Your weekly dose of sports betting tips and news, every Saturday at 10am Eastern.
College football predictions – The Power Rank predictions are based data from previous seasons and the current markets. Here is a sample of the predictions available to members.
- Nebraska will beat Northwestern by 9.6 points on the road. Both of these teams had 3-9 records last season. However, Nebraska went an astonishing 0-7 in one score games. Record in one score games tends to regress to the mean of .500.
- Ohio State will beat Notre Dame by 13.5 points at home. New Fighting Irish coach Marcus Freeman jumps straight into the fire with a trip to Columbus. At least his defense returns stars like DE Isaiah Foskey and CB Cam Hart, and this unit will need to play well against an explosive Buckeyes offense.
- Georgia will beat Oregon by 17.4 points at home. New Oregon coach Dan Lanning also jumps into the fire and faces his former defense at Georgia. At least the Bulldogs lost five defensive players to the 1st round of the NFL draft. However, Georgia QB Stetson Bennett gets his top three receivers back from last season.
This season, The Power Rank will also post public predictions for every college football game. Look for details next week.
NFL Preseason News – Congratulations to the Baltimore Ravens for extending the NFL’s longest preseason winning streak to 21 games! It might be a record we may never see broken, like Cal Ripken Jr.’s consecutive games played or Secretariat’s 31-length victory at the Belmont.
Aside from that streak, it’s hard to keep up with trends and news for NFL Preseason games, which might be more imperative for betting than the regular season. Fortunately, PFF dug through coach’s quotes, beat reporter notes, etc. and posted the findings to make you a more informed bettor.
4th best college football team – When ESPN’s Bill Connelly joined The Football Analytics Show, he noted the same gap between the 3rd and 4th team in his SP+ rankings (subscription required) and the 4th and 23rd teams. 20 teams are in contention to be fourth behind Ohio State, Alabama and Georgia.
Bill discussed the strengths and weakness of a few contenders:
- Michigan – The offense has two legit quarterbacks, but the defense needs to replace two elite pass rushers.
- Clemson – The defense is amazing, but the offense is praying that regression bumps them back up to program average.
- Utah – The offense surged when QB Cam Rising took over, but they need playmakers to make big plays on offense.
Bill also talked about dark horse Heisman candidates, college football win totals and the Bundesliga on his yearly appearance The Football Analytics Show.
Importance of Bullpens – One of the earlier sports analytics projects I ever had was identifying the most important variables for predicting winners of MLB postseason games. Even way back then, I found bullpen success to be one of those factors.
The Basewinner podcast agreed. On a recent episode of this show about sabermetrics and betting, the guys broke down what their data suggest as the top bullpens in baseball.
Their approach is different in that they weigh context, meaning striking out elite hitters is worth more than striking out the worst lineup in baseball. According to their rankings, these top three bullpens may provide betting value this postseason: Seattle, Atlanta and Cleveland.
Sharp sports books – Sick of getting limited at sports books because you’re winning? According to Captain Jack Andrews of Unabated, life should get better this fall.
Jack sees more sharp books coming online this fall than recreational, kick the sharps out books. Already, Caesars has gotten the reputation for not limiting sharp bettors. Clearly, Halle Berry and J.B. Smoove would not have lent their services to a book that limits sharps. Do you see that talent at square books? No? Case closed.
Life Advice from a Statistician – Regular readers and listeners of Dr. Ed Feng know about his background as a statistician and how he incorporated those skills into sports analytics and the betting space. But, many of the lessons learned through statistical analysis go far beyond crunching numbers.
PhD candidate Kareem Carr composed a Twitter thread detailing these lessons including: good rules fail often, information isn’t free and huge amounts of biased information is often worse than no information at all.
Support The Football Analytics Show – The podcast is launching a Patreon for listeners to support the show. These kind people get the ever lasting thanks of host Ed Feng, as well as an extra solo episode every month. This month’s premium episode quantifies home and rest advantage in football.
The first 20 supporters get an extra bonus, so check out the Patreon when it launches at 6pm Eastern on Sunday, August 14.
To make sure you get notified, either check out the podcast at that time or sign up for The Power Rank’s sports betting email newsletter. This is a free service that strives to be:
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