PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
American	Bucknell	7.6
Auburn	Georgia	11.4
Boston U.	Holy Cross	7.8
Bradley	Southern Illinois	5.3
Bryant	Maine	7.1
Cal Baptist	Southern Utah	-0.4
Campbell	USC Upstate	4.4
Charleston Southern	Gardner-Webb	-3.2
Cincinnati	Tulsa	16.3
Drake	Northern Iowa	9.1
East Tennessee St.	Wofford	-0.6
Evansville	Indiana St.	-12.3
Florida	Tennessee	-7.0
Furman	Chattanooga	7.0
George Mason	Massachusetts	3.8
Georgetown	Creighton	-14.0
Illinois St.	Illinois Chicago	5.1
La Salle	George Washington	-0.3
Lafayette	Navy	0.5
Lehigh	Army	1.1
Louisville	Georgia Tech	-3.2
Marquette	Villanova	10.6
Missouri	LSU	10.0
Missouri St.	Valparaiso	10.0
Murray St.	Belmont	0.1
New Mexico St.	Stephen F. Austin	-1.2
NJIT	New Hampshire	-0.7
North Carolina	Pittsburgh	8.3
North Carolina St.	Florida St.	11.8
Oklahoma	Oklahoma St.	1.9
Presbyterian	Radford	-7.9
Purdue	Penn St.	9.6
Richmond	St. Bonaventure	5.0
Rutgers	Minnesota	17.2
Saint Joseph’s	Rhode Island	4.1
Seattle	Abilene Christian	8.0
South Florida	East Carolina	7.0
St. John’s	Seton Hall	0.8
Tulane	SMU	9.4
UMass Lowell	Albany	13.9
UMBC	Binghamton	8.8
UT Arlington	Tarleton St.	-2.9
UT-Rio Grande Valley	Sam Houston	-12.2
Utah St.	New Mexico	3.4
Western Carolina	Samford	-3.4
Winthrop	Longwood	-2.3
Xavier	Providence	4.9

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Tuesday, January 24, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Akron	Miami (O)	13.8
Arkansas	LSU	12.4
Ball St.	Buffalo	4.6
Boise St.	Fresno St.	13.9
Central Michigan	Bowling Green	0.4
Clemson	Georgia Tech	10.3
Drake	Indiana St.	5.8
East Carolina	Tulsa	4.8
Florida St.	Miami (Fla)	-5.2
Georgetown	DePaul	-1.9
Illinois	Ohio St.	2.2
Iowa St.	Kansas St.	5.2
La Salle	Davidson	-3.5
Mississippi	Missouri	0.4
Missouri St.	Illinois Chicago	11.6
North Carolina St.	Notre Dame	12.4
Northern Illinois	Kent St.	-13.0
Ohio	Western Michigan	10.2
Rutgers	Penn St.	6.1
San Jose St.	Air Force	3.1
Southern Illinois	Murray St.	6.1
Syracuse	North Carolina	-3.5
TCU	Oklahoma	7.0
Texas	Oklahoma St.	7.5
Toledo	Eastern Michigan	19.1
UNLV	Wyoming	7.8
Vanderbilt	Kentucky	-2.5

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Wednesday, January 18. 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
American	Lafayette	5.1
Army	Bucknell	5.6
California	Oregon	-7.4
Campbell	Radford	-1.7
Central Arkansas	North Alabama	0.3
Charleston Southern	UNC Asheville	-2.3
Chattanooga	Furman	1.2
Colorado St.	San Diego St	-4.9
DePaul	Xavier	-9.1
Drake	Missouri St.	6.2
East Tennessee St.	Samford	-3.7
Grand Canyon	Utah Tech	10.9
High Point	Winthrop	1.3
Holy Cross	Colgate	-12.4
Indiana St.	Bradley	0.1
Longwood	Gardner Webb	5.1
Louisville	Pittsburgh	-10.7
Loyola (Chi)	Saint Louis	-7.3
LSU	Auburn	-5.1
Marquette	Providence	5.7
Missouri	Arkansas	-1.0
Morgan St.	Hartford	15.6
Navy	Boston U.	2.8
Nebraska	Ohio St.	-5.5
Northern Iowa	Illinois St.	6.5
Oklahoma St.	Oklahoma	2.7
Seton Hall	Connecticut	-4.8
South Florida	Cincinnati	-3.9
St. Bonaventure	Duquesne	-0.4
Temple	East Carolina	7.7
Texas A&M	Florida	2.0
Tulsa	SMU	-1.4
UMass Lowell	UMBC	5.9
USC Upstate	Presbyterian	5.5
Utah Valley	Abilene Christian	9.1
Virginia	Virginia Tech	6.4
West Virginia	TCU	1.8
Western Carolina	Wofford	-0.7

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Arkansas	Alabama	0.0
Army	American	-0.7
Bradley	Evansville	19.5
Bryant	Albany	10.3
Bucknell	Loyola (MD)	7.7
Cal Baptist	Utah Valley	-1.9
Cal St. Bakersfield	UC Santa Barbara	-7.7
Cal St. Northridge	UC Davis	-5.9
Central Florida	Memphis	1.4
Charleston Southern	High Point	-0.4
Chattanooga	Western Carolina	8.2
Cincinnati	East Carolina	11.5
Clemson	Louisville	17.9
Colgate	Boston U.	10.3
Davidson	Richmond	0.6
Delaware	Towson	-1.9
Duke	Pittsburgh	8.3
Elon	North Carolina A&T	-2.8
Florida Int’l.	Florida Atlantic	-12.6
Georgia	Mississippi St.	-1.7
Hofstra	Monmouth	20.1
Houston	South Florida	24.5
Illinois St.	Missouri St.	-4.5
Indiana St.	Southern Illinois	4.2
Lehigh	Holy Cross	5.0
Maine	New Hampshire	2.4
Marquette	Connecticut	-2.3
Massachusetts	La Salle	8.6
Mercer	Furman	-5.0
Miami (Fla)	Boston College	13.5
Navy	Lafayette	6.1
NJIT	Binghamton	2.8
North Texas	Louisiana Tech	8.5
Northwestern	Rutgers	-1.1
Penn St.	Indiana	-1.5
Presbyterian	Gardner Webb	-6.8
Rhode Island	St. Bonaventure	0.7
Rice	Middle Tennessee	0.0
Saint Joseph’s	Duquesne	-3.0
Saint Louis	George Mason	5.9
Samford	Wofford	3.0
SMU	Tulane	-3.0
Syracuse	Virginia Tech	-1.9
Tarleton St.	Chicago St.	10.4
Texas	TCU	6.9
Texas A&M	Missouri	0.4
The Citadel	East Tennessee St.	0.1
UAB	Western Kentucky	11.1
UC Irvine	Cal St. Fullerton	9.3
UC San Diego	UC Riverside	-4.8
UMass Lowell	Vermont	2.5
UNC Wilmington	Charleston	-0.4
UNLV	Boise St.	0.8
USC Upstate	Campbell	1.4
UT Rio Grande Valley	Abilene Christian	-5.0
UTEP	UTSA	9.5
VMI	UNC Greensboro	-8.4
Wake Forest	Florida St.	7.9
Washington St.	California	13.0
West Virginia	Baylor	2.1
William & Mary	Hampton	7.9
Winthrop	Radford	-1.2
Xavier	Creighton	3.5

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Saturday, January 7, 2023

Home	Visitor	Spread
Abilene Christian	Southern Utah	0.3
Alabama	Kentucky	6.8
Alcorn St.	Alabama A&M	5.6
Arizona	Washington St.	13.1
Arkansas Pine Bluff	Texas Southern	-5.3
Auburn	Arkansas	-0.7
Austin Peay	Central Arkansas	8.6
Baylor	Kansas St.	5.0
Belmont	Missouri St.	0.6
Boise St.	Utah St.	-0.4
Boston College	Duke	-10.3
Bowling Green	Ohio	-3.4
Bradley	Valparaiso	16.0
Brown	Dartmouth	8.2
Buffalo	Northern Illinois	9.7
Cal Poly	UC Santa Barbara	-7.1
Cal St. Fullerton	Hawaii	-2.0
Charleston	Delaware	11.6
Chattanooga	VMI	14.4
Cleveland St.	Green Bay	15.1
Colorado	Oregon St.	16.0
Colorado St.	Fresno St.	4.6
Columbia	Penn	-8.7
Connecticut	Creighton	7.9
Coppin St.	South Carolina St.	6.5
Cornell	Princeton	2.1
Drake	Murray St.	7.3
Drexel	Monmouth	15.4
East Tennessee St.	Furman	-5.9
Eastern Michigan	Central Michigan	-1.2
Eastern Washington	Sacramento St.	5.5
Evansville	Illinois St.	-2.8
Fairleigh Dickinson	Long Island	11.4
Florida	Georgia	8.7
Florida Atlantic	Charlotte	9.1
Florida Gulf Coast	North Florida	8.8
Florida Int’l.	UAB	-13.8
Florida St.	Georgia Tech	0.6
Fordham	Saint Joseph’s	4.2
Gardner Webb	Radford	4.6
George Mason	Loyola (Chi.)	7.1
George Washington	Massachusetts	-1.6
Georgia Southern	Old Dominion	0.3
Grambling	Bethune Cookman	12.7
Hampton	Northeastern	-4.2
Howard	Delaware St.	11.6
Idaho	Portland St.	-1.3
Illinois	Wisconsin	5.2
Incarnate Word	Texas A&M CC	-8.9
Indiana St.	Illinois Chicago	12.5
Jackson St.	Alabama St.	5.7
Jacksonville	Lipscomb	4.1
Jacksonville St.	Bellarmine	0.9
James Madison	Appalachian St.	12.7
La Salle	Rhode Island	0.5
Lindenwood	Tennessee St.	-1.0
Little Rock	Southeast Missouri St.	-2.7
Longwood	Winthrop	9.4
Louisiana	Georgia St.	8.5
Louisiana Monroe	Southern Miss.	-7.1
Louisiana Tech	UTEP	6.6
Louisville	Wake Forest	-8.8
Loyola Marymount	San Francisco	2.1
Marquette	Georgetown	18.5
Marshall	Coastal Carolina	11.7
McNeese St.	Texas A&M-Commerce	0.2
Memphis	East Carolina	15.2
Merrimack	St. Francis NY	3.4
Miami (O)	Kent St.	-13.2
Michigan St.	Michigan	3.6
Middle Tennessee	North Texas	-3.6
Minnesota	Nebraska	-4.1
Mississippi St.	Mississippi	4.9
Mississippi Valley St.	Prairie View	-7.9
Missouri	Vanderbilt	9.5
Morehead St.	Eastern Illinois	8.2
Morgan St.	North Carolina Central	-0.9
New Mexico	UNLV	4.9
New Mexico St.	Cal Baptist	4.5
New Orleans	Houston Christian	4.2
Norfolk St.	Maryland Eastern Shore	7.5
Norhtern Iowa	Southern Illinois	-1.9
North Alabama	Stetson	-2.2
North Carolina	Notre Dame	13.5
North Carolina A&T	UNC Wilmington	-7.0
North Dakota	South Dakota St.	-5.4
North Dakota St.	South Dakota	2.5
Northern Arizona	Montana St.	-5.9
Northern Colorado	Montana	-1.4
Northwestern St.	Nicholls St.	-0.7
Oklahoma St.	Texas	-0.6
Oral Roberts	UMKC	14.2
Pepperdine	Pacific	6.6
Pittsburgh	Clemson	1.4
Presbyterian	Charleston Southern	1.5
Providence	St. John’s	7.0
Purdue Ft. Wayne	Milwaukee	7.6
Queens	Kennesaw St.	3.5
Richmond	Duquesne	4.5
Sacred Heart	Hartford	11.5
Saint Louis	St. Bonaventure	8.1
Saint Mary’s	Portland	15.3
Sam Houston St.	Tarleton St.	10.2
San Diego	BYU	-4.7
San Jose St.	Nevada	-2.2
Santa Clara	Gonzaga	-8.0
Seton Hall	Butler	3.8
South Alabama	Texas St.	4.7
South Carolina	Tennessee	-20.4
Southeastern Louisiana	Lamar	13.6
Southern	Florida A&M	14.4
Southern Indiana	SIU Edwardsville	-1.2
St. Thomas	Omaha	8.2
Stephen F. Austin	Grand Canyon	-1.4
Stonehill	Central Connecticut St.	3.2
Stony Brook	Towson	-6.7
TCU	Iowa St.	3.9
Temple	Tulane	0.7
Texas A&M	LSU	3.4
Texas Tech	Oklahoma	-16.8
Troy	Arkansas St.	12.4
UC Davis	Cal St. Bakersfield	7.4
UC Irvine	Long Beach St.	8.3
UC Riverside	Cal St. Northridge	10.4
UNC Asheville	Campbell	5.7
UNC Greensboro	Samford	4.9
USC Upstate	High Point	-0.9
UT Arlington	Seattle	-3.7
UT Martin	Tennessee Tech	5.6
UT Rio Grande Valley	Utah Valley	-10.2
Utah	Oregon	5.5
UTSA	Western Kentucky	-7.0
VCU	Davidson	4.1
Villanova	Xavier	-1.5
Virginia	Syracuse	11.5
Virginia Tech	North Carolina St.	3.1
Wagner	St. Francis PA	6.0
Weber St.	Idaho St.	6.0
West Virginia	Kansas	-1.4
Western Carolina	Mercer	-0.6
Western Illinois	Denver	1.6
William & Mary	Hofstra	-6.5
Wofford	The Citadel	9.0
Wyoming	San Diego St	-7.7
Yale	Harvard	10.6
Youngstown St.	IUPUI	23.0

PiRate Picks — October 27, 2022

Due to overwhelming new scheduling issues, this feature is truncated this week.

Selection #1: 3, team 10-point Teaser (-130)

Miami (O) + 1 1/2 vs. Akron

Penn St. + 25 1/2 vs. Ohio St.

Virginia + 11 1/2 vs. Miami (Fla)

Selection #2: Money Line Parlay @ +169.53

South Carolina over Missouri

SMU over Tulsa

Selection #3: Money Line Parlay @ +166.75

North Carolina over Pittsburgh

Wake Forest over Louisville

PiRate Picks For September 9-10, 2022

Last week, the most important part of our PiRate Picks publication was telling you that a broken clock is still correct twice a day. Please remember this, because we have experienced our broken clock accuracy up front this year. For the second week in a row, our selections went 3-0 to give us a 6-0 record to start the season. We know there are about 150-200 new visitors to this site since the 2021-22 College Football National Championship. Get this and get it good–we are not svengali’s. We are not Billy Walters. We aren’t even Brent Musberger and his incredible cast of handicappers. What are we? Really lucky and not much more than that.

Every week, we preface our selections by urging (begging) you not to wager real currency on the selections you read on this site. We know that there are a considerable number of professional speculators in the Nevada gold mines. We don’t have to tell you what to do with your occupation. It’s Joe Tackletrap in Wichita Falls, Texas, who makes $40,000 a year working himself silly that can ill afford to lose $500 that we have concerns about losing $500 because he wagered $100 each on five selections and lost them all, as he saw his mortgage payment money taken away.

Last week, we casually mentioned that there were some people in Nevada that we had information that they were following this site. Wow! We heard from six different people, two of whom represent a consortium of others, telling us they follow this site. And, they were not all from Las Vegas. We have to give some love to the biggest little city in America–Reno. There’s somebody there that sent us a little note.

For one paragraph, let’s pretend that we really did speculate these first two weeks of the football season, wagering $100 ($110) on margins and totals and $100 on the money line parlay. With the 6-0 record, including a parlay that paid back $241.77, our pretend starting bank account of $1,000 would now be worth $1,641.77. Making a 64% profit in two weeks in real life would quickly lead us to cash out and play no more games. That would be our Holiday Fund for this year.

What are the chances that our picks will be perfect again this week? The prior best first three week start we have ever had was a 9-3-1 start to the 2008 season. In most years, September is our worst month, with a big turnaround in October. Thus, we still do not have much confidence in our September picks. It’s merely the law of averages giving us a positive outlier.

Now that we have adequately warned you, we present our picks for this week. We are going with five selections.

Selection #1: Missouri and Kansas State UNDER 56 1/2

Our belief here is that the Wildcats will play a bit conservatively in the first half trying to keep the ball away from the Tiger offense, as Coach Chris Kleiman is a defense first leader. Missouri scored 52 points against a weak Louisiana Tech defense, and our belief is that the totals line might be a tad too high due to this. KSU’s defense pitched a shutout over FCS South Dakota. The Coyotes are not the top team in the Mount Rushmore state, but their offense is consistent. We see this game as a 28-20 win for the Wildcats. That gives us an extra touchdown to be wrong and still be right.

Selection #2: Iowa and Iowa State OVER 39 1/2

Iowa failed to reach the end zone against South Dakota State, winning 7-3 on a field goal and two safeties. The public looked at a Big Ten team’s offense failing to score on an FCS opponent and didn’t realize two important factors. First, South Dakota State is probably better than 60-75 FBS teams. Second, a college football team improves the most during a season in the practices between game one and game two. You can bet that this week in Iowa City, the offensive units in Hawkeye Land have had just about enough of hearing how lame they were in the opener. Over in Ames, Iowa State’s offense is far superior to its defense. Giving up 10 points to SEMO is nothing like Iowa’s holding SDSU to 3. SEMO is a mediocre Ohio Valley Conference team. Iowa will unleash its offense this week and top 20 points. Our hope is that Iowa State will respond in kind and make this a 24-21 game, topping 39 1/2 points.

Selection #3: Florida and Kentucky OVER 52 1/2

Florida came through for us last week, winning as an underdog when we believed the wrong team was favored. Kentucky overcame a slow start and eventually slaughtered a decent but not spectacular Miami of Ohio team. We believe that the Florida team that almost beat Alabama in 2021 before the team quit on former coach Dan Mullen has returned. If they could score 29 on Alabama last year and 29 on a tough Utah defense in week one, the Gators should put the chomp on Kentucky’s defense for more than 35 points. Can Kentucky’s offense produce 17 points or more? We think they Wildcats will top 20 points, and thus we believe the total in this game will top 56.

Selection #4: Arizona +11 1/2 vs. Mississippi State

This game is a tad different from how we normally play home underdogs. We tend to like our home dogs to get 1 to 7 points. We are making an exception here because it is our belief that few too people saw how the Wildcats went to San Diego State on the Christening of their new stadium and spoiled the party for the home team. We have been keeping our eyes on Coach Jedd Fisch since his arrival in Tucson. It is our beliefe that ‘Zona may have found their football equivalent of Lute Olson. His pedigree is about as incredible as a long-time assistant coach can own. Going up against a Mike Leach-coached team, this late night desert dogfight is going to give us reason to brew an evening pot of coffee. This could be the most entertaining game of Week Two, and we expect the home team to be in it for the entire 60 minutes. What’s great about this selection is that the superior SEC is having to play at the Pac-12 opponent’s home field rather than watch the Pac-12 team make the 2,000+ mile trip to the Southeast. Mississippi State could win this game 31-21, 34-24, 38-28, 35-24, 38-27 and still not cover. We tend to believe that this game will be a 3 to 7 point game in either direction.

Selection #5: Money Line Parlay at +172.97

Central Florida over Louisville

Arkansas over South Carolina

Florida over Kentucky

Louisville looked terrible in a blowout loss at Syracuse and did not look ready to play. Coach Scott Satterfield is sitting on a scorching hot seat, as he has had UL detractors since his hiring. At the same time, Gus Malzahn has quickly become a favored coach in Orlando, and Central Florida looks like a real contender for the American Athletic Conference Championship. In addition, UCF has had this game circled on their schedule and calendar. UL won this game on a pick six last year. The Cardinals are headed to an ambush in Orlando.

The Arkansas-South Carolina game should be quite interesting as two very good SEC teams face off in Fayetteville. We were a bit concerned with Spencer Rattler’s performance against Georgia State, as it was a little too similar to the performances he turned in at Oklahoma, which cost him his starting spot. Arkansas has a much better pass rush and secondary than Georgia State, and their offense at times pushed Cincinnati’s defense around. We see Pig Sooey winning by 10-14 points if not more.

Kentucky has defeated Florida twice in four years, after going mutiple decades without a win over the Gators. Billy Napier has quickly become a favorite in the Swamp almost on par with Steve Spurrier. He probably is the most like former Gator coaches Ray Graves and Doug Dickey than Spurrier or any coaches since. The Gators will be prepared and ready to play every week. Napier is part of both the Nick Saben and Dabo Swinney coaching trees. He knows how to run a program, and his year at Louisiana proved it. Kentucky and coach Mark Stoops are not exactly chopped liver. The Wildcats have a potent team with an NFL prospect under center. Will Levis could be a top three pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. Kentucky could be the second best team in the SEC East, but they could be the third or fourth best too. We believe that the Gators will come into this game not resting on their laurels after pulling off the biggest win of Week One. Napier won’t let them get swollen heads. We’re going with Florida in a thriller, and we see the Gators winning 38-28.

PiRate Ratings College Basketball–Sunday, February 20, 2022

Home	Visitors	Spread
Butler	Providence	-3.7
Wichita St.	Houston	-8.3
Wisconsin	Michigan	1.8
Maine	NJIT	-3.0
Detroit	Wright St.	0.6
Iona	Fairfield	11.2
Cincinnati	Temple	7.4
Central Florida	East Carolina	10.1
Milwaukee	Purdue Fort Wayne	-2.8
Northern Iowa	Missouri St.	-1.4
Marist	Quinnipiac	6.6
Siena	Saint Peter’s	-2.4
Manhattan	Rider	3.0
Fordham	George Mason	-3.2
SMU	Memphis	-0.1
Creighton	Marquette	0.2
Oakland	Northern Kentucky	6.9
Green Bay	Cleveland St.	-8.4
San Jose St.	New Mexico	-6.0
Hartford	Stony Brook	0.5
Loyola (MD)	Lehigh	5.0
Purdue	Rutgers	12.6
Bellarmine	Jacksonville St.	0.8
USC	Washington St.	5.0
Missouri	Mississippi St.	-5.9

PiRate Picks–November 17-20

Last week, we had a lot of difficulty isolating potential Money Line parlays where the numbers and our method meshed. In the end, we could only issue three selection parlays. So, guess what happened? We won big! How big? How about a Return on Investment of 96.8%? Yes, we almost doubled our imaginary weekly investment, and that ballooned our imaginary profit for the year to 10.63%. With more than $500 in imaginary profit to play with, we are loosening the reins a bit this week, because the third week in November historically has been the week with major upsets of teams thinking they have sure wins in the bag prior to playing their penultimate rival the following week. It isn’t exact as much as it used to be; USC and UCLA are playing this week, and both rivals have additional games. Some of the games we are choosing as big upsets do not necessarily fit this category, but in this case, Game 12 for these teams may be even more important than playing an arch-rival. We will explain each pick separately this week to show you why.

One of the weekly questions we receive at our email is “where do you get those payout odds?” First of all, it’s amazing how many of you email us when we don’t give out the email address. Sure, it can be found elsewhere, but to go to that much trouble to find it actually means a lot to us, and because of that, we try to answer every one of them without using a form response.

Here’s how we do it. We bookmark almost 2 dozen sports books, which include Las Vegas, Off shore, and those now legal in the various states that legalized sports betting and forced every radio and TV station to carry 30-40 ads per day, making it like it is election season 24/7/365. From these 2 dozen books, we then note which specific book has the best odds on each college football game. Contrary to what most people might do, where they look for the game and then wager due to their thought on the outcome, we look at the number and then wager based on the advantage we believe we gain by the number being off by a 5% or more. For example, if State U is listed at -225 vs. Tech, and we believe the Money Line should be -240, and there are 15 other books with the game between -240 and -250, we consider that a 6.25% advantage for us. Anything over 5% presents a possible choice.

Next, we then begin to combine these games into parlays that return a minimum of +120 odds. We rarely play a parlay at +120. We are usually more interested in parlays of +150 or better, where winning the parlay 30-40% of the time will produce a net profit. Of course, the key is that our own inside data must present the 5% or better advantage, not just one book over the other books.

Another question we receive often is, “which book has the best money line odds?” We cannot answer that question, because it changes from week to week. Just about every parlay we select in a given week comes from a different book than every other parlay for that week. This week, we are going with six different selections, using four different books. If you want to know which single book would be the best one and only book where you choose to open an account, we are not qualified to give you that answer, because the answer would change from week to week.

Let’s get started with this week’s selections.

Odds:	+270
Must Win	Opponent
Missouri	Florida

Dan Mullen has lost the locker room. After firing multiple coaches, the Gators’s defense quit on their coach, while at the same time, the new defensive coordinator was not ready against weak FCS Samford. Missouri has an offense capable of scoring 50 points against this Gator defense. The Tigers and Gators have some bad blood, and the head coaches even displayed animous last year. Both teams are now playing for a minor bowl game. Florida’s players could care less about a possible Birmingham or Gasparilla Bowl bid. Missouri’s players realize this is a good step forward for the future. At +270 and playing at home in a cold Columbia, Missouri, climate, where the temperature will be in the low 50’s with a wind chill in the 40’s, everything is in Missouri’s favor to pull off the upset and becoming bowl eligible.

Odds:	+160
Must Win	Opponent
Old Dominion	Middle Tennessee

This one does not fit the upset pattern listed above. It is a different theory entirely. Old Dominion head coach Ricky Rahne is accomplishing incredible things in 2021. ODU was one of the teams that did not play football in 2020. Their roster was decimated with just 7 of their starting 22 players from 2019 suiting up this year. The Monarchs looked more like Connecticut and Massachusetts when the season commenced in September. After a 1-6 start with the win over FCS Hampton, ODU looked like a potential 1-11 team. However, Rahne and his staff kept the team’s confidence level high and made adjustments on both sides of the ball, and the Monarchs have won three consecutive C-USA games to put themselves into contention to win out and become bowl eligible. Looking at just the last three weeks, ODU clearly looks superior to Middle Tennessee, and at +160, we’re willing to risk $100 in imaginary bucks that they will win their fourth game in a row and then beat Charlotte next week to become a bowl team.

Odds:	+360
Must Win	Opponent
SMU	Cincinnati

We couldn’t resist this one. Cincinnati has been sneaking by with 20 minutes of good football per game since winning at Notre Dame. That sufficed in narrow wins over weak Navy, Tulane, Tulsa, and South Florida teams. SMU can stake themselves to a three touchdown lead if the Bearcats don’t play a first 30 minutes like they did against the Irish. It is our belief that Cincinnati will lose a game before the end of the regular season, and they will have to beat SMU, East Carolina, and most likely Houston to get to 13-0. Playing like they have since Mid-October, we don’t see a path to 13-0. With the odds this high and with SMU capable of outscoring the Bearcats, we are willing to take a little more risk calling for an outright upset.

Odds:	+159.65
Must Win	Opponent
Northern Illinois	Buffalo
Houston	Memphis

Normally, we release this feature late on Wednesday or on Thursday morning. We had to move the release up to Wednesday at Midday because of the Northern Illinois-Buffalo game that plays tonight. The Huskies generated a big difference in the money line in our belief. We believe NIU should be in excess of -250 against the Bulls, so this became an automatic play. Combining NIU with Houston was done because this game had the best odds with the same book that had the best odds for NIU, and it moved the parlay to greater than +150. We think Houston might actually be the best G5 team at this point.

Odds:	+303.09
Must Win	Opponent
East Carolina	Navy
Clemson	Wake Forest
West Virginia	Texas

The +303.09 payout odds on this game is the perfect example of finding better numbers. If we played this same parlay at the same book from the previous parlay, the odds would have been around +275. That’s a difference of more than 9%, and that’s where winning edges come from.

All three of these games feature small favorites playing teams with specific liabilities that can be exploited by the favorite. East Carolina can exploit Navy’s weak pass defense while hiding a vulnerable pass defense that Navy cannot exploit. Clemson’s defense is strong enough to limit Wake Forest to 24-28 points, and the Demon Deacon defense gives up 30 points to opponents before kickoff. Even the mediocre CU offense will score 31 points against WFU. West Virginia playing at home in November is a tough out. Texas is a dying rose and without Bijan Robinson, we are not sure that the Longhorns could win on the road against Marshall at this point.

Odds:	+235
Must Win	Opponent
Colorado	Washington

Washington fired coach Jimmy Lake this week after losing to Arizona State. They play rival Washington State next week. The Huskies are just not talented overall, and their 4-6 record is well-deserved. Having to play on the road with little to no depth and at high altitude, we don’t expect UW to have their A-game this week. Colorado is 3-7 with a road game against Utah next week. This is senior day, and CU’s players know in the back of their heads that this is their chance for one more victory. This has the look of a 20-17 game either way, and at +235, we will take the home underdog to come out on top.

Remember that the PiRates never wager real money on these games, and we highly suggest you do not either. At this time of year, you need all the extra cash you can get, and losing a couple hundred of those greenbacks because of what you have read here is so not in the holiday spirit.

PiRate Picks–September 30-October 4, 2021

This edition will be short this week due to time constraints, but it is chock full of college money line parlays, as we perceive some excellent value on the college side and not on the NFL side. We even include a rare, 4-team parlay at +372.50. Remember, we never wager real money on our selections and recommend you do the same. Use this feature only for entertainment purposes or supplemental research.

Date:	September 30-October 4
1. Odds:	+173.19
Must Win	Opponent
Notre Dame	Cincinnati
Michigan St.	Western Kentucky
2. Odds:	+219.78
Must Win	Opponent
Purdue	Minnesota
Oregon	Stanford
Army	Ball St.
3. Odds:	+220.45
Must Win	Opponent
Missouri	Tennessee
USC	Colorado
West Virginia	Texas Tech
4. Odds:	+372.50
Must Win	Opponent
Texas	TCU
Wake Forest	Louisville
South Carolina	Troy
Oklahoma St.	Baylor