PiRate Ratings College Football National Championship

Team 1	Team 2	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Georgia	T C U	8.6	8.7	9.0

Note: NFL Ratings and Spreads will be delayed until Tuesday due to the unfortunate incident in Cincinnati.

PiRate Picks for August 27, 2022

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.

PiRate Ratings College Football for August 27, 2022

This Week’s Spreads

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Florida Atlantic	Charlotte	4.9	5.8	5.9
Hawaii	Vanderbilt	-9.1	-8.8	-6.4
Illinois	Wyoming	22.0	20.0	19.1
Nebraska (n)	Northwestern	10.4	9.3	11.3
New Mexico St.	Nevada	-9.7	-9.5	-10.3
Utah St.	Connecticut	20.9	19.8	25.1
UTEP	North Texas	0.8	1.2	-0.3

FBS vs. FCS Games

FBS	FCS	PiRate
Western Kentucky	Austin Peay	24.6
UNLV	Idaho St.	18.5
Florida St.	Duquesne	34.2
North Carolina	Florida A&M	29.8

This Week’s PiRate Ratings

Rank	Team	Rating
1	Georgia	130.5
2	Alabama	129.1
3	Ohio St.	128.3
4	Michigan	123.0
5	Clemson	120.0
6	Oklahoma	119.1
7	NC State	118.1
8	Michigan St.	117.7
9	Wisconsin	117.6
10	Oklahoma St.	117.5
11	Notre Dame	116.8
12	Utah	116.6
13	Purdue	115.9
14	Arkansas	115.3
15	Tennessee	115.1
16	Pittsburgh	115.0
17	Iowa	114.7
18	Miami (Fla.)	114.7
19	Penn St.	114.6
20	Texas A&M	114.3
21	Mississippi St.	113.9
22	Minnesota	113.6
23	Baylor	113.5
24	Kentucky	112.7
25	L S U	112.5
26	Ole Miss	112.2
27	BYU	111.5
28	Cincinnati	111.5
29	Oregon	111.3
30	Florida St.	111.3
31	Auburn	111.2
32	Louisville	111.0
33	Kansas St.	110.3
34	Texas	110.2
35	Maryland	110.0
36	Nebraska	109.8
37	U C L A	109.1
38	South Carolina	109.1
39	Iowa St.	108.7
40	North Carolina	108.0
41	T C U	107.8
42	Oregon St.	107.2
43	Texas Tech	106.7
44	Florida	106.7
45	Boise St.	106.0
46	U S C	105.9
47	Houston	105.5
48	Wake Forest	105.4
49	Washington	104.9
50	Syracuse	104.8
51	Arizona St.	104.5
52	UCF	104.4
53	Missouri	103.7
54	Virginia	103.6
55	Fresno St.	103.5
56	West Virginia	103.3
57	Illinois	102.6
58	Stanford	102.2
59	SMU	102.0
60	Washington St.	101.5
61	Air Force	101.4
62	Boston College	101.2
63	Indiana	100.9
64	Georgia St.	100.1
65	Rutgers	100.1
66	East Carolina	99.8
67	Virginia Tech	99.7
68	Northwestern	99.5
69	Army	99.0
70	California	98.3
71	N. Illinois	98.2
72	Tulane	98.2
73	U A B	98.1
74	Appal. St.	97.8
75	San Diego St.	97.7
76	Colorado	97.6
77	Kansas	97.3
78	W. Kentucky	97.2
79	Memphis	97.2
80	Liberty	97.0
81	Louisiana	96.9
82	U T S A	96.5
83	Utah St.	96.0
84	Tulsa	95.5
85	USF	95.4
86	Georgia Tech	95.0
87	Central Mich.	95.0
88	Toledo	94.5
89	Arizona	94.1
90	Coastal Car.	94.0
91	Miami (Ohio)	93.5
92	Western Mich.	93.1
93	Navy	92.2
94	Marshall	92.1
95	Troy	91.2
96	Vanderbilt	90.9
97	J. Madison	89.5
98	Old Dominion	89.4
99	Colorado St.	89.2
100	North Texas	88.9
101	Eastern Mich.	88.5
102	Kent St.	88.4
103	Nevada	87.7
104	U N L V	87.6
105	San Jose St.	87.4
106	Bowling Green	87.1
107	U T E P	86.9
108	Ga. Southern	86.6
109	Middle Tennessee	86.5
110	Florida Atlantic	86.1
111	Ohio	85.9
112	South Alabama	85.8
113	Southern Miss.	85.3
114	Wyoming	85.3
115	Ball St.	85.1
116	Buffalo	84.5
117	Duke	84.1
118	Charlotte	83.1
119	UL-Monroe	82.1
120	Temple	81.1
121	Texas St.	81.0
122	Arkansas St.	80.8
123	Rice	80.7
124	Louisiana Tech	80.4
125	New Mexico	80.2
126	Hawaii	79.3
127	Akron	78.5
128	Connecticut	77.1
129	New Mexico St.	75.4
130	Massachusetts	74.7
131	Florida Int’l.	67.6

PiRate Ratings By Conference

American Athletic Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Cincinnati	111.3	110.4	112.9	111.5
Houston	105.1	104.8	106.6	105.5
UCF	103.9	104.6	104.7	104.4
SMU	102.3	101.4	102.4	102.0
East Carolina	99.6	99.2	100.5	99.8
Tulane	98.7	97.8	98.0	98.2
Memphis	97.1	97.6	97.0	97.2
Tulsa	95.9	94.9	95.8	95.5
USF	96.3	94.8	95.2	95.4
Navy	93.0	92.2	91.4	92.2
Temple	81.0	83.5	78.7	81.1
AAC	98.6	98.3	98.5	98.4
Atlantic Coast Conference
Atlantic Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Clemson	119.8	119.6	120.6	120.0
NC State	118.4	117.4	118.6	118.1
Florida St.	111.8	111.1	111.0	111.3
Louisville	111.8	110.6	110.8	111.0
Wake Forest	105.9	105.2	105.2	105.4
Syracuse	105.9	104.3	104.2	104.8
Boston College	100.6	102.6	100.3	101.2
Coastal Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Pittsburgh	116.0	114.7	114.3	115.0
Miami (Fla.)	115.2	113.8	115.0	114.7
North Carolina	108.1	108.3	107.6	108.0
Virginia	104.1	104.3	102.4	103.6
Virginia Tech	100.4	100.8	97.9	99.7
Georgia Tech	95.7	95.6	93.7	95.0
Duke	84.3	86.8	81.2	84.1
ACC	107.0	106.8	105.9	106.6
Big 12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Oklahoma	119.4	118.2	119.8	119.1
Oklahoma St.	118.3	116.4	117.7	117.5
Baylor	114.2	112.9	113.4	113.5
Kansas St.	111.2	109.8	110.0	110.3
Texas	111.2	110.0	109.5	110.2
Iowa St.	108.7	108.6	108.9	108.7
T C U	108.9	107.3	107.3	107.8
Texas Tech	107.1	105.6	107.5	106.7
West Virginia	103.8	103.6	102.5	103.3
Kansas	99.2	96.9	95.8	97.3
Big 12	110.2	108.9	109.2	109.5
Big Ten Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Ohio St.	128.7	126.7	129.6	128.3
Michigan	123.7	121.9	123.5	123.0
Michigan St.	119.0	117.4	116.8	117.7
Penn St.	115.1	114.6	114.1	114.6
Maryland	110.3	110.1	109.8	110.0
Indiana	102.1	101.5	99.1	100.9
Rutgers	101.4	100.5	98.3	100.1
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Wisconsin	118.1	117.4	117.1	117.6
Purdue	116.8	115.7	115.0	115.9
Iowa	115.9	114.4	113.9	114.7
Minnesota	113.7	113.1	114.1	113.6
Nebraska	110.2	110.2	109.1	109.8
Illinois	103.1	103.7	101.2	102.6
Northwestern	99.8	100.9	97.8	99.5
Big Ten	112.7	112.0	111.4	112.0
Conference USA
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
U A B	97.4	97.6	99.2	98.1
W. Kentucky	96.5	96.1	99.1	97.2
U T S A	97.2	95.4	96.7	96.5
North Texas	88.7	87.9	90.0	88.9
U T E P	87.0	86.5	87.2	86.9
Middle Tennessee	85.7	86.8	86.9	86.5
Florida Atlantic	85.4	87.3	85.7	86.1
Charlotte	83.0	84.0	82.4	83.1
Rice	81.3	80.7	80.2	80.7
Louisiana Tech	80.3	82.0	78.8	80.4
Florida Int’l.	67.1	70.2	65.4	67.6
CUSA	86.3	86.8	86.5	86.5
FBS Independents
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Notre Dame	117.5	115.5	117.4	116.8
BYU	112.2	110.2	112.2	111.5
Army	98.6	99.3	99.2	99.0
Liberty	95.4	97.5	98.0	97.0
Connecticut	77.6	79.1	74.6	77.1
New Mexico St.	74.9	77.2	74.1	75.4
Massachusetts	75.3	76.0	72.7	74.7
Independents	93.1	93.5	92.6	93.1
Mid-American Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Miami (Ohio)	91.6	94.6	94.4	93.5
Kent St.	87.4	90.2	87.7	88.4
Bowling Green	87.8	86.5	86.9	87.1
Ohio	84.3	87.0	86.5	85.9
Buffalo	83.1	85.8	84.8	84.5
Akron	78.3	79.3	77.9	78.5
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
N. Illinois	97.9	98.3	98.4	98.2
Central Mich.	93.1	95.4	96.4	95.0
Toledo	93.5	94.7	95.4	94.5
Western Mich.	92.2	93.5	93.6	93.1
Eastern Mich.	88.4	89.0	88.1	88.5
Ball St.	84.7	86.0	84.8	85.1
MAC	88.5	90.0	89.6	89.4
Mountain West Conference
Mountain Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Boise St.	106.1	105.0	107.0	106.0
Air Force	101.0	100.9	102.4	101.4
Utah St.	95.5	95.9	96.7	96.0
Colorado St.	88.6	89.9	89.1	89.2
Wyoming	84.0	86.7	85.1	85.3
New Mexico	80.4	81.1	79.1	80.2
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Fresno St.	103.3	102.6	104.6	103.5
San Diego St.	97.5	97.5	97.9	97.7
Nevada	87.1	89.2	86.9	87.7
U N L V	88.5	86.0	88.1	87.6
San Jose St.	86.9	87.3	88.0	87.4
Hawaii	78.6	80.1	79.4	79.3
MWC	91.5	91.8	92.0	91.8
Pac-12 Conference
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Utah	116.5	115.0	118.4	116.6
Oregon	111.7	111.4	110.9	111.3
U C L A	108.6	108.5	110.2	109.1
Oregon St.	107.2	106.6	107.8	107.2
U S C	105.4	106.2	106.2	105.9
Washington	104.2	105.0	105.5	104.9
Arizona St.	104.1	104.1	105.4	104.5
Stanford	103.8	101.0	101.8	102.2
Washington St.	101.0	101.6	101.8	101.5
California	97.7	98.1	99.1	98.3
Colorado	98.5	96.7	97.7	97.6
Arizona	94.1	94.1	94.0	94.1
Pac-12	104.4	104.0	104.9	104.4
Southeastern Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia	130.6	128.7	132.2	130.5
Tennessee	115.2	114.9	115.3	115.1
Kentucky	112.1	112.8	113.3	112.7
South Carolina	109.5	108.8	108.9	109.1
Florida	105.9	108.0	106.3	106.7
Missouri	104.0	104.1	103.0	103.7
Vanderbilt	91.1	92.3	89.3	90.9
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Alabama	129.0	127.7	130.6	129.1
Arkansas	115.9	113.9	116.1	115.3
Texas A&M	113.4	114.8	114.8	114.3
Mississippi St.	115.2	113.1	113.5	113.9
L S U	113.0	112.2	112.2	112.5
Ole Miss	113.4	111.4	111.8	112.2
Auburn	112.1	110.6	110.9	111.2
SEC	112.9	112.4	112.7	112.7
Sunbelt Conference
East Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Georgia St.	99.3	98.5	102.6	100.1
Appal. St.	96.2	98.1	99.0	97.8
Coastal Car.	92.8	94.2	95.0	94.0
Marshall	91.4	92.8	92.1	92.1
J. Madison	87.2	89.1	92.1	89.5
Old Dominion	89.4	89.4	89.5	89.4
Ga. Southern	86.6	86.0	87.1	86.6
West Division
Team	PiRate	Mean	Bias	Average
Louisiana	95.9	96.3	98.5	96.9
Troy	90.7	90.9	92.0	91.2
South Alabama	85.3	85.6	86.5	85.8
Southern Miss.	85.1	85.6	85.2	85.3
UL-Monroe	82.2	82.7	81.5	82.1
Texas St.	80.4	81.3	81.4	81.0
Arkansas St.	80.1	81.7	80.6	80.8
Sun Belt	88.8	89.4	90.2	89.5

Conference Ratings

Rank	Conference	Rating
1	Southeastern	112.7
2	Big Ten	112.0
3	Big 12	109.5
4	Atlantic Coast	106.6
5	Pac-12	104.4
6	American Athletic	98.4
7	Independents	93.1
8	Mountain West	91.8
9	Sun Belt	89.5
10	Mid-American	89.4
11	Conference USA	86.5

PiRate Ratings College Football–Prologue

Welcome to the start of the college football season. It’s officially called “Week 0,” as there are just a handful of games to kickoff the season, but we’ll take real football, even if no marquee teams are playing this week.

Our standard format here is to post the college picks the day after the last game played of each week. Most of the year, that will be Sunday afternoon. Because Week 1 will have a Labor Day game, that week will be Tuesday afternoon.

Then, on Thursdays, we will issue our just for fun picks against the spread. In recent years, almost all of the picks we published were money line parlays going off at better than +120 odds and using every available sportsbook to try to find value. So many of you attempted to play these picks even though we tried 50 ways to encourage you not to do so. We never wager a penny on these picks, because there is no margin of safety involved.

This year, we are going to use just one sportsbook each week, so it would theoretically be possible for many of you to do the wrong thing and give money to these wealthy corporations. Additionally, we are going to emphasize straight picks against the spread and less parlays.

For what it’s worth, in the 22 years that the PiRate Ratings have issued just for fun selections, we had theoretically winning seasons in 16 of those years, 5 losing seasons, and one break-even season.

The PiRate Ratings are part of two large conglomerates of multiple power ratings, basically the NFL of computer ratings.

The Massey Composite Rankings, run by Ken Massey in East Tennessee, combines all the computer rankings into one composite. The website is: https://masseyratings.com/cf/compare.htm

The Prediction Tracker, run by Todd Beck in Illinois, combines all the computer power ratings into a mean spread, median spread, and standard deviation. There are additional stats to predict the chance that the home team wins and the chance that the home team covers. The website is: https://www.thepredictiontracker.com/predncaa.html.

The first regular season PiRate Ratings for the 2022 college season will post here on Sunday afternoon, August 21.

The weekly ratings will include the spreads for all games involving an FBS team, divided into FBS vs. FBS games and FBS vs. FCS games. We have three different but similar ratings for games between two FBS teams, while we have just one rating for games between FBS versus FCS teams, because we have to rate the FCS teams differently, and two of our ratings cannot be calculated based on the FCS data.

After the spreads for the week, the next portion of our weekly release is the FBS rankings from 1 to 131, followed by the ratings broken down by conference, and a rating of the conferences.

The final part of the weekly release will include different things depending on the week. In the second half of the season, this will become our bowl and playoff projections.

It Starts Again in Two Days

The end of May means that college football practices begin in 10 weeks, less for the handful of teams playing in Week 0.

The end of May also means the beginning of the updating process of the PiRate Ratings. With a little bit of conference realignment plus the addition of a new team from FCS to FBS (James Madison), it means a little extra work, but this is the 54th season that the PiRate Ratings have been in existence, and it is really more a way of life than a difficult task.

Beginning Tuesday, May 31, the updating begins with two teams from Conference USA, and two teams will be worked on 7 days a week for close to 10 weeks until all 131 teams have been rated for 2022.

In other news, The PiRate Ratings have a tabletop football game available called PiRate Pro Football. There are currently two sets available: A 1960’s & 70’s salute to the American Football League, and a corresponding 1960’s and 70’s National Football League set. The next set will be a 1970’s and 80’s National Football League set, with preliminary plans to issue our first college football game after the NFL game. To see what the two games in existence look like, visit the site linked below.

PiRate Pro Football Game

PiRate Ratings College Football Championship Game Spreads

Team 1	Team 2	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Alabama	Georgia	-1.5	-2.3	-2.1

PiRate Picks–Thanksgiving Week

A Windfall!

It wasn’t the best ever for the PiRate Ratings, as we’ve had greater than 200% returns on investment in a handful of weeks in the last 17 years, but last week’s 171.2% ROI was our best in the last three years. We played six wagers last week, ranging from +159.65 to +360. We lost the +360, but we won the other five selections for an imaginary gain of $1,027.74 on an imaginary investment of $600.

Coming this late in the year, if we play a bit conservatively the rest of the year, we will be guaranteed of having our 5th winning season in the last 6 years and our 14th winning season in the 17 years we have been pretending to wager. For the season, our imaginary 54 wagers at $100 per game for $5,400 in imaginary currency has returned an imaginary $6,337.83, for a profit of $937.83, and a ROI of 17.4%. Hopefully, you have seen the word “imaginary” a few times to this point. We hope you get what we’re saying; we do not wager real money on these parlays.

We are issuing just two parlays this week. The odds were not what we hoped for, as too many games have very large Money Lines. Additionally, our plan is to play one, two, or three games in each parlay while receiving odds better than +120 and preferably better than +150. Having to ask four teams to win for us is basically one too many. Alas, we had to issue a 4-game parlay this week to bring the odds up above +150.

Here are the two parlays we have selected this week. If either one wins, we are guaranteed to have another winning week. If both win, we may retire for the season and enjoy our imaginary winnings. If neither win, we will have given back a little of our profits.

Odds:	+201.37
Must Win	Opponent
Ball St.	Buffalo
Georgia St.	Troy
Memphis	Tulane
Odds:	+150.77
Must Win	Opponent
Central Michigan	Eastern Michigan
Old Dominion	Charlotte
UCLA	California
Alabama	Auburn

PiRate Picks–October 28-30, 2021

Back To Back Winning Weeks

Usually, the middle of October to the middle of November has been the period where our college football parlay picks have made their move into positive territory, and this year has been another example of that. After going north and south of the break-even line, in the last two weeks, a couple of big wins with fat payouts has taken our imaginary bankroll and turned it from red to black numbers.

We won two of the four parlays, one paying out at +187 and the other at +147.40. That comes to a 33.6% return on investment for the weekend. For the year, $3,500 in imaginary funds have been wagered with the sports books, and $3,704.28 in imaginary funds have been returned for an ROI of 5.84%.

Last week, we did not particularly like the games overall. It was difficult finding suitable parlays with payouts better than +120 that our “system” said had a better chance than the minimum needed to show a profit. The week before, too many games presented themselves as playable, and we had to limit the ones we wanted.

This week, it is somewhere in between. We selected to underdogs to win outright with rather fat payout odds. Our methods say these two games are virtual tossup games, so if we can get better than +120 on these games, we feel compelled to take the ‘dogs.

However, after the two straight up upset selections, we spent an extra hour plus trying to combine games into suitable odds while remaining confident that the teams would win.

So, without further adieu, here are our five selections for this week.

Note: Corrected Parlay after astute football guru Dustdog spotted an error.

Date:	October 28-30
Odds:	+360
Must Win	Opponent
UTEP	Florida Atlantic
Odds:	+170
Must Win	Opponent
Michigan St.	Michigan
Odds:	+225.59
Must Win	Opponent
Illinois	Rutgers
Notre Dame	North Carolina
Odds:	+269.54
Must Win	Opponent
Central Florida	Temple
Kansas St.	TCU
Rice	North Texas
Odds:	+150
Must Win	Opponent
Utah St.	Hawaii
San Jose St.	Wyoming

PiRate Picks For September 16-20, 2021

After a swing and a miss on opening week of the football season, last week we went two for two with big wins. Not only did we win both of our Money Line Parlays, we mentioned a first week NFL system that has worked well over the course of a couple of decades. We told you that even though we are only issuing Money Line Parlays this year, that playing the NFL underdogs of 1/2 to 3 points in Week 1 was a winning proposition. There were seven such underdogs last week, and playing them and the points went 5-2.

For the year, our pretend bank account has wagered pretend money on four games, $400 at $100 per wager, and we have received $604.56 in return from the pretend book. That’s a return on investment of 51.14%.

Now, the pressure is on to keep that profit and not give it back to the imaginary book. We begin including NFL games this week, and we have chosen four different parlays, each with more than +120 odds. Additionally, we are doing something we have only done three or four times in the last decade–combine a college game and NFL game into a parlay. We are number’s enthusiasts here on the PiRate ship, so sometimes we are left with orphan numbers needing to go to a matchmaking service. Combining college and pro football games into a hopeful match is rare for us, but there is no real reason not to do it. We just like to know at 1 AM on Sundays whether we won or not.

Enjoy these four parlays, but remember that these are for entertainment purposes only. We strongly urge you not to wager real money on these picks unless you have done your own research, and this feature merely verifies your own findings.

This Week’s Money Line Parlays

Date:	Sept 16-20
Odds:	+182
Must Win	Opponent
Kansas St.	Nevada
Troy	Southern Miss.
Odds:	+126.42
Must Win	Opponent
Mississippi St.	Memphis
Denver	Jacksonville
Odds:	+140.08
Must Win	Opponent
LA Rams	Indianapolis
Kansas City	Baltimore
Odds:	+127.91
Must Win	Opponent
Arizona	Minnesota
Seattle	Tennessee

PiRate Picks For September 9-13, 2021

Last week’s opening picks missed, as Virginia Tech made Sam Howell look like Thurston Howell. Duke then failed to show up against Charlotte, and poof, our two picks were destroyed. Such is life when you wager on parlays that return the odds we look for when we place our imaginary wagers.

We have two more picks returning some fat odds this week, and maybe we’ll get lucky and hit on one. We will also tell you a week 1 tip for the NFL. Although we are here just for Money Line Parlays this year, it doesn’t mean we cannot give out a little interesting information.

Here are our two Money Line Parlays for Week two of the college season. We will eventually pick some NFL games, but Week one is not the time and place for that.

Parlay 1

Odds:	+224
Must Win	Opponent
Virginia	Illinois
Rutgers	Syracuse
Michigan	Washington

Parlay 2

Odds:	+180.56
Must Win	Opponent
Mississippi St.	North Carolina St.
TCU	California

Here’s our tip for Week 1 of the NFL season. Underdogs of 1 to 3 points tend to win outright 50% of the time, but they also lose by less than 3 points another 8-10% of the time. That’s 58-60% success for wagering on 3-point Underdogs.

There are seven games as of this writing with a 3-point spread. The Dogs are:

Houston against Jacksonville

Arizona against Tennessee

Philadelphia against Atlanta

Indianapolis against Seattle

Cincinnati against Minnesota

Miami against New England

N.Y. Giants against Denver