PiRate Ratings NFL Conference Championships–Sunday, January 29, 2023

Margins

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Kansas City	Cincinnati	5.4	4.7	3.6
Philadelphia	San Francisco	3.2	2.2	1.7

Totals

Home	Visitor	Total
Kansas City	Cincinnati	57.0
Philadelphia	San Francisco	46.5

PiRate Picks–September 29-October 1, 2022

If you follow this weekly feature, then you must realize at this point in the season that the picks made here have put us in an untenable position. Through four full weeks and one partial fifth week in the college football season, we have issued 21 selections. 16 of them have won, and five of them have been at odds exceeding even money. Our imaginary $1,000 starting account has ballooned to $1,906.19 after going 3-0 last week with two of those three wins bringing better than +130 parlay payouts. That 16-5 record is even more ridiculous when you consider that we had one week where we were 1-4. In all the other weeks, our pretend wagering selections are 15-1! Meanwhile, we made comments in two of those weeks that we did not particularly like the slate of games available for those weeks. All this should tell you that if a situation is obviously untenable, don’t make any large gambles on the situation continuing to be as successful or even successful at all in the future. If 76.2% winners were the norm, and the wagers were real, we would be banned from wagering at most of the books and definitely greatly limited in the amount we could wager at those that did not ban us. Only a small minority of the big-time players ever get limited or banned. That’s why in all honesty, the selections going forward are almost sure to disappoint until the percentages normalize. Think of our selections being like the Cleveland Indians beginning the 1966 baseball season at 14-1 and then 27-10 near the completion of the first quarter of the season. The Indians held a substantial lead over Baltimore, but Leon Wagner was not Frank Robinson. Robby would go on to win the Triple Crown, and the Orioles would pass Cleveland with ease and go on to win the AL pennant in a breeze. The PiRate Ratings are Cleveland. Maybe, our 1954 is out there some day, but there is no reason to believe that it is this year.

Now, that we have a clear conscience, here are our picks for this week. Remember: we never wager real money on these selections, and we suggest you follow this lead. If you are a professional wagering maven, then we know you only read this weekly feature as supplemental information for your other research.

Selection #1: Iowa +10 1/2 vs. Michigan

This play is all about the number. At 9 1/2, we wouldn’t play it. We probably wouldn’t play it at 13 1/2 either. Michigan is clearly better than Iowa, but can they win by double digits in Iowa City when the Hawkeyes’ offense is starting to show signs of respectability? Iowa might be able to control the ball for 32 or more minutes in this game, and Michigan has played one above average team at home with no road games. At 10 1/2, we get 39% of the spreads most likely for a game to have, including nine of the top 15 spreads in college football. Our internal (not the PiRate Ratings) quick compare system shows this game to be a maximum of 8 points in Michigan’s favor and only about a 65% chance that the Maize and Blue will win the game by any amount. We see this being a 27-20 game for the Wolverines, and it wouldn’t be a big shock if Iowa pulled off the upset.

Selection #2: Penn State & Northwestern Under 52 1/2

James Franklin has this team believing in itself, and we have little doubt that the Nittany Lions will win this game with relative ease, but we also believe the first quarter and some of the second quarter of this game will be played conservatively as Penn State tries some new wrinkles. Northwestern’s history of being good in even-numbered years and rebuilding in odd-numbered years may have come to an end, as the Wildcats look no better than they were last year, and their win over Nebraska isn’t worth much. The NU offense isn’t likely to keep the scoreboard operator busy. We think this could be a 34-10 game, maybe a 38-7 game.

Selection #3: UNLV and New Mexico Over 42 1/2

This was a late addition to our selections this week, as the total dropped by a full point on Wednesday, and we think it has been moved too much. There are some middling plays going on with this game. At 43 1/2, it was too close to our projection of 28-17 and 45 points. Usually, we like a game to differ by three points or more in the total, but when it’s this low, 2 1/2 points are enough to make a play. The only concern is that the Lobos are scoring points of fewer than normal total yards gained. However, UNLV’s offense is better than New Mexico’s defense, and we also think there is a chance that the Rebels could score more then 28 points in this game.

Selection #4: Minnesota & Purdue Over 51 1/2

If you follow this weekly feature for any amount of time, you will probably see a trend toward playing the Under on more totals than the Over, but this week, it is an even split. We respect Minnesota’s excellent start to the season, but their defense has yet to be tested by a Power 5 competent offense, as it will this week. This isn’t Drew Brees bringing the Spoilermakers to The Cities, but this also isn’t the Bobby Bell Gophers of 1960 and 1961. Our internal rating shows PU will top 24 points in this game, but their lack of a power running game might prevent the Boilermakers from scoring the one extra TD needed to win this game. Minnesota probably will top 30 points. At 34-27, that’s 9 1/2 more points than needed to satisfy this play.

Selection #5: Oklahoma & TCU Under 68 1/2

This was actually the one total that jumped off the page when we first saw it. Oklahoma is coming off an upset loss to Kansas State where they gave up more than 40 points. TCU is averaging 46.3 points per game but hasn’t played a real defense yet. We suspect that defensive-oriented Sooner coach Brent Venables will concentrate his efforts this week on giving his defense more confidence by playing this game a little more conservatively. Meanwhile, TCU will experience some difficulty trying to consistently move the ball with short passing plays. We think the total for this game will be 60 or less. A final score of 34-21 is expected.

Selection #6: Money Line Parlay @ +176.22

Kent State over Ohio U

Wyoming over San Jose St.

The key game for us this week is the Wyoming-San Jose State game in Laramie. We believe the wrong team is favored. The Cowboys have been a different team at home in altitude as opposed to the road, and San Jose State is coming into a weather situation they have not had a chance to prepare for in the Bay Area. This game could be played in a windy rainstorm, possibly a thunderstorm, with a chance that it could be delayed one or more times. Wyoming has an advantage if the running game must be used more in the quarters where the wind is in the face of the offense. We are looking for Wyoming to win this one outright by 5 to 10 points.

We didn’t want to play Wyoming straight up for 11-10 odds, so we looked to a coupling game that would ramp it up to better than +130, and we found it in the Kent State-Ohio game. The Golden Flashes are at least 10 points better than the Bobcats, but the Money Line was only -450, and combining it with the underdog selection, it makes this parlay an attractive +176.22.

Selection #7: Money Line Parlay @ +157.22

Kansas State over Texas Tech

North Carolina over Virginia Tech

Western Kentucky over Troy

Both teams won big games last week in the Kansas State-Texas Tech match-up. But, the Red Raiders beat their most hated rival. TTU rarely gets the respect in the Lone Star State by the fans of the Longhorns. At the same time, Kansas State has used a big win over a ranked opponent to propel themselves to bigger and better things. Add in the factor that our internal rating shows the Wildcats to be nine points better, and this is an attractive part of a parlay for us.

Neither North Carolina nor Virginia Tech are going to go on big runs to finish with fat won-loss records this year. In fact, we think the Hokies are looking at 5-7 or even 4-8, while the Tar Heels are maybe looking at 7-5 and a minor bowl game. We are looking at a 35-28 win for Mack Brown’s squad.

In Bowling Green, Kentucky, the Hilltoppers have been known as a basketball school with a neat mascot, but their football team should not be overlooked this year. Following a 73-0 win over possibly the worst FBS team in Florida International, they step up to play another under-the-radar team in Troy. This used to be a fierce rivlary game when both were Sun Belt Conference members, and we expect a close, hard-fought game with a lot of offensive action. Our selection of WKU here comes about due to an old theorem of ours from the 1970s that states that when a team easily slaughters a weaker team in a home game one week and then plays at home again the following week, they tend to continue to play near the best of their abilities. We think WKU wins this close game, maybe by just a field goal to five points.

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 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 For Conference Championship Round January 19, 2020

Margins

Home	Visitor	PiRate	Mean	Bias
Kansas City	Tennessee	5.5	6.0	7.0
San Francisco	Green Bay	7.3	7.8	7.5

Totals

Home	Visitor	Total
Kansas City	Tennessee	51
San Francisco	Green Bay	49.5

PiRate Ratings Picks For August 24, 2019

Welcome to the debut of the 2019 PiRate Ratings Picks.  During the football season, we will issue our pretend financial advice for you to read as entertainment purposes only and not to wager real money on games.

We pretend to make $100 wagers on whatever it is we select.  In the past, we have done this with money line parlays, teasers, straight wagers, and regular spread parlays.  Through the years, we have discovered our most successful style of wagering has been playing money line parlays.  At one time, we were successful teasing the totals lines.  13-point, 4-game parlays of teaser totals gave us an incredible hot streak one season when the standard deviation of scores was much lower than normal.

In this decade, there has been higher standard deviation in NFL scores, because the new rule moving extra points back 15 yards has created instability in game scores.

Many years ago, we had a rather impressive result playing the middle in games, but that was when we had permission to release the “outlaw” line before the official opening line.  Without the ability to see the Outlaw line and then the opening line, it was impossible to try to guess which games would see a large enough swing to go with both sides.

Since there are only two games this week, both college games, there is no real play that can be issued with our strategy.  If you take both favorites this week, Florida over Miami and Arizona over Hawaii, the best money line parlay odds you can get today is .6941, which means you would win $169.41 if you bet $100 and the two favorites won.  That means you would get your $100 investment back with $69.41 in profits.  Our philosophy is to only play parlays with odds of +120 or better, meaning you would receive $220  or more on a $100 wager.

In order to play a parlay with better than +120 odds this week, we would have to pick Hawaii or Miami to win outright.  If we selected Florida to beat Miami and Hawaii to upset Arizona, the parlay odds would be around +500 at this very moment.  That means, we would win $600 on a $100 wager if Florida and Hawaii won.

Alas, we are only confident this week of one outcome, that Florida will indeed beat Miami.  The actual point spread is right where we believe it should be, so playing the line is out of the question.

The best Money Line spread available to us at midday Thursday is -290, which means if we wager $100 on this game, if Florida won, we’d get a tiny $34.48 profit.  The reward is too small for the risk.

The totals for these two games do not give us a chance to come up with a playable parlay either, so for Week 0, we are not issuing any official picks.  We prefer to pick our spots and play only games that we are confident in occasionally winning.  If we play Money Line parlays with odds of +120 or better, we can win a smaller percentage of games and still turn a profit.

Let’s say we play 50 games this year with an average parlay odd of +180  Let’s say we get lucky and win 20.  Here’s how that would affect our imaginary bank account.

50 wagers of $100 each = $5,000 investment

20 Wins at +180 = $3,600 in winnings

30 Losses at +180 = $3,000 in losses

$600 profit at the end of the 50 wagers

12% Return on Investment

This 12% would take place in roughly 4 months, so the annualized Return on Investment would be 36%.  Not many investments return 36% in one year.

Ah, but here’s the rub: how likely is it that we can win 40% of our Money Line wagers at +180 odds?  The answer at the present time is one year in four, or to re-phrase it, four years ago.  The only solace is that the most recent three years brought imaginary profits as well, just nothing close to an annualized return of 36%.  Our 2018 season profit was so small it is not worth mentioning.  It was better in 2017 and much better in 2016, so the four year trend has been going in the wrong direction.

Ah, but here’s the other rub: We invested imaginary funds in all the years we have issued our selections.  Being 100% accurate and being 0% accurate brings the same outcome on zero real dollars invested.

Last year, we welcomed five of our long time friends to participate in a contest selecting winners against the spread.  It was a close contest all year, and as a group the five turned a small profit.  This year, we are going to have a guest computer program try to pick winners.  We decided to call this program “Davey 19.”  Davey is named for a former quarterback at TCU and for a short time with the Philadelphia Eagles.  Davey was only 5 foot 7 inches tall, but he had the heart of a giant and the fundamentals of a robot, so that’s why we are calling our guest computer program Davey 19 this year.

We will give Davey an identical rule–to make investments in imaginary $100 wagers.  Davey can make any type of selection in college and the NFL.  Davey does have one selection this week.

 

PiRate Picks For August 24, 2019

None   (not enough games for a playable parlay)

 

Davey 19 Selection For August 24, 2019

Hawaii +11 vs. Arizona

 

We do feel like Florida has a better than 60% chance to beat Miami, but the Money Line odd is too low to make enough profit to limit risk.

PiRate Ratings NFL Forecast for The Conference Championship Playoff Round: January 20, 2019

Sunday, January 20, 2019

NFC Championship Game

Los Angeles Rams 14-3-0 at New Orleans Saints 14-3-0

Time: 3:05 PM Eastern Standard Time

TV: Fox

Monday Line: New Orleans by 3 1/2

Total Line: 57

PiRate Ratings 

PiRate: New Orleans by 8.1

Mean: New Orleans by 7.8

Bias: New Orleans by 8.1

Total: 55 1/2

Expected Score: New Orleans 31  Los Angeles 24

 

AFC Championship Game

New England Patriots 12-5-0 at Kansas City Chiefs 13-4-0

Time: 6:40 PM Eastern Standard Time

TV: CBS

Monday Line: Kansas City by 3

Total Line: 57

PiRate Ratings 

PiRate: Kansas City by 4.4

Mean: Kansas City by 4.4

Bias: Kansas City by 4.3

Total: 53

Expected Score:  Kansas City 28  New England 24

 

60 Seasons Ago

The NFL as we know it today owes its popularity to 60 years ago at the conclusion of the 1958 regular season.  This would be the first ever live nationally televised NFL Championship Game.  Before you wonder why other games before were not shown from coast to coast, just 10 years before only a handful of cities had television stations.  In some cities, only a test pattern was shown for most or all of the day, and people would turn their sets on to see it!  So, TV was still in its adolescence in 1958.

The upstart Baltimore Colts, led by the young and talented quarterback Johnny Unitas, fullback Alan Ameche, and two incredible pass catchers in Raymond Berry and Lenny Moore won the West Division Championship with a 9-3 record, 8-1 in the games Unitas started and played.  That one loss was to the New York Giants, a team with the greatest ever combination of offensive and defensive coordinators.  Vince Lombardi directed the Giants’ offense, and Tom Landry led the Giants’ defense.

Before the Giants could host this game in Yankee Stadium, they had to play an extra game to get to the NFL Championship Game.  The Giants finished tied with Cleveland at 9-3, and even though they had swept the Browns in the regular season, in those days if teams finished tied at the top of a division race, they played again for the division title, and the NFL Championship Game was re-scheduled for a week later.

New York stopped Cleveland for a third time that year, holding the great Jim Brown to just eight yards rushing in a 10-0 shutout.  The Giants were the favorites, and Jim Lee Howell and his coaching staff were more than prepared to contain Unitas and move the ball on offense with a conservative smash-mouth style of offense.

Like I said previously, it is because of this game that the NFL became what it is today.  Overnight, sports fans throughout the country stopped talking about the New York Yankees chances of repeating as World Series champions in 1959 (they would not), or whether the great two-year old thoroughbred Sword Dancer would break the 11-year string and win the Triple Crown (2nd in the Derby and Preakness and won the Belmont).

NFL Football was at best the number three sport in America before this game.  Major League baseball was still the number one sport and the real American Pastime.  There were still just 16 teams in the big leagues, even though two had left the number one market for the West Coast.  College football was number two, and the recent champion LSU Tigers with their famous Chinese Bandits had generated a lot of the headlines that Autumn.

If by chance you do not know how the NFL Championship Game turned out and why it “made” NFL Football into the number one spectator sport in the nation, take a look at this video from NFL Films.

 

PiRate Ratings Selections for October 9-15, 2018

We’ve read your comments.  A couple dozen came in over the weekend telling us to defer to the Land Sharps.  Yes, all five of our guest selectors now have winning records for the season.  You heard that right.  Very few amateur handicappers can sustain a winning record against the spread plus the vigorish over the course of a couple of weeks, yet all five of our Land Sharps have done so after 6 weeks of the season.

As for your official PiRate picks, don’t ask.  We are suffering through a malaise, so by popular demand, we will present the Land Sharp picks first and then follow with our ridiculous 25 selections for the week.  We are going to just toss all the darts at once and hope 13 or more stick to the board.

You may notice that we are presenting this feature a day early this week.  There is a valid reason.  There is a Tuesday night college game, and one Sharp selected it.

This Week’s Sharps’ Selections

Cal Gal Tiffany

Season: 22-11 66.7% vs. the Spread with ROI of 30.0%

Central Florida -4 vs. Memphis
Virginia Tech -5 1/2 vs. North Carolina
Hawaii +14 1/2 vs. BYU

 

Buckeye Michelle

Season: 16-8-1  66.7% vs. the Spread with ROI of 28.8%

Hawaii +14 1/2 vs. BYU
Colorado +7 1/2 vs. USC
UTSA +13 1/2 vs. Louisiana Tech
South Carolina +3 vs. Texas A&M
Kansas St. +7 vs. Oklahoma St.

 

Friday Dog 13

Season: 15-9-1  62.5% vs. the Spread with ROI of 20.4%

Virginia Tech -5 1/2 vs. UNC
Fresno State -19 vs. Wyoming
Central Florida -4 vs. Memphis
Ole Miss -6 vs. Arkansas
Utah State -24 vs. UNLV
Florida -7 vs. Vanderbilt
Northwestern -4 vs. Nebraska

 

Stewed Meat

Season: 16-13  55.2% vs. the Spread with ROI of 5.9%

Arkansas St. +10 1/2 vs. Appalachian St.
Tennessee +15 1/2 vs. Auburn
Arizona +14 vs. Utah
Georgia -7 vs. LSU
Oregon +3 1/2 vs. Washington
Baylor +14 1/2 vs. Texas
Illinois +10 1/2 vs. Purdue
Central Florida -4 1/2 vs. Memphis
New Mexico Pk. vs. Colorado St.

 

Dean615

Season: 10-9  52.6% vs. the Spread with ROI of 0.5%

Notre Dame -20 1/2 vs. Pittsburgh
Iowa -4 1/2 vs. Indiana
Florida -7 vs. Vanderbilt
Texas Tech +7 1/2 vs. TCU
Tennessee +15 1/2 vs. Auburn

 

The Official PiRate Ratings Selections

We are going with an astronomical 25 selections this week, because we keep choosing about 7 each week out of 25 that we like, and we keep choosing the wrong 7.  So, we are going with every selection we liked, since so many we didn’t choose in recent weeks were winners.

Picks vs. the Spread

Ole Miss -6 vs. Arkansas
Hawaii +14 1/2 vs. BYU
Coastal Carolina -4 1/2 vs. UL-Monroe
Central Florida -4 vs. Memphis
Virginia Tech -5 1/2 vs. North Carolina
Northwestern -4 vs. Nebraska
Washington -3 vs. Oregon
Penn St. -13 1/2 vs. Michigan St.
Army -14 1/2 vs. San Jose St.
Georgia Southern -16 1/2 vs. Texas St.
UTSA + 13 1/2 vs. Louisiana Tech
Colorado +7 1/2 vs. USC

10-point Teasers

All 3-game parlays at 11-10

Alabama -18 vs. Missouri
Tennessee +26 1/2 vs. Auburn
Hawaii +24 1/2 vs. BYU

Boston College -3 1/2 vs. Louisville
New Mexico +11 1/2 vs. Colorado St.
Eastern Michigan +11 1/2 vs. Toledo

Duke +12 vs. Georgia Tech
Iowa St. +17 vs. West Virginia
Georgia +3 vs. LSU

Maryland -14 vs. Rutgers
Miami (O) -1/2 vs. Kent St.
Northwestern +6 vs. Nebraska

Ohio St. -19 1/2 vs. Minnesota
UAB -6 vs. Rice
San Diego St.  Pk vs. Air Force

Army -4 1/2 vs. San Jose St.
Texas A&M +8 vs. South Carolina
Texas -4 vs. Baylor

Arizona +24 vs. Utah
Florida +3 vs. Vanderbilt
Miami (Fla.) +4 vs. Virginia

 

Money Line Parlays

@ +191 $100 invested would return $291 with a win

Northwestern over Nebraska  
UAB over Rice  
South Florida over Tulsa 
Boston College over Louisville 

 

@+175 $100 invested would return $275 with a win

Central Florida over Memphis
San Diego St. over Air Force 
Buffalo over Akron 
Texas over Baylor

 

@+151 $100 invested would return $251 with a win

Florida over Vanderbilt 
Western Michigan over Bowling Green 
Georgia over LSU  
Army over San Jose St.

 

NFL 10-point Teasers	(Totals)	@11-10	3-game parlays
Team	Team	Total	Pick
Philadelphia	N.Y. Giants	34	Over
Arizona	Minnesota	33	Over
Carolina	Washington	35	Over
Team	Team	Total	Pick
Indianapolis	N.Y. Jets	35	Over
Cincinnati	Pittsburgh	63	Under
L.A. Chargers	Cleveland	33.5	Over
Team	Team	Total	Pick
Chicago	Miami	32	Over
Jacksonville	Dallas	30	Over
San Francisco	Green Bay	36	Over

 

NOTE: All wagers are strictly for entertainment purposes only.  These are imaginary currencies invested in imaginary books.  We do not bet on these games.  While Stewed Meat is a professional, these are not the actual picks Stewed has invested real currency at a real book in Nevada. 

Stewed is fortunate enough to receive the “Outlaw Line” before the Opening Line is issued.  Stewed’s real strategy is to isolate odds that are off by at least 3 points and then play both sides of the key games. 

For instance, if Team A is a 14 1/2 point favorite on the late Saturday night Outlaw Line, and Stewed believes the true spread should be 11, Stewed will put a 5-figure wager on Team B at +14 1/2.  Then, after the opening line is listed at 12 because Stewed and other Sharps knew better, and then when the line lowers to 11 because many in the general public also think they know better, Stewed wagers the same 5-figure amount on Team A at -11. 

If the actual game score comes in at 12, 13, or 14 (three very frequent game spreads), Stewed wins both wagers and makes a lot of profit.  Otherwise, Stewed will win one of the two wagers, unless the spread is exactly 11 points, in which Stewed wins one wager and pushes on the other.  All Stewed needs to do to turn a profit is to have a game come between the two spreads 1 out of every 19 games.  This is wagering with a margin of safety that none of the rest of us amateurs can do.

PiRate Ratings Selections for October 4-8, 2018

Another mediocre week by the PiRate Rating selections was offset by another spectacular week by three of our five Land Sharps.

Last week, our official picks went 4-7, to bring the total to date to 22-23-1.  This took our minor profit for the season to a minor loss of 5.7% Return on Investment.  We will include some Money Line parlays that give us better than +150 odds this week in an attempt to get back into the black.  In the past, we have done well when playing 4-game parlays that give us better than +150 odds, but we tend to cash in big on these parlays in November.  Hopefully, October will be nice to us.

As for the Land Sharps, Buckeye Michelle, Friday Dog 13, and Cal Gal Tiffany continue to draw the ire of the kind people in the State of Nevada.  If they keep up this streak, they will not be allowed to patronize the books (Note–every pick on this site is done strictly for entertainment purposes only, so they really have no connection with any books).

Dean615 and Stewed Meat have treaded water so far, as both as exactly .500 in their picks.  In Stewed’s defense, these are this Land Sharp’s “B” picks.  Stewed is a real professional, and Stewed A’s picks last week (college and NFL) went 8-3 including a Parlay win that returned 6 to 1 odds for a big profit.

This week, our Land Sharps have picked between 5 and 9 games.  Because we try not to do the same thing, and we include the NFL in our official picks, we are going with 9 selections–3 vs. spreads, 4, 10-point teasers, and 2 Money Line Parlays.

PiRate Ratings Official Picks 

Margins

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Akron	Miami (O)	3	Akron
Baltimore	Cleveland	3	Baltimore
San Francisco	Arizona	3.5	San Francisco

10-Point Teasers (3-team parlays)

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Louisville	Georgia Tech	6.5	Georgia Tech
Boston College	North Carolina St.	5.5	North Carolina St.
LSU	Florida	13	Florida

 

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Alabama	Arkansas	24	Alabama
Clemson	Wake Forest	7.5	Clemson
Miami (Fla.)	Florida St.	2.5	Miami (Fla.)

 

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
South Florida	Massachusetts	4	South Florida
Georgia Southern	South Alabama	3.5	Georgia Southern
Ole Miss	Louisiana-Monroe	2.5	Ole Miss

 

Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Central Florida	SMU	14	Central Florida
Washington St.	Oregon St.	6.5	Washington St.
Fresno St.	Nevada	2	Fresno St.

 

Money Line Parlays

4 Teams at +168

Winner	Loser
North Carolina St.	Boston College
Troy	Georgia St.
UNLV	New Mexico
Miami (Fla.)	Florida St.

 

4 Teams at +174

Winner	Loser
Liberty	New Mexico St.
South Florida	Massachusetts
Buffalo	Central Michigan
Georgia Southern	South Alabama

 

The Land Sharps

Buckeye Michelle

Year to Date: 14-6  70.0%, 37.0% Return on Investment

Connecticut +36 vs. Memphis

Kentucky +6 vs. Texas A&M

Minnesota +7.5 vs. Iowa

Air Force +3.5 vs. Navy

UAB +9.5 vs. Louisiana Tech

 

Friday Dog 13

Year to Date: 11-5 68.8%, 34.4% Return on Investment

Marshall -6 vs. Middle Tennessee

Akron -3 vs. Miami (O)

Ole Miss -22 vs. Louisiana-Monroe

West Virginia -28.5 vs. Kansas

Central Florida -24 vs. SMU

North Carolina St. -4 vs. Boston College

South Florida -4 vs. Massachusetts

Syracuse -3.5 vs. Pittsburgh

Kentucky +6 vs. Texas A&M

 

Cal Gal Tiffany

Year to Date: 17-9  65.4%, 27.3% Return on Investment

Utah St. +3 vs. BYU

North Carolina St. -4 vs. Boston College

LSU -2.5 vs. Florida

Florida St. +13 vs. Miami (Fla.)

Georgia Southern -13.5 vs. South Alabama

Auburn -3 vs. Mississippi St.

Georgia -26.5 vs. Vanderbilt

 

Stewed Meat

Year to Date: 11-11  50.0%, -5% Return on Investment

Georgia Tech -3.5 vs. Louisville

North Carolina St. -4 vs. Boston College

Florida +3 vs. LSU

Akron -3 vs. Miami (O)

Colorado -2.5 vs. Arizona St.

Houston & Tulsa UNDER 70.5

Michigan & Maryland UNDER 49

 

Dean615

Year to Date: 7-7  50.0%, -5.0% Return on Investment

Notre Dame -6 vs. Virginia Tech

Wisconsin -17.5 vs. Nebraska

Texas A&M -5.5 vs. Kentucky

Florida & LSU UNDER 44.5

Notre Dame & Virginia Tech OVER 56.5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

PiRate Ratings Selections for September 13-17, 2018

We received a lot of comments last week from regular readers to this site that know how to contact us through another site.  We tend to keep our comments sections closed, because it becomes a task to monitor it for stuff that does not need to appear here.

The comments had nothing to do with our own picks last week.  We introduced five guest pickers, three of them members of the fairer sex, and overall, they had quite a successful week.

By far the overwhelming amount of responses were aimed at Buckeye Michelle.  The Ohio Transplant to the Sunny South merely went 5-0 picking 5 underdogs, and we received all kinds of comments pertaining to her, including a couple of marriage proposals.

Friday Dog 13 went 3-0 picking three prohibitive favorites that won by even larger scores than the line they were asked to cover.

Cal Gal Tiffany went 5-2 in her seven picks, again, a very successful week that equates to a 56% Return on Investment.

Stewed Meat narrowly missed having a winning week, as Stewed went 2-3.  Bringing up the rear at 1-2 was Dean 615.

What about our own picks?  We suffered a lot of near misses and finished the week losing $90 imaginary after wagering $1,100 and going 5-6.  For the years, after two weeks, we are down $220 on a total of $1,700 wagered in our pretend bank account, so we are off to a bad year so far.

Just remember, all the picks you receive here this week and every week are free, and you should consider them worth exactly what you pay for them.

First, here are the PiRate’s official selections for the week.

Straight Spreads and Totals Selections–7

Favorite	Underdog	Spread/Total	Pick
Army	Hawaii	6	Army
Baylor	Duke	6.5	Duke
Minnesota	Miami (Ohio)	13	Minnesota
Denver	Oakland	46	Under
Washington	Indianapolis	47	Under
Cincinnati	Baltimore	1	Baltimore
Dallas	N.Y. Giants	3	Dallas

10-point Teaser Parlays–2

If you are unfamiliar with 10-point teasers, you can move the line by 10 points in your favor and play at less favorable odds than if you wager a straight wager against the spread or total.  By combining more than one game into a parlay, you can adjust the odds.  A 10-point teaser using three games makes the odds the same as wagering a straight wager.  You put up $11 of your money against $10 of the books, or what is referred to as -110 (You wager $110 versus the book wagering $100).

10-point teaser	3-team parlay -110
Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Florida	Colorado St.	31	Colorado St.
Texas	USC	13.5	USC
Boston College	Wake Forest	15	Wake Forest

 

10-point teaser	3-team parlay -110
Favorite	Underdog	Spread	Pick
Indiana	Ball St.	4	Indiana
Penn St.	Kent St.	24.5	Penn St.
Wisconsin	BYU	11	Wisconsin

The Land Sharps

Now for our special sharps–our 5 guest pickers.  They have been tasked with selecting 3, 5, 7, or 9 college games each week.  None of the 5 know what the other 4 are picking, so in some cases, more than one guest is picking the same game, and even though it did not happen this week, we are sure that at some point, they could be on opposite sides of the same game.

We search for the best available line at oddshark.com.

Buckeye Michelle (5-0 for the season)

Syracuse + 3 1/2 vs. Florida St.

LSU +10 vs. Auburn

Duke +6 1/2 vs. Baylor

San Diego St. +5 1/2 vs. Arizona St.

Toledo +10 1/2 vs. Miami (Fla.)

 

Friday Dog 13 (3-0 for the season)

Missouri -6 vs. Purdue

Tennessee -30 1/2 vs. UTEP

Virginia -3 1/2 vs. Ohio

 

Cal Gal Tiffany  (5-2 for the season)

Florida Int’l. -4 vs. U Mass.

Army -6 vs. Hawaii

Oklahoma St. -2 1/2 vs. Boise St.

Washington – 6 1/2 vs. Utah

Georgia Tech +4 vs. Pittsburgh

 

Stewed Meat (2-3 for the season)

Colorado St. +20 1/2 vs. Florida

Buffalo -3 vs. Eastern Michigan

Oregon St. +3 1/2 vs. Nevada

Washington -6 1/2 vs. Utah

Oklahoma St. -2 1/2 vs. Boise St.

 

Dean 615 (1-2 for the season)

Notre Dame -14 vs. Vanderbilt

North Texas +7 vs. Arkansas

TCU +14 vs. Ohio St.