It’s football time in America! Yes, as of this writing on Thursday morning, August 25, football that actually counts in the standings is just 48 hours away.
Every year on Thursdays, the PiRate Ratings submit our selections in a just for fun environment. We never wager real money on our selections, and we encourage you not to do so either. That said, from past experience, we know that at least three dozen of you do monitor our selections and unfortunately risk your mortgage money on what you see here. In the case of two syndicates, there are systems where our weekly ratings are used to help figure which games to play. Last year, we discovered that one of these syndicates includes a very famous person. We don’t have permission to divulge this person’s name, and we are not even 100% sure this person knows that we now know, but a mutual friend in Nevada let the news slip.
It was our hope to feature some guest handicappers this year, but apparently that isn’t working out. When we last tried this feature, a smart and successful female handicapper totally dusted everybody else with a big profit, and we believe she chased away a lot of the guys that didn’t want to be shown up by “a girl.”
The opening week of the college football season only gives us seven games between two FBS teams. There are additional games between FBS and FCS teams, but unless something totally jumps out at us, we will not include FCS teams in this weekly feature.
Something else is new here this year. In the past two years, we have received a lot of comments from you stating that it was impossible for an average Joe to replicate our selections, because we searched all the sports books for the best odds. Most of you that do wager have accounts with one or at most two books. So, we are only going to use one book this year. Because it is the largest and legal in the most states, we will use the odds from Fanduel. Let us make this clear: we have zero relationship with Fanduel and do not receive any financial benefit from them. We only chose to use them because they are now legal in 17 states with another soon to join.
This year, we also plan to deviate from our normal plan of attack that we have used in year’s past. In recent years, we almost exclusively played Money Line parlays where the odds were +120 or more. With an average odds of about +145 odds, winning just three parlays out of seven returned a profit, albeit a small one of 3.5%.
This season, we plan to issue more straight sides and totals selections. We will most likely play no teasers, even though in the past, we did quite well with them. But, that required playing multiple books. One other thing we will not do this year, even though it has probably been our most reliable method in the 20+ year history of this site, is to play both sides or middling. This is an arbitrage gamble that requires playing one side immediately upon the publication of the opening line with belief that the line will move enough to allow you to take the exact opposite side with another selection. Say that the line between State and Tech opens at State by 9.5. Then, by Thursday morning the line has moved to State by 11.5. If you wagered on Sunday night taking State and giving the 9.5 points and then on Thursday, you took Tech and the 11.5 points, you would be guaranteed to win at least one of those selections. But if the final outcome of the game found State winning by 10 or 11 points, something that happens in about 1/6 of all college football games, you win both wagers. Winning both wagers just 1 out of every 19 attempts returns a profit. Doing so requires us to release two of these features a week–one late Sunday night, and then another on Thursday. We did this when we charged a nominal fee for the picks, but this is 100% free and open to the public, and please believe us, it is worth exactly what you are paying for it.
That said, let’s get down to brass tacks and talk about the opening selections for the 2022-23 College Football Season. As we mentioned, there are only seven games on the slate, and our belief in college football odds is that the margins are really accurate to start the season. The line originators and Sharp bettors have months to study the opening week, and they receive beneficial information to alter the spreads. We believe the value to start the season is on the totals, namely because the non-sharps bet a lot of money and frequently alter the number just enough to make it in the favor of the contrarian view.
Thus, we have isolated on three games where we believe we have the advantage playing the totals, and here they are:
#1: Connecticut and Utah State — UNDER 59 1/2
Jim Mora, Jr., takes over at UConn in what is a total rebuild from scratch. The Huskies were once strong enough to make the Fiesta Bowl, but now they have fallen to the point where they had to rally to beat Yale last year. We expect Mora to play a more conservative style of ball this year, trying to shorten games to hide the Huskies’ severe lack of depth. We also believe UConn’s defense will benefit from having to defend more plays, and there will be improvement in the defensive numbers.
Utah State is coming off a stellar year, but we expect the Aggies to be a tad weaker in 2022, at least at the beginning of the season until some young but talented players get some seasoning. The Aggies are favored by 28 1/2 points, and that almost entices one to risk it just on the number alone, but we don’t like playing either side on a spread this large. What we expects is that the game will be lower scoring than expected, something like 38-10 in favor of Utah State. That’s more than 10 points lower than the total for this game.
#2 New Mexico State and Nevada UNDER 49.5
What do you get when a team loses its head coach, its superstar quarterback, and a boatload of players in the Transfer Portal? Obviously, you get a much weaker team. What do you get when a program that has struggled to remain in FBS football brings in a quality head coach with an excellent staff? Well, in year one, it could be even worse than before for a month or two, but what happens when the new coach still believes you succeed in football by running the ball over and over until you can surprise the defense with a pass?
Nevada is basically starting over from scratch after former head coach Jay Norvell made what looks like a lateral move from Reno to Fort Collins. Superstar QB Carson Strong now plays (or sits) for the Philadelphia Eagles, and a lot of key players left Nevada when Norvell left. New coach Ken Wilson has never been a head coach before, and he brings in a staff that have more of a conservative, defense-first pedigree. The Air Raid offense gives way to a more pro-style with an emphasis on using tight ends rather than going 4 wide.
Former Minnesota head coach Jerry Kill might still be in The Cities directing a Gophers’ program that might be the equal of rival Wisconsin in the West Division of the Big Ten. Epilepsy caused him to eventually give up the job, and after a couple years as an assistant, Kill resumes head coaching duties in Las Cruces. Kill hired longtime Division 2 head coach Tim Beck as his offensive coordinator. Beck’s offensive philosophy includes some of the “let your offense be your best defense” tendencies. He used to be a defensive assistant. Add to this that Kill likes to control the clock and keep defenses off the field, and the Aggies figure to give up less points in 2022 than they did in 2021.
There is a lot of smart money on New Mexico State’s side, and the margin has come down to 8 1/2 points. If it was 10 1/2, we might have wagered on the Aggies, but we believe that the inexperience on Nevada’s side in game one combined with the concentration on New Mexico State’s playing a more ball-controlled game, will lead to a final score in the neighborhood of Nevada 24 New Mexico State 16.
#3 Hawaii and Vanderbilt OVER 53 1/2
Here we go the other way with a total, and 53 1/2 is a high total to wager on the Over. Hawaii suffered more personnel losses by defections than Nevada, as former coach Todd Graham was accused of abusing his players. Graham was fired, and former superstar and local hero quarterback Timmy Chang was hired without any past head coaching experience. To make matters worse, Hawaii is having to play in a makeshift stadium for the second consecutive season after Aloha Stadium was condemned and deemed not repairable. The Rainbows are playing on their campus soccer stadium with temporary bleachers, and no more than 9,300 fans can attend games. There is minimal home field advantage, even though opponents have to make two, three, four, and even five-hour time zone changes to play in Manoa.
This year’s Hawaii team will most likely return to the Run and Shoot offense used by the school when Chang played and used by new offensive coordinator Ian Shoemaker at Eastern Washington. Hawaii will have very little running success against even the weakest SEC defense, so expect the home team to pass the ball more than 50 times in this game. What it means is that total scrimmage plays might exceed 160 in this game.
Second year Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea is a defensive-minded coach after being the DC at Notre Dame, but he quickly discovered last year that Vanderbilt plays Matador Defense. Except, when the Commodores saw red, it was the opponent that charged through the 11 black and gold capes. Georgia scored 35 first quarter points in Nashville. By the end of the season, Lea had changed quarterbacks from strict and immobile dropback passer Ken Seals to dual threat Mike Wright. Wright was able to dodge a lot of the pass rush from the worst offensive line in the SEC in the last 10 seasons, and Vandy actually had some decent offensive games in November. We wouldn’t be at all surprised if true freshman A.J. Swann doesn’t see action in this game as well, and although Swann is a pro-style QB, he is much more mobile than former starter Seals.
The Commodores have no big stars in their receiver corps, but they have eight or nine decent receivers, including two tight ends that can force safeties to stay between the hashes, leaving cornerbacks on an island against the wideouts. Because the linebackers will have to prevent Wright from running on the numerous RPOs. Even though the VU offensive line is still the worst in the SEC, against the weak UH defensive line, Wright should have a field day, and Vandy should easily top 35 points in this game, possibly 40.
As weak as the Vandy offensive line is, the entire defense is not much better. The Commodores gave up 36 points per game last year, including giving up 21 to a Colorado State team that averaged just 23.7 points per game and 28 points to a 1-11 UConn team that averaged just 12 points per game against the rest of their FBS schedule and only scored 21 against Yale.
Combine a game that is likely to have 160 scrimmage plays with two weak defenses, and two underrated offenses, and the final score starts to look like 42-38 with either team capable of winning. Vanderbilt is favored by 8 1/2 points, and almost all of the notable computer ratings favor Hawaii by 3-10 points (our PiRate Ratings favor Vandy by about the same as the spread). Thus, we think 53 1/2 points could be passed in the 3rd quarter of this game.
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