Texans

One of these two teams will be 2-0 on Sunday, but 2-0 teams are not as sure of a lock at making the playoffs than 0-2 teams are at not making it.  Still, 2-0 teams make the playoffs more than 60% of the time.  Houston might have closer to an 80% chance of making the playoffs if the Texans win this game and the Colts lose.  They could conceivably start the year with a two-game cushion on the entire division.  Kansas City eeked out an overtime comeback win in week one, and the Chiefs have been a slow-starter in recent years.  Should KC win this game, then watch out AFC fans–if the road to the Super Bowl runs through Arrowhead Stadium, the home field advantage in Kansas City in January is about as strong as the home field advantage at Bryant Denny Stadium in November.

 

Saints at Giants

Sean Payton’s magic may be going the way of former Giants head man Tom Coughlin.  The Saints can still move the ball and score points, but their defense has never been the same since Bountygate.  As long as Eli Manning has Odell Beckham, and now he has Victor Cruz, the Giants can put points on the board with anybody.  Because the Giants also have a halfway decent defense, a win this week makes the NFC East look very winnable.  The Saints need to win to keep even with Carolina and to possibly stay within a game of the surprising Bucs.

 

Bengals at Steelers

This may be the most important rivalry game between these teams since Terry Bradshaw and Ken Anderson faced off against each other back in the 1970’s, and Paul Brown played human chess against Chuck Noll.  Quite frankly, these two teams could be contending for the top won-loss record in the AFC, and the fans of both teams understand how a rivalry should be played.

 

Buccaneers at Cardinals

Cardinals’ GM Steve Keim was fully in his rights to lash out against the poor performance of his team Sunday night, but doing it in such a public manner might prove to be counterproductive in the 21st Century.  This isn’t 1978 when George Steinbrenner’s media monologues could light a fire under his team.  What’s Keim going to do next–fire Bruce Arians?  Who would be his Bob Lemon?  Tampa Bay meanwhile looked like a solid team in an opener against Atlanta.  The game should be interesting even if the extracurricular activities have no effect at all.

 

Seahawks at Rams

Los Angeles is not that inept; last night’s debacle cannot be the norm for the Rams.  Or could it?  We’re talking about a team of nomads with no real home just yet.  They have had to sojourn all over the LA area this summer, and they looked like a team that had been wandering in the desert for 40 years with no help from the Great Master.  Jeff Fisher is not Moses.  Pete Carroll was once treated like Moses in this town, and he will return to play a game in the great coliseum where he led the USC Trojans to victory almost every time in that venue.  This will be the first NFL regular season game in the LA Coliseum since December of 1979.  There’s even been a Dodgers game in this facility since the Rams last played here.

 

Falcons at Raiders

When is the last time Oakland began the year 2-0?  It was 2002, when the Raiders last played in the Super Bowl.  This is a team that is riding sky high after coming from behind to win in New Orleans Sunday afternoon.  Coach Jack Del Rio showed confidence in his team by going for two to either win or lose the game rather than take the almost automatic tie and go to overtime.  When Oakland converted, it boosted the morale and confidence in the Silver and Black.  It was probably worth an extra 3 to 5 points to their team for the near future.  Meanwhile, the Falcons began the season with the same belief, but that enthusiasm and confidence crash and burned after losing to Tampa Bay.  This could be another 0-2 team already looking at 2017 rather than 2016 if Atlanta loses this week.

 

Packers at Vikings

What better way to end Sunday night than to watch the great white north rivalry?  Unless your name is Ole, Lena, or Sven, you may not realize how great a rivalry this is.  Even when one team is down and the other is strong, this game tends to be quite worthwhile to view.  Because both teams currently are rather strong, this becomes the top game of the night, or maybe the co-top game with the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game.  This year, this game takes on more importance, because most likely the Lions will already be 2-0 when the rivals kick off.

 

Here are this week’s NFL PiRate Ratings

Current NFL PiRate Ratings
A F C
East	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
N. Y. Jets	103.5	101.1	104.7	103.1	61	42
New England	102.0	99.4	102.5	101.3	61	40
Buffalo	98.9	99.9	99.0	99.3	58	41
Miami	95.9	97.2	95.8	96.3	58	38
North	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Cincinnati	107.5	106.8	108.4	107.6	65	43
Pittsburgh	105.2	104.9	106.5	105.5	65	41
Baltimore	98.9	101.1	98.6	99.5	62	38
Cleveland	90.7	91.7	90.1	90.8	58	33
South	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Houston	101.1	102.6	101.1	101.6	64	38
Indianapolis	97.3	99.4	96.1	97.6	62	36
Jacksonville	97.2	98.9	96.5	97.5	59	39
Tennessee	92.2	94.4	91.6	92.7	54	39
West	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Denver	105.9	102.3	106.1	104.7	62	43
Kansas City	102.2	101.6	103.2	102.3	63	39
Oakland	98.9	99.5	99.0	99.1	63	36
San Diego	97.8	98.9	97.6	98.1	63	35
N F C
East	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Washington	98.5	99.3	98.3	98.7	61	38
N.Y. Giants	98.6	97.7	98.3	98.2	62	36
Philadelphia	99.4	96.3	98.7	98.1	61	37
Dallas	93.1	93.4	92.5	93.0	54	39
North	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Green Bay	104.7	104.0	104.7	104.5	65	40
Minnesota	102.6	101.6	103.1	102.4	60	42
Detroit	100.9	100.5	100.6	100.7	64	37
Chicago	97.0	95.0	96.8	96.3	56	40
South	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Carolina	109.2	107.9	110.2	109.1	65	44
New Orleans	99.2	101.8	98.5	99.8	64	36
Tampa Bay	97.5	98.7	96.6	97.6	60	38
Atlanta	95.4	98.4	95.1	96.3	61	35
West	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Arizona	108.4	105.6	109.4	107.8	68	40
Seattle	108.1	104.7	109.1	107.3	64	43
Los Angeles	96.5	98.3	95.7	96.9	56	41
San Francisco	95.8	97.1	95.8	96.2	56	40

Here are this week’s spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Score
Buffalo	New York Jets	-2.6	0.8	-3.7	17-19
Carolina	San Francisco	17.4	14.8	18.4	27-10
Cleveland	Baltimore	-5.7	-6.9	-6.0	21-27
Detroit	Tennessee	11.7	9.1	12.0	28-17
Houston	Kansas City	1.9	4.0	0.9	27-24
New England	Miami	9.1	5.2	9.7	24-16
New York Giants	New Orleans	2.4	-1.1	2.8	28-27
Pittsburgh	Cincinnati	0.2	0.6	0.6	24-23
Washington	Dallas	8.4	8.9	8.8	23-14
Arizona	Tampa Bay	13.9	9.9	15.8	33-20
Los Angeles	Seattle	-8.1	-2.9	-9.9	13-20
Denver	Indianapolis	11.6	5.9	13.0	27-17
Oakland	Atlanta	6.5	4.1	6.9	30-24
San Diego	Jacksonville	3.6	3.0	4.1	27-24
Minnesota	Green Bay	-0.1	-0.4	0.4	22-23
Chicago	Philadelphia	0.1	1.2	0.6	21-20

 

 

 

 

College Football Ratings & Spreads For September 15-17, 2016

The Best Schedule in a September Saturday in Years

This will be a week for college football fanatics to arrange their schedules to be glued to your viewing devices.  Forget mowing that lawn; the groceries can be shopped for Friday after work.  Tell your spouses that their honey-do list for this Saturday must be postponed, and let them know that the buckaroos at the PiRate Ratings have ordered you to do research this week.

This week’s schedule of games might even be better on the whole than rivalry weeks at the end of the season.  Let’s look at some of the great offerings, and by great, we don’t necessarily mean top 10 teams facing off against each other.  There are even great games among the bottom 30 teams.

Actually, the festivities commence Thursday night, when Houston visits Cincinnati.  This is somewhat of a trap game for the Cougars.  It is their first road game, and it comes against a solid but not spectacular conference foe.  Cincinnati began the season with a lackluster victory over a cream puff, and then won at Purdue last week.  The Bearcats are just talented enough to play their best game of the season and upset Houston.  It should be a great game with a good deal of scoring.

 

On Friday night, in what looks like a possible blowout, Rice hosts Baylor.  At one time, when both teams were Southwest Conference members, this was a huge rivalry game, not unlike Texas and Arkansas.  Baylor has won the last seven times these teams have faced off, with the last Owl win coming in the old SWC days in 1992.  Baylor put up 70 points on Rice last year in Waco, and even thought the Bears are several touchdowns stronger, this game might be interesting for awhile.

 

Now to Saturday, when the fun continues in bunches.

12 Noon Eastern Time

ABC: Florida State at Louisville

Don’t be surprised if the home team Cardinals pull the upset here.  Coach Bobby Petrino has built an offense at UL that could end the season averaging north of 50 points per game.  The defense is not Top 5 tough like other teams, but we are not sure that Florida State’s defense is ready to win it a championship either.  In a shootout, the better gunman usually wins, and Louisville has the better sharpshooter.  This one could be a 45-41 affair, and it is a 50-50 game in our opinion.  The PiRate Ratings are 100% in agreement with the winner.  See below.

Big Ten Network: Temple at Penn State

Coach James Franklin has felt that seat start to warm up in not so Happy Valley.  Losing to rival Pitt is not great, but losing for a second season to Temple could add some gas to that flame under the seat.  Temple imploded against Army, and then the Owls could not stop the option.  They righted the ship last week, and Penn State better play mistake-free ball and not give TU any gift points.

12:30 PM

ACC Network: Vanderbilt at Georgia Tech

Why is this game so important?  Both teams need this game to stay in the bowl chase this early in the season.  Georgia Tech pulled out a last-second win against Boston College in Dublin, Ireland, in week one.  The Yellow Jackets looked much better this past weekend, but they only played FCS Mercer.  This week, they face a coach that earned his job by stopping the read option, and Coach Derek Mason of Vanderbilt probably knows how to stop the spread option like his Stanford defenses did against Marcus Mariota’s Oregon offense.

The problem is that Vanderbilt’s offense is as weak as Boston College’s offense, and the Commodores may have trouble reaching 14 points in this game.  A 17-14 game would not be a shocker, although we believe that both teams will improve on the attack side after two so-so performances.  We believe the game could be won by less than a touchdown, with Tech having a 60% chance and Vanderbilt a 40% chance of winning.

3:30 PM

Big  Ten Network: Colorado at Michigan

Could it be that Coach Mike MacIntyre has turned the Buffalo program around?  After blowing out rival Colorado State at Invesco Field in week one, CU toyed with Idaho State in week two.  Sure, these are not quality opponents, but in recent years, CU might have gone 1-1 against these teams.

Playing at the Big House against a tough group of Wolverines is probably too much for the Buffs to take on, but it could be a very interesting game if CU does not turn the ball over.

 

WatchESPN App: South Florida at Syracuse

This will be an interesting contest with a team in Syracuse that might throw 50-60 passes and run off 100 scrimmage plays in a game before the season ends, and a South Florida team that plays the Stanford-Michigan smashmouth offense.  USF might be the one team that can derail Houston if the two meet in the AAC Championship Game, and the Bulls just might be a dark horse contender for the New Year’s 6 Bowl.  However, Coach Dino Babers has the ‘Cuse playing well above their level of 2015, and The Orangemen could just as easily end USF’s hopes for playing on January 2.

 

ABC: Oregon at Nebraska

Call this game a playoff eliminator.  The loser can win out and still miss the playoffs, while the winner stays alive with the hope that a 13-0 season will get them to Atlanta or Glendale, AZ.  Coach Mike Riley certainly knows Oregon well, having coached at Oregon State so long, but then Mark Helfrich knows a lot about what Riley’s teams do.  So, it should come down to which team executes its game plan better.  The Huskers can be an extra touchdown better in Lincoln than on a neutral field, and Oregon has not been a giant killer on the road in recent years.

 

CBS Sports Network: San Diego State at Northern Illinois

Northern Illinois is off to its worst start in years at 0-2, while SDSU is 2-0.  Why would we call this a game worth watching?  First, NIU’s first two games were road games, and the Huskies have a 31-2 home record in the last six years.  They won’t bend or break at Huskie Stadium.

Rocky Long may have the best team he’s ever coached in his career this season.  San Diego State has a decent chance of running the table in the regular season for the first time since 1969, when Dennis Shaw ran the Air Coryell offense to perfection.  The Aztecs have a couple of roadblock road games with trips to Dekalb this week and then to South Alabama in two weeks.  If they can get through these games unscathed, then you can add another prime contender with Houston, South Florida, Boise State, and maybe another MAC team for the NY6 Bowl bid.

 

CBS: Alabama at Ole Miss

Ole Miss is the one team that doesn’t back down to the Crimson Tide.  The Rebels have beaten ‘Bama in back-to-back years.  When has a team beaten Alabama three years in a row, when the Tide was not going through a rough patch where they did not stay in the Top 10?  It’s never been done when Alabama finished in the Top 10 all three seasons.  The closest was the 1967-68-69 seasons when Tennessee beat the Tide, but in 1969, Alabama had declined and would finish 6-5.

Ole Miss blew an excellent opportunity to make this a game between two Top 10 teams, when turnovers cost them a big lead against Florida State.  We believe the Rebels can play a mistake-free game this week and still lose by up to three touchdowns.  If a rebuilding reloading Tide team can go into Oxford and win big, we could be looking at another dynasty in Tuscaloosa like the Crimson fans saw in the early 1960’s and most of the 1970’s.

7:00 PM

ESPN: Texas A&M at Auburn

This one can be called the hot seat avoidance game.  The losing coach is going to begin to be in a bit of trouble.  How do we rate Auburn’s close loss to Clemson at Jordan-Hare Stadium, after Troy went to CU and lost by the same amount of points?  Auburn handled Arkansas State with ease, but ASU lost at home to Toledo in week one.  This becomes a put up or shut up game for War Eagle Nation.

Texas A&M has a quality win over UCLA, plus a no extra knowledge learned win over a very weak Prairie View team.  This is the Aggies’ first road game, and it comes in a tough place to win, but they won by a field goal the last time they came here.  We expect a hard-fought, close game.

 

ESPN2: Mississippi State at LSU

The loser will be 0-1 in the SEC and 1-2 overall, and they can look forward to hoping for an Outback Bowl bid at the max.  If the winner has maroon jerseys, then there will be less smiles in the LSU coaching office come Sunday Morning.  Les Miles is on the hottest of hot seats at the present time, and a home loss to a team that lost to South Alabama might be enough to make his dismissal inevitable.

Then, there is the health of star back Leonard Fournette, who missed the Jacksonville State game Saturday night.  Fournette is expected back in practice tomorrow, but he still suffers from the effects of the ankle injury.  And, there is the little matter of who will start at quarterback for the Tigers.  Former Purdue starter Danny Etling started 6 of 8 for 100 yards after replacing ineffective Brandon Harris in the second quarter.  However, he was 0 of 6 in the second half.

 

ESPN3: Navy at Tulane

How in the world could we select this game as one that could be a must watch affair?  Okay, first we did say this was a week for football fanatics, so give us a tad bit of slack here.  This actually should be a very interesting and fun game to watch, so consider giving it a few minutes time early in the evening.

Tulane’s first-year coach Willie Fritz came from Georgia Southern.  This Green Wave squad was not expected to do much in year one, as Fritz began the process of turning a former Pro-style offense into his unique form of multiple option offense, similar but different from the Navy/Georgia Tech style of spread option or inverted wishbone.  In week one, TU went to Wake Forest and held their own in a defensive struggle.  The Green Wave almost pulled off the upset, and after Wake knocked off Duke last week, this loss in Winston-Salem looks better than it did on opening night.  TU then handled Southern with ease, this time doing it with a breakout true freshman quarterback in Johnathan Brantley, who ran the option like a seasoned veteran.

Besides having two option teams going at each other, this is an American Athletic Conference game and an intra-division one to boot.  It should be a fun retro match that resembles the Oklahoma-Texas games of the early 1970s.

 

7:30 PM

NBC: Michigan State at Notre Dame

Neither team has looked as good as expected to this point, although Michigan State has only played one game, and the Spartans have had an extra week to prepare.  You know the old adage, that a team improves the most between its first and second game, and having two weeks to improve should make Sparty a live road ‘dog.

If you are around 60 years of age or older, you know how great this rivalry has been.  You saw the 1966 game that ended in a 10-10 tie, where both teams finished the season at 9-0-1.  Expect the score to pass 20 total points sometime in the second quarter.

Fox Sports: Ohio State at Oklahoma

Now this is how top teams should schedule!  If there were automatic NCAA Playoff bids to each of the Power 5 Conference Champions with three at-large bids to be awarded, then you would see more games like this instead of Big U vs. Northwest Southeastern Tech.

An Oklahoma loss means the Sooners can only expect a Sugar Bowl bid if they win the Big 12 Conference.  An Ohio State win in Norman could be enough to move the Buckeyes up to Number One in the nation, even if Alabama wins at Ole Miss.  Ohio State has started its first two games slowly, and a repeat at Memorial Stadium could be impossible to rally to victory if they get down by double-digits.

The key in this one is how much Oklahoma’s pass defense has improved since week one.  If J. T. Barrett can exploit the OU secondary for a deep pass for a touchdown, the Buckeyes’ running game might be able to get untracked and put up 250 yards on the Sooners.

We expect a game with more than 70 points scored, and wouldn’t this be an excellent night for a handful of overtimes?

8:00 PM

ABC: USC at Stanford

USC faces two separate extra troubles this week.  First, the home Cardinal had an extra week to prepare after besting a decent Kansas State team in week one.  Second, Stanford knows what Alabama did to the Trojans on a neutral field.  They know that to be given serious credibility, they cannot beat USC by a field goal or touchdown and get it.  They have to win this one by double digits to get any respect.

USC is not chopped liver.  The Trojans have played in the Rose Bowl in a season in which the national champ embarrassed them.  Look back at 1966, when USC lost to Notre Dame 51-0, yet made it to the Rose Bowl.

If truth be told, the Trojans are not 46 points weaker than Alabama.  If they played again, they might only lose by 24-28 points.  Stanford better be on guard, because the Trojans seek the same respect that Stanford believes they must earn.  Expect a good game on the Farm Saturday night.

10:30 PM

ESPN: Texas at California

This one is all about the Longhorns venturing out of the Lone Star State.  Cal is rebuilding and will be lucky to win five games this year, while Texas is trying to return to greatness.  The Longhorns have holes in their defense, and Cal has an offense capable of scoring a lot of points.  The key is how well the Texas offense will fare on foreign soil, even against a very porous defense.  If you wake up Sunday morning and see that Coach Charlie Strong’s team hung half a hundred on the Bears, then UT could easily be 4-0 when the Red River Shootout takes place in Dallas.  A win there, and it would be quite possible to see a path to 12-0 for the ‘Horns.

 

Here are this week’s PiRate Ratings

 

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	131.9	124.3	131.9	129.4
2	Tennessee	124.8	120.1	124.8	123.2
3	LSU	124.6	118.7	123.7	122.3
4	Oklahoma	122.7	119.5	122.5	121.6
5	Louisville	123.4	117.2	123.6	121.4
6	Michigan	121.6	119.7	122.2	121.2
7	Ohio St.	120.1	119.9	121.7	120.6
8	Florida St.	122.9	115.6	121.8	120.1
9	Clemson	121.9	113.6	120.4	118.6
10	Washington	121.1	113.3	121.2	118.5
11	Stanford	120.5	113.1	119.4	117.7
12	Oklahoma St.	114.9	116.4	114.7	115.3
13	Auburn	115.7	113.9	115.8	115.1
14	North Carolina	117.1	110.4	116.8	114.8
15	Iowa	115.9	112.8	115.6	114.8
16	Notre Dame	116.4	112.4	115.3	114.7
17	Texas	113.7	116.7	113.7	114.7
18	Miami	117.5	109.5	116.8	114.6
19	Pittsburgh	116.3	111.3	115.4	114.3
20	Houston	113.9	111.8	115.9	113.9
21	Florida	112.9	116.6	111.1	113.5
22	Wisconsin	113.9	111.5	114.7	113.4
23	Mississippi St.	114.1	111.6	113.3	113.0
24	USC	115.2	111.0	112.5	112.9
25	TCU	111.7	113.6	111.5	112.3
26	Oregon	112.8	111.7	111.8	112.1
27	Texas A&M	112.4	111.7	112.2	112.1
28	Georgia	111.3	111.4	111.2	111.3
29	Michigan St.	111.9	111.2	109.9	111.0
30	Virginia Tech	111.0	110.6	111.3	111.0
31	Arkansas	113.1	108.2	110.4	110.6
32	UCLA	110.9	110.5	110.4	110.6
33	Baylor	110.3	110.0	111.4	110.6
34	Ole Miss	113.1	106.7	111.7	110.5
35	Nebraska	111.5	107.9	111.8	110.4
36	South Florida	110.1	107.6	111.5	109.7
37	Arizona St.	109.3	109.6	108.3	109.1
38	Boise St.	107.7	109.1	110.0	108.9
39	Colorado	110.3	105.6	110.8	108.9
40	BYU	110.8	103.5	110.3	108.2
41	Utah	111.0	104.9	108.6	108.2
42	Penn St.	107.6	109.5	106.0	107.7
43	Georgia Tech	108.2	104.5	107.6	106.8
44	West Virginia	107.0	106.4	106.6	106.7
45	North Carolina St.	106.7	104.2	106.0	105.6
46	Washington St.	106.5	103.4	106.3	105.4
47	San Diego St.	105.2	101.9	107.6	104.9
48	Kansas St.	103.9	107.2	103.5	104.9
49	Texas Tech	105.8	103.4	103.6	104.3
50	Western Michigan	104.2	102.4	106.1	104.2
51	Minnesota	104.9	102.9	104.6	104.1
52	Vanderbilt	105.8	101.5	104.3	103.9
53	Northwestern	106.2	100.7	104.6	103.8
54	Boston College	104.3	103.3	103.8	103.8
55	Cincinnati	103.1	103.9	104.0	103.7
56	Central Michigan	102.2	105.0	103.4	103.5
57	Missouri	103.8	103.0	103.6	103.5
58	Arizona	104.6	102.2	103.6	103.5
59	Indiana	101.6	106.1	101.2	103.0
60	Maryland	102.4	106.0	100.2	102.9
61	Toledo	103.0	101.4	103.9	102.8
62	Air Force	100.6	101.0	101.1	100.9
63	Syracuse	102.9	99.0	100.5	100.8
64	Wake Forest	101.7	99.4	100.8	100.7
65	South Carolina	101.1	100.0	100.6	100.6
66	Tulsa	99.5	101.8	100.2	100.5
67	Appalachian St.	99.8	99.2	102.5	100.5
68	Western Kentucky	101.4	96.6	102.8	100.3
69	Memphis	102.3	97.4	100.4	100.1
70	Temple	99.5	99.1	100.2	99.6
71	Virginia	100.7	97.6	100.0	99.4
72	California	103.8	93.9	100.6	99.4
73	Duke	99.2	100.3	97.5	99.0
74	Navy	99.0	98.7	98.5	98.8
75	Illinois	99.8	96.3	98.7	98.3
76	Rutgers	98.2	95.2	96.3	96.6
77	Connecticut	97.2	95.1	97.4	96.6
78	Purdue	97.6	95.2	96.6	96.5
79	Oregon St.	98.3	93.5	95.7	95.8
80	East Carolina	94.9	97.1	95.3	95.8
81	Kentucky	95.4	97.7	93.7	95.6
82	Southern Mississippi	95.2	94.5	96.2	95.3
83	Marshall	93.2	97.6	95.0	95.3
84	Northern Illinois	94.0	95.6	94.7	94.8
85	Georgia Southern	93.8	93.5	96.3	94.6
86	Iowa St.	95.2	94.6	93.8	94.5
87	Utah St.	93.3	96.3	92.6	94.1
88	New Mexico	92.0	95.5	93.1	93.6
89	Middle Tennessee	92.2	94.1	92.5	92.9
90	Army	88.7	96.9	92.0	92.5
91	Nevada	91.1	94.1	92.1	92.5
92	Ohio	89.2	97.8	90.2	92.4
93	SMU	92.5	91.7	91.8	92.0
94	UNLV	90.5	94.8	90.6	92.0
95	Bowling Green	92.0	90.2	91.6	91.3
96	Arkansas St.	89.6	91.4	91.4	90.8
97	Louisiana Tech	89.5	91.9	90.7	90.7
98	San Jose St.	89.6	90.0	90.1	89.9
99	Troy	86.9	92.5	88.8	89.4
100	Kansas	86.4	94.7	83.9	88.4
101	Central Florida	87.2	89.6	87.2	88.0
102	Old Dominion	85.6	88.8	86.0	86.8
103	Colorado St.	85.7	88.4	86.2	86.8
104	Florida Atlantic	85.0	88.1	86.9	86.7
105	Tulane	85.3	88.6	85.5	86.5
106	Ball St.	85.5	87.5	86.4	86.5
107	Akron	83.2	89.6	84.6	85.8
108	Rice	81.9	90.1	81.9	84.6
109	Kent St.	83.9	85.6	84.1	84.6
110	Wyoming	83.7	83.4	83.9	83.7
111	Miami (O)	83.0	84.2	83.9	83.7
112	South Alabama	80.5	87.9	81.9	83.4
113	Florida International	80.6	87.4	81.4	83.1
114	Fresno St.	81.6	85.9	81.3	82.9
115	Massachusetts	79.1	87.2	80.5	82.3
116	Buffalo	78.3	87.6	79.7	81.9
117	UTSA	78.3	86.5	80.6	81.8
118	Georgia St.	78.7	84.1	80.2	81.0
119	Eastern Michigan	78.2	83.4	79.1	80.2
120	Idaho	77.6	83.7	79.0	80.1
121	UL-Lafayette	75.3	84.1	77.2	78.9
122	UTEP	76.3	80.7	77.8	78.3
123	New Mexico St.	74.9	77.8	76.1	76.3
124	Hawaii	76.8	75.6	75.7	76.0
125	North Texas	74.8	77.2	74.8	75.6
126	Charlotte	72.2	79.4	73.3	75.0
127	Texas St.	72.1	73.2	73.3	72.9
128	UL-Monroe	67.6	73.0	68.0	69.5

Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	110.1	107.6	111.5	109.7
Cincinnati	103.1	103.9	104.0	103.7
Temple	99.5	99.1	100.2	99.6
Connecticut	97.2	95.1	97.4	96.6
East Carolina	94.9	97.1	95.3	95.8
Central Florida	87.2	89.6	87.2	88.0
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Houston	113.9	111.8	115.9	113.9
Tulsa	99.5	101.8	100.2	100.5
Memphis	102.3	97.4	100.4	100.1
Navy	99.0	98.7	98.5	98.8
SMU	92.5	91.7	91.8	92.0
Tulane	85.3	88.6	85.5	86.5
AAC Averages	98.7	98.6	99.0	98.8
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisville	123.4	117.2	123.6	121.4
Florida St.	122.9	115.6	121.8	120.1
Clemson	121.9	113.6	120.4	118.6
North Carolina St.	106.7	104.2	106.0	105.6
Boston College	104.3	103.3	103.8	103.8
Syracuse	102.9	99.0	100.5	100.8
Wake Forest	101.7	99.4	100.8	100.7
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
North Carolina	117.1	110.4	116.8	114.8
Miami	117.5	109.5	116.8	114.6
Pittsburgh	116.3	111.3	115.4	114.3
Virginia Tech	111.0	110.6	111.3	111.0
Georgia Tech	108.2	104.5	107.6	106.8
Virginia	100.7	97.6	100.0	99.4
Duke	99.2	100.3	97.5	99.0
ACC Averages	111.0	106.9	110.2	109.4
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	122.7	119.5	122.5	121.6
Oklahoma St.	114.9	116.4	114.7	115.3
Texas	113.7	116.7	113.7	114.7
TCU	111.7	113.6	111.5	112.3
Baylor	110.3	110.0	111.4	110.6
West Virginia	107.0	106.4	106.6	106.7
Kansas St.	103.9	107.2	103.5	104.9
Texas Tech	105.8	103.4	103.6	104.3
Iowa St.	95.2	94.6	93.8	94.5
Kansas	86.4	94.7	83.9	88.4
Big 12 Averages	107.2	108.3	106.5	107.3
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Michigan	121.6	119.7	122.2	121.2
Ohio St.	120.1	119.9	121.7	120.6
Michigan St.	111.9	111.2	109.9	111.0
Penn St.	107.6	109.5	106.0	107.7
Indiana	101.6	106.1	101.2	103.0
Maryland	102.4	106.0	100.2	102.9
Rutgers	98.2	95.2	96.3	96.6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Iowa	115.9	112.8	115.6	114.8
Wisconsin	113.9	111.5	114.7	113.4
Nebraska	111.5	107.9	111.8	110.4
Minnesota	104.9	102.9	104.6	104.1
Northwestern	106.2	100.7	104.6	103.8
Illinois	99.8	96.3	98.7	98.3
Purdue	97.6	95.2	96.6	96.5
Big Ten Averages	108.1	106.8	107.4	107.4
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Kentucky	101.4	96.6	102.8	100.3
Marshall	93.2	97.6	95.0	95.3
Middle Tennessee	92.2	94.1	92.5	92.9
Old Dominion	85.6	88.8	86.0	86.8
Florida Atlantic	85.0	88.1	86.9	86.7
Florida International	80.6	87.4	81.4	83.1
Charlotte	72.2	79.4	73.3	75.0
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Southern Mississippi	95.2	94.5	96.2	95.3
Louisiana Tech	89.5	91.9	90.7	90.7
Rice	81.9	90.1	81.9	84.6
UTSA	78.3	86.5	80.6	81.8
UTEP	76.3	80.7	77.8	78.3
North Texas	74.8	77.2	74.8	75.6
CUSA Averages	85.1	88.7	86.2	86.7
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame	116.4	112.4	115.3	114.7
BYU	110.8	103.5	110.3	108.2
Army	88.7	96.9	92.0	92.5
Massachusetts	79.1	87.2	80.5	82.3
Independents Averages	98.8	100.0	99.5	99.4
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio	89.2	97.8	90.2	92.4
Bowling Green	92.0	90.2	91.6	91.3
Akron	83.2	89.6	84.6	85.8
Kent St.	83.9	85.6	84.1	84.6
Miami (O)	83.0	84.2	83.9	83.7
Buffalo	78.3	87.6	79.7	81.9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Michigan	104.2	102.4	106.1	104.2
Central Michigan	102.2	105.0	103.4	103.5
Toledo	103.0	101.4	103.9	102.8
Northern Illinois	94.0	95.6	94.7	94.8
Ball St.	85.5	87.5	86.4	86.5
Eastern Michigan	78.2	83.4	79.1	80.2
MAC Averages	89.7	92.5	90.6	91.0
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	107.7	109.1	110.0	108.9
Air Force	100.6	101.0	101.1	100.9
Utah St.	93.3	96.3	92.6	94.1
New Mexico	92.0	95.5	93.1	93.6
Colorado St.	85.7	88.4	86.2	86.8
Wyoming	83.7	83.4	83.9	83.7
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	105.2	101.9	107.6	104.9
Nevada	91.1	94.1	92.1	92.5
UNLV	90.5	94.8	90.6	92.0
San Jose St.	89.6	90.0	90.1	89.9
Fresno St.	81.6	85.9	81.3	82.9
Hawaii	76.8	75.6	75.7	76.0
MWC Averages	91.5	93.0	92.0	92.2
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Washington	121.1	113.3	121.2	118.5
Stanford	120.5	113.1	119.4	117.7
Oregon	112.8	111.7	111.8	112.1
Washington St.	106.5	103.4	106.3	105.4
California	103.8	93.9	100.6	99.4
Oregon St.	98.3	93.5	95.7	95.8
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
USC	115.2	111.0	112.5	112.9
UCLA	110.9	110.5	110.4	110.6
Arizona St.	109.3	109.6	108.3	109.1
Colorado	110.3	105.6	110.8	108.9
Utah	111.0	104.9	108.6	108.2
Arizona	104.6	102.2	103.6	103.5
Pac-12 Averages	110.4	106.1	109.1	108.5
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Tennessee	124.8	120.1	124.8	123.2
Florida	112.9	116.6	111.1	113.5
Georgia	111.3	111.4	111.2	111.3
Vanderbilt	105.8	101.5	104.3	103.9
Missouri	103.8	103.0	103.6	103.5
South Carolina	101.1	100.0	100.6	100.6
Kentucky	95.4	97.7	93.7	95.6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	131.9	124.3	131.9	129.4
LSU	124.6	118.7	123.7	122.3
Auburn	115.7	113.9	115.8	115.1
Mississippi St.	114.1	111.6	113.3	113.0
Texas A&M	112.4	111.7	112.2	112.1
Arkansas	113.1	108.2	110.4	110.6
Ole Miss	113.1	106.7	111.7	110.5
SEC Averages	112.9	110.4	112.0	111.8
Sunbelt Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	99.8	99.2	102.5	100.5
Georgia Southern	93.8	93.5	96.3	94.6
Arkansas St.	89.6	91.4	91.4	90.8
Troy	86.9	92.5	88.8	89.4
South Alabama	80.5	87.9	81.9	83.4
Georgia St.	78.7	84.1	80.2	81.0
Idaho	77.6	83.7	79.0	80.1
UL-Lafayette	75.3	84.1	77.2	78.9
New Mexico St.	74.9	77.8	76.1	76.3
Texas St.	72.1	73.2	73.3	72.9
UL-Monroe	67.6	73.0	68.0	69.5
Sun Belt Averages	81.5	85.5	83.2	83.4

 

 

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	SEC	112.9	110.4	112.0	111.8
2	ACC	111.0	106.9	110.2	109.4
3	Pac-12	110.4	106.1	109.1	108.5
4	Big Ten	108.1	106.8	107.4	107.4
5	Big 12	107.2	108.3	106.5	107.3
6	Independents	98.8	100.0	99.5	99.4
7	AAC	98.7	98.6	99.0	98.8
8	MWC	91.5	93.0	92.0	92.2
9	MAC	89.7	92.5	90.6	91.0
10	CUSA	85.1	88.7	86.2	86.7
11	Sun Belt	81.5	85.5	83.2	83.4

 

 

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team
1	Alabama
2	Ohio St.
3	Florida St.
4	Clemson
5	Tennessee
6	Michigan
7	Wisconsin
8	Washington
9	Houston
10	Stanford
11	Arkansas
12	Louisville
13	Texas A&M
14	Oklahoma
15	Iowa
16	Texas
17	Baylor
18	LSU
19	Utah
20	Georgia
21	Florida
22	Michigan St.
23	Ole Miss
24	Oregon
25	Nebraska
26	Notre Dame
27	Pittsburgh
28	Miami (Fla.)
29	Arizona St.
30	North Carolina
31	USC
32	Boise St.
33	West Virginia
34	TCU
35	Auburn
36	San Diego St.
37	UCLA
38	Toledo
39	Western Michigan
40	Navy
41	BYU
42	South Florida
43	Colorado
44	Georgia Tech
45	Western Kentucky
46	Oklahoma St.
47	Appalachian St.
48	Georgia Southern
49	Minnesota
50	Cincinnati
51	Mississippi St.
52	Virginia Tech
53	California
54	Penn St.
55	Texas Tech
56	Central Michigan
57	Indiana
58	East Carolina
59	Southern Miss.
60	Memphis
61	Wake Forest
62	Marshall
63	Air Force
64	North Carolina St.
65	Maryland
66	Army
67	Missouri
68	Kansas St.
69	South Carolina
70	Tulsa
71	Washington St.
72	Arizona
73	Louisiana Tech
74	Temple
75	Duke
76	Northwestern
77	Vanderbilt
78	Boston College
79	Illinois
80	South Alabama
81	Bowling Green
82	Syracuse
83	Utah St.
84	Akron
85	Ohio
86	Rutgers
87	Colorado St.
88	Arkansas St.
89	Troy
90	Connecticut
91	MTSU
92	Kentucky
93	Texas St.
94	Purdue
95	SMU
96	Nevada
97	San Jose St.
98	UTEP
99	Oregon St.
100	Wyoming
101	Idaho
102	Virginia
103	Ball St.
104	Iowa St.
105	Central Florida
106	Northern Illinois
107	Fresno St.
108	New Mexico
109	Florida Atlantic
110	UNLV
111	UL-Lafayette
112	Tulane
113	New Mexico St.
114	Kansas
115	Old Dominion
116	Rice
117	Georgia St.
118	Massachusetts
119	UTSA
120	Charlotte
121	Hawaii
122	UL-Monroe
123	Florida Int’l.
124	North Texas
125	Buffalo
126	Eastern Michigan
127	Miami (O)
128	Kent St.

 

This Week’s Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Thursday, September 15
Cincinnati	Houston	-7.8	-4.9	-8.9
Friday, September 16
Rice	Baylor	-26.4	-17.9	-27.5
Utah St.	Arkansas St.	7.2	8.4	4.7
UTSA	Arizona St.	-28.5	-20.6	-25.2
Saturday, September 17
Appalachian St.	Miami (Fla.)	-14.7	-7.3	-11.3
Louisville	Florida St.	3.5	4.6	4.8
Penn St.	Temple	10.1	12.4	7.8
Rutgers	New Mexico	9.2	2.7	5.2
Tennessee	Ohio	38.6	25.3	37.6
Memphis	Kansas	18.9	5.7	19.5
TCU	Iowa St.	19.5	22.0	20.7
Wisconsin	Georgia St.	38.2	30.4	37.5
Bowling Green	Middle Tennessee	2.3	-1.4	1.6
Marshall	Akron	13.0	11.0	13.4
Georgia Tech	Vanderbilt	5.4	6.0	6.3
Connecticut	Virginia	-0.5	0.5	0.4
Washington St.	Idaho	31.4	22.2	29.8
Kansas St.	Florida Atlantic	21.9	22.1	19.6
Central Michigan	UNLV	14.7	13.2	15.8
Toledo	Fresno St.	24.4	18.5	25.6
Massachusetts	Florida Int’l.	1.0	2.3	1.6
Miami (O)	Western Kentucky	-16.4	-10.4	-16.9
Michigan	Colorado	14.3	17.1	14.4
Syracuse	South Florida	-4.2	-5.6	-8.0
Virginia Tech	Boston College	9.7	10.3	10.5
Nebraska	Oregon	1.7	-0.8	3.0
Northern Illinois	San Diego St.	-8.2	-3.0	-9.9
Oklahoma St.	Pittsburgh	1.6	8.1	2.3
Ole Miss	Alabama	-15.8	-14.6	-17.2
Kentucky	New Mexico St.	23.5	22.9	20.6
South Carolina	East Carolina	8.7	5.4	7.8
Illinois	Western Michigan	-1.4	-3.1	-4.4
Charlotte	Eastern Michigan	-4.0	-2.0	-3.8
North Carolina St.	Old Dominion	23.6	17.9	22.5
Georgia Southern	UL-Monroe	28.7	23.0	30.8
Auburn	Texas A&M	6.3	5.2	6.6
LSU	Mississippi St.	13.5	10.1	13.4
Southern Miss.	Troy	10.8	4.5	9.9
Texas Tech	Louisiana Tech	19.3	14.5	15.9
UTEP	Army	-9.4	-13.2	-11.2
Central Florida	Maryland	-12.2	-13.4	-10.0
Tulane	Navy	-11.2	-7.6	-10.5
UL-Lafayette	South Alabama	-3.2	-1.8	-2.7
Florida	North Texas	41.1	42.4	39.3
Notre Dame	Michigan St.	7.5	4.2	8.4
Arkansas	Texas St.	44.0	38.0	40.1
Missouri	Georgia	-4.5	-5.4	-4.6
Oklahoma	Ohio St.	5.6	2.6	3.8
Northwestern	Duke	9.5	2.9	9.6
Stanford	USC	8.3	5.1	9.9
Nevada	Buffalo	16.3	10.0	15.9
BYU	UCLA	2.9	-4.0	2.9
California	Texas	-6.9	-19.8	-10.1
San Jose St.	Utah	-18.9	-12.4	-16.0
Arizona	Hawaii	31.3	30.1	31.4

 

FBS versus FCS Teams–PiRate Estimated Spread

FBS vs. FCS	Week 3
Home	Visitor	PiRate
Clemson	South Carolina St.	47
Iowa	North Dakota St.	19
Tulsa	N. C. A&T	25
Ball St.	Eastern Kentucky	15
Kent St.	Monmouth	11
North Carolina	James Madison	26
Colorado St.	Northern Colorado	21
Wyoming	UC-Davis	11
Oregon St.	Idaho St.	25
Wake Forest	Delaware	23
SMU	Liberty	11
Washington	Portland St.	42

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlay Picks–September 8-12, 2016

Did you heed our biggest piece of advice given here last week? If so, then you were smart and lost none of your hard-earned money by following our selections. Our two picks both lost in the opening week. Army did not upset Temple. The Black Knights won impressively enough to prove that their win was no fluke. It wasn’t Davis and Blanchard running over opponents, but this has the look of a bowl-bound team. The Cadets entertain Rice at Michie Stadium this week, and chances for a 2-0 start are strong.

The other loss came about when LSU got Lambeau Leapt by Wisconsin. One late fumble sent our mythological winning week down the tubes.

We start out the season down 200 imaginary dollars in our fake bankroll.

Oh well, a new week brings new fun only picks, and with the NFL season beginning in a matter of hours from the time this is written, we have more opportunities to wager our fake bankroll. These days, a fake bankroll is what so many of us tend to have.

We are going with five parlay picks this week, two with college games, and three with NFL games. Usually, we like to be overly conservative at the start of the NFL season, because there is enough parity that a 4-12 team from the year before could become a playoff team this year, while a playoff team last year could swoon to 4-12 this year. However, we are going with three NFL parlays because we were able to get better than even money odds by parlaying just two teams in each selection.

Our two college parlays both contain rivalry games within each selection. It is not the norm for rivals to play so soon in the season, but it happens when said rivals are not members of the same conference. Thus, in week two, New Mexico plays New Mexico State, and Iowa plays Iowa State. We believe these are almost free games, as the favorites are overwhelmingly superior to their rival. Of course, this can bite us on the fanny, because weaker rivals can play well over their heads, especially early in the year before injury and other attrition has decimated their already thin-talented rosters.

There is also an issue with taking a slow-starting team against a quick-starting team, because sometimes, the quick-starting underdog might score so many points early that the slow-starting favorite cannot come back from the deficit. However, we are still going with two slow-starting Sunshine State schools. South Florida, and their smashmouth style of play, hosts Northern Illinois, and the Bulls were a bit sluggish on the defensive side in their season opening win over FCS member Towson State. However, NIU lost at Wyoming last week, and USF is considerably more talented than the Cowboys. Also, playing in muggy Tampa might give the Bulls an extra couple points of home field advantage.

Florida has not been the offensive juggernaut under Coach Jim McElwain that they were under Steve Spurrier or Urban Meyer, but the Gators won the SEC East Division by taking care of business with strong defense. The Gators gave up just 73 points in their seven SEC wins last year. Meanwhile, Kentucky scored 35 points quickly against Southern Miss last week, before watching like a deer in the headlights as the Eagles stormed back and scored on the porous Wildcat defense like it was just a skeleton unit. We believe the Gators will win this game by 7-17 points, as McElwain knows that he only needs his offense to play it safe and avoid turnovers, while the defense and special teams sets up the offense for low-risk scoring drives.

Now to the NFL. We begin tonight by taking the Super Bowl loser from last year. You no doubt are familiar with the recent trend of Super Bowl losers performing considerably worse the following year. However, this on the surface looks like a gift tonight. Both teams lost some key talent since the last time they played, but Denver clearly lost more. Even though Peyton Manning was like Babe Ruth with the Boston Braves in 1935, the Broncos will have a totally untested quarterback and rookie backup trying to face the NFC’s best defense. Peyton might have guided Denver to 17 points. Trevor and/or Paxton will be lucky to score 17 and might give the Panthers a score with costly mistakes. Also, we have seen Wade Phillips’ defenses regress the year after they dominate, and we feel that Cam Newton is going to play this game like it is the Super Bowl again. We believe Carolina wins an ugly game tonight.

Miami could be a surprise team this year, but they still have a lot to prove. New Coach Adam Gase is already considered to be the top new coach in the league, and he has been tagged as a potential superstar in the business. However, even superstar coaches must have decent talent to succeed, and the Dolphins still have a lot of questions. Having to travel as far away as they can without playing at a neutral site, and having that game come against the team with the best home field advantage in the NFL makes us believe that Seattle is a gift choice. Of course, we could be wrong, but when there are just 16 NFL games, you have to isolate the couple that look the most promising and offer a good rate of return on your investment, even if said investment is as real as the Man in the Moon.

The second game of the Monday Night doubleheader looks to us to be a gift as well, but what do we know? The Los Angeles Rams (doesn’t that sound so wonderful again) go up the coast to take on their former and future arch-rival San Francisco 49ers, and the 49ers look like a train wreck. However, Chip Kelly can coach offense, and Jeff Fisher-coached teams have a history of starting out slow. In this game featuring recycled quarterbacks, we believe that Case Keenum has more weapons at his disposal than Blaine Gabbert, and the Rams’ defense is worth an extra touchdown saved over the 49ers’ defense, so in our possibly deluded mind, we think the Rams at low odds offer us an excellent base for a parlay.

Now to the turnaround game in our minds. We think that Baltimore is ready to rebound to at least a better than mediocre season, while Buffalo takes a small step backward this year. The Ravens have enough offense to score on Rob Ryan’s defense, while brother Rex’s offense does not offer very much.

Once again, when you see the odds, you will notice that all 5 games present better than even money.

When you see that money line at +X, add $100 to the X, and this would show you how much money you would receive if the parlay wins, and you invested $100, because when you win, you get back your initial investment plus your winnings, just like with paramutuel wagering at the horse track.

For instance, if you play a money line game or money line parlay at +120, and you invest $100 in this selection, if you win, you will receive $220 ($120 profit plus your $100 investment). If you lose, you are out your $100 investment.

Here are our parlays for the week.

#1–College Parlay at +118
Navy over Connecticut
New Mexico over New Mexico State
Florida over Kentucky

#2–College Parlay at +134
Duke over Wake Forest
Louisville over Syracuse
South Florida over Northern Illinois
Iowa over Iowa State

#3–NFL Parlay at +106
Los Angeles Rams over San Francisco
Seattle over Miami

#4–NFL Parlay at +121
Carolina over Denver
Kansas City over San Diego

#5–NFL Parlay at +131
Baltimore over Buffalo
Green Bay over Jacksonville

College Football Ratings & Spreads For September 9-10, 2016

What an incredible opening week to the college football season!  When was the last time seven SEC schools were 0-1?  It would take a lot of research, but we’re guessing if it happened, it happened back when Sewanee was a member of the league in the 1930’s.

 

How do you imagine Les Miles has slept since Saturday night?  He is going to need a lot of ice to keep cool in that boiling hot seat in Baton Rouge.  What about Mark Stoops, Gus Malzahn, and Derek Mason?  At least Malzahn lost at home by less than a touchdown to the defending national runner-up, but the questionable decisions in the final minutes left many War Eagle fans perplexed.

 

It wasn’t a great week for the Pac-12 Conference either.  USC and UCLA used to play doubleheaders early in the season at the L.A. Coliseum.  Often, it was actually a Friday night, Saturday night deal.  These days, that no longer happens, and this year, both teams ventured to the Lone Star State and left with 0-1 records.  Arizona lost to BYU.  Oregon State lost at Minnesota, and then Washington State lost to Eastern Washington.

 

The Big Ten had a decent first week.  Ohio State and Michigan began the year like the good ole days when the two teams might both still be unbeaten by the time they faced off in late November.  Michigan State, Penn State, and Minnesota won but didn’t look great doing so.  Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Iowa, and Nebraska looked great doing so.  Purdue’s win over an FCS school looked neutral, while Northwestern and Rutgers lost.  And, then there was Wisconsin.  They Lambeau leapt over LSU, making for Coach Miles’ recent insomnia.

 

The ACC picked up two wins over the SEC in three attempts, and the Big 12 picked up a couple of big wins, led by Texas edging Notre Dame.

 

The big winner of the day was the AAC, where Houston immediately jumped to the top of the Group of Five and even placed themselves into contention for a playoff spot if the Cougars can run the table impressively.  However, they will have to get past a couple of tough conference opponents.

 

Out West, San Diego State and Boise State believe they have what it takes to run the table and challenge Houston for that one guaranteed New Year’s 6 Bowl.

 

Week two does not offer as much as week one of the college season, and there isn’t a Thursday night game, as the NFL gets center stage.  Next week, we actually believe the college schedule has more to offer than week one.  For now, the big game this week is the one taking place at Bristol Motor Speedway just south of Bristol, Tennessee.  The Tennessee Volunteers and Virginia Tech Hokies have not played in decades, even though the two semi-powers are within an easy drive of each other.  They hope to place 150,000 fans in the speedway for the ball game.  It will be the ABC Primetime Game at 8 PM Eastern Time.

 

Usually, after the first week, some new readers to this site will see our ratings and think we are nuts that a team that lost in week one might still be rated higher than the team that beat them.  There are two basic types of ratings’ metrics.  The Predictive Ratings try to predict the outcome of the next game, so what the team has done to this point of the season is not as important as how they might do in the future.

 

You will see that LSU did not fall below Wisconsin in our Predictive Ratings.  Think of it this way.  If the 1927 New York Yankees dropped their season opener to the Boston Red Sox, would that make the Red Sox a better team?  The Yankees would eventually finish 59 games ahead of Boston that year, and no, they did not actually begin the season by losing to Boston.  They defeated the Philadelphia Athletics, the team that would finish number two in the American League.

 

Retrodictive Ratings are more like what you are probably accustomed to seeing.  They rank teams based on what they have done so far and cannot be used to predict the outcome of future games.  If Team A beat Teams B & C, and Team B beat Team C, then they should be ranked A, B, C in that order.  It isn’t that easy because with 128 FBS teams, there are dozens of exceptions where Team A might beat Team B and lose to Team C, while Team B beats Team C.  It gets a little easier as the season continues, because eventually, there will be teams that have done better than other teams in a more organized manner.

 

Okay, if you are still awake, here are our Predictive Ratings this week.

PiRate Ratings
#	Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	Alabama	132.2	124.4	132.2	129.6
2	Clemson	126.4	117.1	125.2	122.9
3	LSU	124.8	118.9	123.9	122.5
4	Tennessee	124.0	119.1	123.8	122.3
5	Oklahoma	122.4	119.2	122.2	121.3
6	Michigan	121.5	119.3	122.1	121.0
7	Florida St.	122.7	115.4	121.6	119.9
8	Oklahoma St.	118.5	119.8	118.5	118.9
9	Louisville	119.9	114.0	119.8	117.9
10	Stanford	120.5	113.1	119.4	117.7
11	Washington	120.5	111.7	120.4	117.5
12	Ohio St.	117.1	117.1	118.3	117.5
13	Texas	114.2	116.9	114.2	115.1
14	Miami	117.9	109.3	117.2	114.8
15	Pittsburgh	116.8	111.4	116.1	114.8
16	Notre Dame	116.4	112.1	115.0	114.5
17	Georgia	114.3	114.4	114.2	114.3
18	Auburn	114.9	113.1	114.4	114.1
19	Houston	113.6	111.5	115.6	113.6
20	North Carolina	115.8	109.0	115.2	113.3
21	Mississippi St.	114.4	111.7	113.5	113.2
22	TCU	112.1	114.4	112.0	112.8
23	Oregon	112.3	111.3	111.2	111.6
24	Texas A&M	111.9	111.2	111.7	111.6
25	Iowa	112.8	109.7	112.2	111.6
26	USC	114.0	108.9	110.8	111.2
27	Ole Miss	113.8	107.4	112.4	111.2
28	Virginia Tech	111.0	110.8	111.5	111.1
29	Wisconsin	112.2	108.4	112.7	111.1
30	Michigan St.	111.9	111.2	109.9	111.0
31	UCLA	111.1	110.4	110.6	110.7
32	Florida	110.0	114.0	107.6	110.5
33	Baylor	109.4	109.7	110.6	109.9
34	Nebraska	111.1	107.3	111.3	109.9
35	Arkansas	112.4	107.1	109.6	109.7
36	Arizona St.	108.7	109.2	107.7	108.6
37	Utah	111.1	105.0	108.6	108.2
38	Colorado	109.6	104.9	110.1	108.2
39	BYU	110.7	103.4	110.3	108.1
40	South Florida	108.5	105.9	109.7	108.0
41	Penn St.	107.4	109.7	105.6	107.6
42	Boise St.	105.7	108.7	108.1	107.5
43	Washington St.	108.8	104.1	108.5	107.2
44	North Carolina St.	108.3	105.0	107.9	107.1
45	West Virginia	107.2	106.6	106.8	106.9
46	Georgia Tech	108.3	104.6	107.7	106.9
47	Arizona	107.1	104.7	106.1	106.0
48	Northwestern	108.2	102.7	106.6	105.8
49	San Diego St.	105.1	102.4	108.4	105.3
50	Kansas St.	103.9	107.2	103.5	104.9
51	Texas Tech	106.4	103.8	104.2	104.8
52	Boston College	104.9	103.2	104.6	104.2
53	Minnesota	104.6	102.6	104.3	103.8
54	Western Michigan	103.7	101.9	105.6	103.7
55	Indiana	102.1	106.7	102.0	103.6
56	Tulsa	102.3	104.4	103.4	103.4
57	Syracuse	105.2	101.0	103.1	103.1
58	Vanderbilt	105.1	100.1	102.8	102.7
59	Toledo	102.7	101.1	103.6	102.5
60	Cincinnati	101.3	102.5	102.3	102.1
61	Missouri	102.4	101.3	101.7	101.8
62	Maryland	100.9	104.2	98.1	101.1
63	Central Michigan	99.1	102.1	100.1	100.4
64	South Carolina	100.8	99.9	100.4	100.4
65	Duke	100.4	101.7	99.0	100.4
66	Western Kentucky	101.1	96.5	102.5	100.0
67	Appalachian St.	99.2	98.4	101.7	99.8
68	Memphis	102.0	97.1	100.1	99.8
69	Illinois	101.1	97.7	100.3	99.7
70	Virginia	100.9	97.7	100.3	99.6
71	Air Force	99.3	99.6	99.5	99.5
72	Temple	99.2	98.8	99.9	99.3
73	California	103.9	93.4	99.8	99.0
74	Navy	99.2	99.0	98.6	99.0
75	Wake Forest	100.0	97.5	98.8	98.8
76	Kentucky	98.3	100.3	97.2	98.6
77	Purdue	99.4	96.6	98.3	98.1
78	Iowa St.	98.3	97.7	97.2	97.7
79	Northern Illinois	95.9	97.6	96.8	96.8
80	New Mexico	95.0	98.3	96.3	96.6
81	Connecticut	97.0	94.8	97.3	96.4
82	Rutgers	97.9	94.9	96.0	96.3
83	Utah St.	94.5	98.4	94.3	95.7
84	Oregon St.	98.0	93.2	95.4	95.5
85	Southern Miss.	94.8	94.1	95.8	94.9
86	Marshall	92.5	96.9	94.3	94.6
87	East Carolina	93.1	96.1	93.2	94.1
88	Middle Tennessee	92.7	95.3	93.8	93.9
89	Georgia Southern	93.0	91.7	95.5	93.4
90	SMU	93.4	92.0	92.6	92.7
91	Nevada	91.1	94.4	92.4	92.7
92	Bowling Green	93.2	91.4	92.8	92.5
93	UNLV	90.3	94.9	90.4	91.9
94	Arkansas St.	90.2	92.0	92.6	91.6
95	Army	87.5	95.9	91.1	91.5
96	Kansas	89.5	97.3	87.1	91.3
97	Louisiana Tech	89.4	91.8	90.6	90.6
98	Ohio	85.9	95.0	86.8	89.3
99	San Jose St.	88.4	88.8	88.9	88.7
100	Central Florida	87.3	90.0	87.3	88.2
101	Akron	84.6	92.4	86.3	87.8
102	Old Dominion	86.2	89.6	86.8	87.5
103	Colorado St.	85.9	88.1	86.2	86.7
104	Troy	83.9	90.5	85.5	86.7
105	Florida Atlantic	84.6	88.3	86.5	86.5
106	Ball St.	85.0	86.9	85.6	85.8
107	Tulane	84.5	87.8	84.7	85.7
108	Rice	82.9	90.9	82.6	85.5
109	Kent St.	84.4	86.1	84.6	85.1
110	Miami (O)	84.0	85.2	84.9	84.7
111	Florida Int’l	81.8	88.9	83.2	84.6
112	South Alabama	80.8	89.2	82.2	84.1
113	Wyoming	83.9	83.8	84.2	84.0
114	Georgia St.	80.3	85.8	82.1	82.7
115	Fresno St.	81.4	85.7	81.1	82.7
116	Eastern Michigan	79.6	85.1	81.0	81.9
117	Buffalo	78.3	87.6	79.7	81.9
118	UTSA	78.1	86.8	80.6	81.9
119	Massachusetts	78.5	87.3	79.7	81.8
120	Idaho	77.9	85.0	79.5	80.8
121	UL-Lafayette	75.2	84.0	77.1	78.8
122	UTEP	75.8	80.5	77.3	77.9
123	Hawaii	76.6	75.4	75.5	75.8
124	North Texas	74.3	76.7	74.3	75.1
125	Charlotte	71.7	78.9	72.8	74.5
126	New Mexico St.	72.4	75.5	73.4	73.8
127	Texas St.	71.6	72.7	72.8	72.4
128	UL-Monroe	67.9	73.3	68.3	69.8

 

And, here are our Retrodictive Ratings for this week.

PiRate Retrodictive
#	Team
1	Alabama
2	Clemson
3	Florida St.
4	Ohio St.
5	Michigan
6	Stanford
7	Louisville
8	Washington
9	TCU
10	Houston
11	Oklahoma
12	Tennessee
13	Oklahoma St.
14	Georgia
15	Wisconsin
16	Oregon
17	Iowa
18	LSU
19	Ole Miss
20	Texas
21	Notre Dame
22	Arkansas
23	North Carolina
24	Miami (Fla)
25	Texas A&M
26	Michigan St.
27	Florida
28	Baylor
29	Pittsburgh
30	West Virginia
31	Auburn
32	Utah
33	Nebraska
34	USC
35	UCLA
36	BYU
37	San Diego St.
38	Western Michigan
39	Toledo
40	Western Kentucky
41	Boise St.
42	Arizona St.
43	Penn St.
44	North Carolina St.
45	Georgia Tech
46	South Florida
47	Mississippi St.
48	Virginia Tech
49	Navy
50	Texas Tech
51	Appalachian St.
52	Northwestern
53	California
54	Indiana
55	Minnesota
56	Washington St.
57	Memphis
58	Colorado
59	Duke
60	Arizona
61	Georgia Southern
62	Southern Miss.
63	Syracuse
64	Kansas St.
65	Cincinnati
66	Illinois
67	Air Force
68	Central Michigan
69	East Carolina
70	South Carolina
71	Tulsa
72	Utah St.
73	Louisiana Tech
74	Wake Forest
75	Temple
76	Missouri
77	MTSU
78	Arkansas St.
79	Maryland
80	Marshall
81	Purdue
82	Akron
83	Vanderbilt
84	Northern Illinois
85	Connecticut
86	Boston College
87	South Alabama
88	Bowling Green
89	Kentucky
90	Nevada
91	New Mexico
92	Army
93	Oregon St.
94	SMU
95	Virginia
96	Iowa St.
97	Rutgers
98	Ohio
99	Kansas
100	San Jose St.
101	Colorado St.
102	UNLV
103	Central Florida
104	Troy
105	Florida Atlantic
106	Ball St.
107	Wyoming
108	Old Dominion
109	Rice
110	UTEP
111	Texas St.
112	Idaho
113	Florida Int’l.
114	Massachusetts
115	Georgia St.
116	Eastern Michigan
117	UTSA
118	UL-Lafayette
119	Tulane
120	Fresno St.
121	Buffalo
122	Kent St.
123	Miami (O)
124	UL-Monroe
125	Hawaii
126	North Texas
127	New Mexico St.
128	Charlotte

Here are the Predictive Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
South Florida	108.5	105.9	109.7	108.0
Cincinnati	101.3	102.5	102.3	102.1
Temple	99.2	98.8	99.9	99.3
Connecticut	97.0	94.8	97.3	96.4
East Carolina	93.1	96.1	93.2	94.1
Central Florida	87.3	90.0	87.3	88.2
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Houston	113.6	111.5	115.6	113.6
Tulsa	102.3	104.4	103.4	103.4
Memphis	102.0	97.1	100.1	99.8
Navy	99.2	99.0	98.6	99.0
SMU	93.4	92.0	92.6	92.7
Tulane	84.5	87.8	84.7	85.7
AAC Averages	98.5	98.4	98.7	98.5
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	126.4	117.1	125.2	122.9
Florida St.	122.7	115.4	121.6	119.9
Louisville	119.9	114.0	119.8	117.9
North Carolina St.	108.3	105.0	107.9	107.1
Boston College	104.9	103.2	104.6	104.2
Syracuse	105.2	101.0	103.1	103.1
Wake Forest	100.0	97.5	98.8	98.8
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami	117.9	109.3	117.2	114.8
Pittsburgh	116.8	111.4	116.1	114.8
North Carolina	115.8	109.0	115.2	113.3
Virginia Tech	111.0	110.8	111.5	111.1
Georgia Tech	108.3	104.6	107.7	106.9
Duke	100.4	101.7	99.0	100.4
Virginia	100.9	97.7	100.3	99.6
ACC Averages	111.3	107.0	110.6	109.6
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	122.4	119.2	122.2	121.3
Oklahoma St.	118.5	119.8	118.5	118.9
Texas	114.2	116.9	114.2	115.1
TCU	112.1	114.4	112.0	112.8
Baylor	109.4	109.7	110.6	109.9
West Virginia	107.2	106.6	106.8	106.9
Kansas St.	103.9	107.2	103.5	104.9
Texas Tech	106.4	103.8	104.2	104.8
Iowa St.	98.3	97.7	97.2	97.7
Kansas	89.5	97.3	87.1	91.3
Big 12 Averages	108.2	109.3	107.6	108.4
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Michigan	121.5	119.3	122.1	121.0
Ohio St.	117.1	117.1	118.3	117.5
Michigan St.	111.9	111.2	109.9	111.0
Penn St.	107.4	109.7	105.6	107.6
Indiana	102.1	106.7	102.0	103.6
Maryland	100.9	104.2	98.1	101.1
Rutgers	97.9	94.9	96.0	96.3
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Iowa	112.8	109.7	112.2	111.6
Wisconsin	112.2	108.4	112.7	111.1
Nebraska	111.1	107.3	111.3	109.9
Northwestern	108.2	102.7	106.6	105.8
Minnesota	104.6	102.6	104.3	103.8
Illinois	101.1	97.7	100.3	99.7
Purdue	99.4	96.6	98.3	98.1
Big Ten Averages	107.7	106.3	107.0	107.0
Conference USA
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Kentucky	101.1	96.5	102.5	100.0
Marshall	92.5	96.9	94.3	94.6
Middle Tennessee	92.7	95.3	93.8	93.9
Old Dominion	86.2	89.6	86.8	87.5
Florida Atlantic	84.6	88.3	86.5	86.5
Florida International	81.8	88.9	83.2	84.6
Charlotte	71.7	78.9	72.8	74.5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Southern Mississippi	94.8	94.1	95.8	94.9
Louisiana Tech	89.4	91.8	90.6	90.6
Rice	82.9	90.9	82.6	85.5
UTSA	78.1	86.8	80.6	81.9
UTEP	75.8	80.5	77.3	77.9
North Texas	74.3	76.7	74.3	75.1
CUSA Averages	85.1	88.9	86.2	86.7
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame	116.4	112.1	115.0	114.5
BYU	110.7	103.4	110.3	108.1
Army	87.5	95.9	91.1	91.5
Massachusetts	78.5	87.3	79.7	81.8
Independents Averages	98.3	99.7	99.0	99.0
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Bowling Green	93.2	91.4	92.8	92.5
Ohio	85.9	95.0	86.8	89.3
Akron	84.6	92.4	86.3	87.8
Kent St.	84.4	86.1	84.6	85.1
Miami (O)	84.0	85.2	84.9	84.7
Buffalo	78.3	87.6	79.7	81.9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Western Michigan	103.7	101.9	105.6	103.7
Toledo	102.7	101.1	103.6	102.5
Central Michigan	99.1	102.1	100.1	100.4
Northern Illinois	95.9	97.6	96.8	96.8
Ball St.	85.0	86.9	85.6	85.8
Eastern Michigan	79.6	85.1	81.0	81.9
MAC Averages	89.7	92.7	90.6	91.0
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	105.7	108.7	108.1	107.5
Air Force	99.3	99.6	99.5	99.5
New Mexico	95.0	98.3	96.3	96.6
Utah St.	94.5	98.4	94.3	95.7
Colorado St.	85.9	88.1	86.2	86.7
Wyoming	83.9	83.8	84.2	84.0
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
San Diego St.	105.1	102.4	108.4	105.3
Nevada	91.1	94.4	92.4	92.7
UNLV	90.3	94.9	90.4	91.9
San Jose St.	88.4	88.8	88.9	88.7
Fresno St.	81.4	85.7	81.1	82.7
Hawaii	76.6	75.4	75.5	75.8
MWC Averages	91.4	93.3	92.1	92.3
Pac-12 Conference
North Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Stanford	120.5	113.1	119.4	117.7
Washington	120.5	111.7	120.4	117.5
Oregon	112.3	111.3	111.2	111.6
Washington St.	108.8	104.1	108.5	107.2
California	103.9	93.4	99.8	99.0
Oregon St.	98.0	93.2	95.4	95.5
South Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
USC	114.0	108.9	110.8	111.2
UCLA	111.1	110.4	110.6	110.7
Arizona St.	108.7	109.2	107.7	108.6
Utah	111.1	105.0	108.6	108.2
Colorado	109.6	104.9	110.1	108.2
Arizona	107.1	104.7	106.1	106.0
Pac-12 Averages	110.5	105.9	109.0	108.5
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Tennessee	124.0	119.1	123.8	122.3
Georgia	114.3	114.4	114.2	114.3
Florida	110.0	114.0	107.6	110.5
Vanderbilt	105.1	100.1	102.8	102.7
Missouri	102.4	101.3	101.7	101.8
South Carolina	100.8	99.9	100.4	100.4
Kentucky	98.3	100.3	97.2	98.6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	132.2	124.4	132.2	129.6
LSU	124.8	118.9	123.9	122.5
Auburn	114.9	113.1	114.4	114.1
Mississippi St.	114.4	111.7	113.5	113.2
Texas A&M	111.9	111.2	111.7	111.6
Ole Miss	113.8	107.4	112.4	111.2
Arkansas	112.4	107.1	109.6	109.7
SEC Averages	112.8	110.2	111.8	111.6
Sunbelt Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Appalachian St.	99.2	98.4	101.7	99.8
Georgia Southern	93.0	91.7	95.5	93.4
Arkansas St.	90.2	92.0	92.6	91.6
Troy	83.9	90.5	85.5	86.7
South Alabama	80.8	89.2	82.2	84.1
Georgia St.	80.3	85.8	82.1	82.7
Idaho	77.9	85.0	79.5	80.8
UL-Lafayette	75.2	84.0	77.1	78.8
New Mexico St.	72.4	75.5	73.4	73.8
Texas St.	71.6	72.7	72.8	72.4
UL-Monroe	67.9	73.3	68.3	69.8
Sun Belt Averages	81.1	85.3	82.8	83.1

PiRate Ratings By Conference
#	League	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
1	SEC	112.8	110.2	111.8	111.6
2	ACC	111.3	107.0	110.6	109.6
3	Pac-12	110.5	105.9	109.0	108.5
4	Big 12	108.2	109.3	107.6	108.4
5	Big Ten	107.7	106.3	107.0	107.0
6	Independents	98.3	99.7	99.0	99.0
7	AAC	98.5	98.4	98.7	98.5
8	MWC	91.4	93.3	92.1	92.3
9	MAC	89.7	92.7	90.6	91.0
10	CUSA	85.1	88.9	86.2	86.7
11	Sun Belt	81.1	85.3	82.8	83.1

And, here are our spreads for this week.

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Friday, September 9
Florida Int’l.	Maryland	-16.1	-12.3	-11.9
Syracuse	Louisville	-11.7	-10.0	-13.7
Saturday, September 10
Army	Rice	7.6	8.0	11.5
East Carolina	North Carolina St.	-12.7	-6.4	-12.2
U Mass (N)	Boston College	-27.9	-17.4	-26.4
Michigan	Central Florida	37.7	32.8	38.3
Pittsburgh	Penn St.	11.9	4.2	13.0
Purdue	Cincinnati	0.6	-3.4	-1.5
Nebraska	Wyoming	30.2	26.5	30.1
Oklahoma St.	Central Michigan	22.4	20.7	21.4
Clemson	Troy	45.5	29.6	42.7
USC	Utah St.	22.5	13.5	19.5
Air Force	Georgia St.	22.0	16.8	20.4
Kansas	Ohio	6.6	5.3	3.3
Appalachian St.	Old Dominion	15.5	11.3	17.4
Duke	Wake Forest	2.9	6.7	2.7
Florida	Kentucky	14.7	16.7	13.4
Notre Dame	Nevada	28.8	21.2	26.1
Ohio St.	Tulsa	18.3	16.2	18.4
Alabama	Western Kentucky	34.1	30.9	32.7
Baylor	SMU	18.5	20.2	20.5
Wisconsin	Akron	30.6	19.0	29.4
Navy	Connecticut	5.2	7.2	4.3
Indiana	Ball St.	19.6	22.3	18.9
Vanderbilt	Middle Tennessee	14.4	6.8	11.0
Colorado St.	UTSA	10.8	4.3	8.6
Washington	Idaho	45.6	29.7	43.9
Miami (Fla)	Florida Atlantic	35.8	23.5	33.2
South Florida	Northern Illinois	15.6	11.3	15.9
Mississippi St.	South Carolina	16.6	14.8	16.1
Oklahoma	UL-Monroe	57.5	48.9	56.9
TCU	Arkansas	2.7	10.3	5.4
Texas	UTEP	41.4	39.4	39.9
South Alabama	Georgia Southern	-9.7	0.1	-10.8
Auburn	Arkansas St.	27.7	24.1	24.8
Illinois	North Carolina	-11.7	-8.3	-11.9
Iowa	Iowa St.	16.5	14.0	17.0
Missouri	Eastern Michigan	25.8	19.2	23.7
Utah	BYU	2.4	3.6	0.3
Tennessee (N)	Virginia Tech	13.0	8.3	12.3
UCLA	UNLV	23.8	18.5	23.2
New Mexico St.	New Mexico	-20.6	-20.8	-20.9
Arizona St.	Texas Tech	5.3	8.4	6.5
Boise St.	Washington St.	-12.3	-0.5	-9.8
Oregon	Virginia	14.9	17.1	14.4
San Diego St.	California	4.2	12.0	11.6

Here are the PiRate Ratings For FBS vs. FCS games this week.

FBS	FCS	PiRate
Georgia	Nicholls St.	55.6
Rutgers	Howard	34.9
Houston	Lamar	48.9
Minnesota	Indiana St.	25.7
Texas A&M	Prairie View	43.6
Florida St.	Charleston Sou.	38.4
Temple	Stony Brook	23.9
West Virginia	Youngstown St.	27.2
Georgia Tech	Mercer	31.3
Bowling Green	North Dakota	24.0
Miami (O)	Eastern Illinois	11.0
Northwestern	Illinois St.	21.0
Ole Miss	Wofford	41.9
San Jose St.	Portland St.	11.2
Colorado	Idaho St.	39.4
Charlotte	Elon	10.1
Kent St.	N. C. A&T	11.0
Marshall	Morgan St.	40.9
Toledo	Maine	34.5
Louisiana Tech	S. Carolina St.	35.5
UL-Lafayette	McNeese St.	4.6
Western Michigan	UNC Central	37.1
North Texas	Bethune Cookman	5.2
Southern Miss.	Savannah St.	49.4
LSU	Jacksonville St.	31.5
Tulane	Southern	21.5
Fresno St.	Cal St. Sacramento	21.7
Arizona	Grambling	40.3
Hawaii	UT-Martin	6.1

Our Bowl Projections will commence in October.

 

Check back Thursday for our Just for Fun Money Line Parlay  selections.  Week one was a dud, as two upsets did us in.

NFL Ratings And Spreads For Week 1: September 8-12,2016

The 2016-17 NFL season kicks off with a lot of changes from last year.  Some were expected in advance, while some were not expected until the last fortnight.  Take a look at some of the key changes.

Peyton Manning retired, and Brock Osweiler left Super Bowl Champion Denver.  The Broncos added Mark Sanchez and then released him, leaving Trevor Siemian as the opening night starter. Siemian suffered a torn ACL in 2015.  He comes from the Spread Formation at Northwestern, and he has never taken a snap in a regular season NFL game.  Normally, when a team goes with a raw talent, they have a graybeard in reserve, but the number two man will be rookie Paxton Lynch from the University of Memphis.

Tom Brady will be a spectator for four weeks, leaving the New England Patriots about a touchdown to 10 points weaker for their first four games.  Our ratings reflect this deduction, and in week five, New England’s rating will rise by several points.

Philadelphia begins anew with a new coach in Doug Pederson, and a new quarterback.  Carson Wentz, a rookie from FCS North Dakota State, will eventually become the starter when he is healthy, so for now the Eagles must get by with Chase Daniel.

The Rams have returned to Los Angeles, and until their new palace is constructed, they will be playing once again at the venerable, archaic Los Angeles Coliseum, where they once ruled the West Coast with stars like Roman Gabriel, Dick Bass, Jack Snow, and the renowned Fearsome Foursome defensive line that led the universe in quarterback sacks.  When the Rams last played a real game at the Coliseum, they won the NFC Championship and lost the Super Bowl to Pittsburgh.  That was the 1979 season, 37 years ago.  According to Pro Football Reference, The Rams are 143-77-8 in the old stadium, one of the best home field advantages in NFL history.

There are four new head coaches in the league this year.  Besides the previously mentioned Pederson with Philadelphia, Dirk Koetter takes over at Tampa Bay, Adam Gase assumed command in Miami, and Ben McAdoo inherits the perpetual hot seat with the New York Giants.  Koetter has a nice track record as a college head coach and long time offensive coordinator at both the collegiate and professional levels.  Gase brings the utmost endorsement of Peyton Manning, after his offense led the Broncos to all sorts of records in 2013.  McAdoo is another offensive guru and has the endorsement of Eli Manning.  Pederson also comes from the attack side of the ball, where he was Andy Reid’s offensive coordinator at Kansas City.

Now for the two major late developments.  Injuries to Teddy Bridgewater in Minnesota and Tony Romo in Dallas, have led to us adjusting our ratings at the 11th hour.  The Vikings plucked Sam Bradford from Philly, and thus their rating does not suffer much.  However, combining Romo’s injury with numerous other injuries and suspensions, the Cowboys saw their rating drop by almost as many points as the Pats without Brady.  The late signing of Sanchez does not swing the pendulum much, since rookie Dak Prescott will be the starter.

The opening ratings for this season indicate to us that this will be a season with a lot more parity than in recent years.  We could foresee many teams still in the playoff hunt in Mid-December with a lengthy list of playoff possibilities heading into the final week.  In seasons like this, a last place or third place team from the previous year could take advantage of the weak schedule and sneak into the playoffs as a wild card team with an 8-8 or 9-7 record.

The sexy pick this year is Oakland, where the Raiders have a powerful offense and improving defense, but the AFC West is really competitive this year.  Denver’s offense will backslide, and we see a pattern in the defenses led by Wade Phillips, where the teams he has led in the past do not sustain the same defensive strength the year after they dominated.  San Diego is capable of challenging in this division, so all four teams could be in a two or three win window at the end.

The Giants went 6-10 last year, and in a weaker division, it is not impossible for Eli and Company to go 9-7 this year and make the playoffs.  Tampa Bay and New Orleans both have just enough talent to eke out a possible 9-7 season, but Atlanta is also capable of going 10-6 or better and even challenge Carolina for the NFC South.

There are a couple of teams that appear to have all the pieces in place to go far this year.  In the AFC, after Brady’s return, the Patriots could go 10-2 or better and enter the playoffs as the team to beat in the conference.  Cincinnati is looking at a do or die season to make hay.  A team cannot stay consistently good for that many years without a Manning or Brady.  The Bengals were much closer to winning a playoff game last year than they have since they played in the Super Bowl in 1989.  This should be the year where Cinti finally advances to the next round of the playoffs, if the Bengals stay healthy.

The AFC South appears to be the weakest division in the NFL.  Houston will be a bit weaker this year, even if Osweiler puts up good numbers.  The Texans have a lot of issues on the defensive side, especially if J.J. Watt cannot play at full speed.  Indianapolis has a lot of holes, but the Colts have the return of Andrew Luck.  Jacksonville is all enthused over a great draft class and an improved roster, but the Jaguars are still at least a year away.  As for Tennessee, the Titans could possibly be looking at the top pick in the draft for the second year in a row.

The NFC’s stength lies in the West, where Arizona and Seattle both have Super Bowl caliber squads, and Los Angeles has the material to challenge for an 8-8 or 9-7 record.  San Francisco should challenge Tennessee and Cleveland for the worst overall record.

In the North, the Vikings still have a lot of talent, but we doubt Adrian Peterson will have the same or even similar season on the ground as he did last year.  The mobile Bridgewater had to be accounted for as a possible bootleg runner when Peterson was the lone back in the backfield.  Bradford is not a threat to run a counter away from the expected flow.  We expect the Vikings to settle around the .500 mark.  Green Bay should waltz to the division title, but keep an eye on Detroit.  The Lions were 6-2 in the second half of the season after a horrendous 1-7 start, and we believe they are closer to a 10-6 team than a 6-10 team.  As for the Bears, if things don’t go well in September, then the Midway Monsters may be more like mice and fall into the 10-12 loss area, where the next coach will choose a new quarterback.

We will debut our playoff projections in October.  Here are our beginning PiRate Ratings for 2016. Remember, these ratings reflect Brady, Romo, and Bridgewater not playing.  They also reflect Watt playing at about 70% effectiveness, as our ratings have algorithms for starting players not playing or playing at less than full strength.

You will also notice that we have added an offense and defense rating this year, and we will issue both predicted spreads and predicted totals.  And, unlike many other ratings, our home field advantages vary by the game.  Seattle’s advantage can be a couple points different when they host Miami as opposed to San Francisco.  Distance, weather, and playing field play an important part, as well as things like consecutive road games and playing on a Thursday or Saturday as opposed to Sunday or Monday.

Current NFL PiRate Ratings
A F C
East	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
N. Y. Jets	103.5	101.0	104.7	103.1	61	42
New England	100.5	98.1	100.8	99.8	61	39
Buffalo	99.2	100.1	99.4	99.6	59	41
Miami	94.7	96.3	94.3	95.1	59	36
North	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Cincinnati	107.5	106.9	108.4	107.6	65	43
Pittsburgh	103.7	103.2	104.8	103.9	64	40
Baltimore	98.6	100.9	98.2	99.2	62	37
Cleveland	91.3	92.9	90.8	91.7	58	34
South	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Houston	101.0	102.7	101.0	101.6	64	38
Indianapolis	97.5	100.0	96.4	98.0	61	37
Jacksonville	97.2	99.1	96.4	97.6	58	40
Tennessee	92.4	94.9	91.7	93.0	54	39
West	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Denver	105.8	102.0	105.9	104.5	62	43
Kansas City	102.8	102.1	104.1	103.0	63	40
Oakland	98.6	98.8	98.6	98.7	62	37
San Diego	97.2	98.4	96.7	97.4	62	35
N F C
East	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Washington	100.0	101.0	100.0	100.3	61	39
N.Y. Giants	98.7	97.7	98.4	98.3	62	36
Philadelphia	98.8	95.1	98.0	97.3	60	37
Dallas	93.0	93.4	92.4	92.9	54	39
North	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Green Bay	104.7	103.8	104.8	104.4	65	39
Minnesota	102.4	101.1	103.0	102.2	60	42
Detroit	100.7	99.9	100.3	100.3	63	37
Chicago	97.1	94.9	96.9	96.3	56	40
South	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Carolina	109.3	108.2	110.4	109.3	65	44
New Orleans	99.5	102.5	98.9	100.3	63	37
Atlanta	96.7	99.8	96.6	97.7	61	37
Tampa Bay	96.2	97.3	95.1	96.2	59	37
West	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Avg	Off	Def
Arizona	109.9	106.9	111.1	109.3	68	41
Seattle	109.3	105.6	110.6	108.5	66	43
Los Angeles	99.0	100.6	98.9	99.5	59	41
San Francisco	93.3	94.8	92.6	93.6	56	38

Spreads for Week 1

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Score
Denver	Carolina	-0.1	-2.7	-1.0	20-21
Atlanta	Tampa Bay	2.5	4.5	3.5	24-20
Baltimore	Buffalo	1.9	3.3	1.3	23-21
Houston	Chicago	6.9	10.8	7.1	24-16
Jacksonville	Green Bay	-4.5	-1.7	-5.4	20-24
Kansas City	San Diego	8.6	6.7	10.4	30-21
New Orleans	Oakland	3.9	6.7	3.3	28-23
N. Y. Jets	Cincinnati	-1.0	-2.9	-0.7	19-22
Philadelphia	Cleveland	10.5	5.2	10.2	30-21
Tennessee	Minnesota	-7.5	-3.7	-8.8	14-21
Seattle	Miami	18.6	13.3	20.3	31-14
Dallas	N. Y. Giants	-2.7	-1.3	-3.0	19-21
Indianapolis	Detroit	-0.7	2.6	-1.4	24-23
Arizona	New England	12.4	11.8	13.3	30-17
Washington	Pittsburgh	-1.2	0.3	-2.3	23-24
San Francisco	Los Angeles	-2.7	-2.8	-3.3	17-20

 

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Money Line Parlay Picks–September 1-5, 2016

This just for fun weekly feature turned out to be our most widely read part of the PiRate Ratings last year, because just like a broken clock is correct twice a day, somehow our money line parlays returned 40% on investment last year. People began leaving comments at our sister site, http://www.piratings.webs.com , telling us they were using these picks to wager their hard-earned money. That disappointed us a lot, since we begged them not to do this.

This is a just for fun mathematical experiment. We have no inside information; we have no specialist in Vegas placing wagers anonymously for us like other heavy hitters. In fact, if we were to announce to any book that we would like to play our picks for real, they would bend over backwards to help us do just that. So, that should tell you not to use these picks. Just read what we have to offer. If there is some way to wager just for fun with your friends, by picking X number of teams to win outright, then maybe you can use our selections.

For those not aware of the Money Line, it is a line established to wager on who you think will win the game without having to cover a pointspread. Obviously, if Michigan plays Hawaii, you would take Michigan to win. As Lee Corso says, “Not so fast my friend.” In order to take Michigan to win the game outright over Hawaii, you have to give ridiculous odds to the book. To win just $100 on this proposal, you must put up $75,000! If you want to wager just $100 on Hawaii to win the game in the biggest upset in years, you would win $25,000 if it happened!

Obviously, this is an extreme outlier. Let’s look at a closer game this week. Vanderbilt hosts South Carolina tomorrow night. The current Money Line odds are listed as Vanderbilt -185 and South Carolina +165. This means that if you believe the Commodores will win, you must put up $185 to win $100 ($285, because you get your investment money back as well). If you believe South Carolina will win this game, then by wagering $100, you stand to win $165 ($265 as you will get your $100 back as well if you win) if the Gamecocks win.

A Money Line parlay allows you to combine multiple games in order to raise your total odds. The catch is that if you bet X amount of games as one parlay wager, all X teams must win. It is considered a sucker bet to play this type of exotic wager, but we are not suckers, because we bet $0 every week. We can choose and choose parlays every week, and we will not lose a penny. We hope you will not either.

Here is our plan of attack that worked rather well last year for us. We will select a host of favorites and bunch them into parlays where the odds are better than even money for us should we win the wager. For example, let’s say that you combine three favorites into one parlay wager. Team A is listed at -250. Team B is listed at -235. Team C is listed at -225. The parlay on this three-team wager would be +188, or you would put up $100 to win $188 ($288 because as you know by now, when you win, you get back your investment money as well.)

It is not easy for three teams at -250, -235, and -225 to all win in a given week. That’s the catch. It looks so easy, and there are some nice hotels in Vegas that have been built from funds donated to them by suckers that thought it looked so easy.

Okay, now that you have been warned, let’s get started with our first Money Line Parlays of the 2016 season. We are playing just two parlays this week, and by playing, we mean like it is Monopoly–it is just a fun game.

Parlay #1

This one gives us +167 odds on our $100 fantasy investment. Yep, if we win, we receive $267 from the fake book in fake Vegas.

Tulsa over San Jose St.
Wake Forest over Tulane
LSU over Wisconsin
West Virginia over Missouri

Parlay #2

This one gives us +127 odds on our $100 fantasy investment. So, if we win just one of these two parlays, it will be a profitable week.

Colorado over Colorado St.
Temple over Army
UTEP over New Mexico St.
Minnesota over Oregon St.

Okay, that’s $200 fake invested funds into two parlays. If we lose both, we are out our imaginary $200. If we win #1 and lose #2, we will have a nice profit in week one returning $267 on the $200 wagered (33.5% ROI). If we lose #1 and win #2, we will have a so-so profit in week one returning $227 on the $200 wagered (13.5% ROI). If somehow both parlays win, we will be taking a fake vacation to an imaginary mountain lodge after pulling off a return of $494 on the $200 wagered (147% ROI).

One final warning and plea–please do not wager real money on these picks. Use them for fun only. See if you can come up with your own and see for yourself how easy hard it is.

Happy football holiday weekend.