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Programming note. I’m in Europe on vacation next week, so I’ll be sending you my 2024 football resource list. Outside of my own numbers, these are my go to resources for football handicapping.
Olympic 400m hurdles – As a track fan, the 400m hurdles has been a thrill to follow the past three years because of the all-time talent.
For the women, American Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone is the world record holder and big favorite. Femke Bol of the Netherlands is a contender, as she ran within 0.3 seconds of McLaughlin-Levrone’s world record this year.
However, Jonathan Gault of letsrun.com notes that this performance for Bol came at a high altitude track known for fast times. In addition, McLaughlin-Levrone always runs her best time in championship races, while Bol does not.
It might seem like a lot to lay, but there is value in McLaughlin-Levrone -470 to win the women’s 400m hurdles (the price should be closer to -800, final on Thursday, August 8 at 3:45pm Eastern).
For the men, American Rai Benjamin and Norwegian Karsten Warholm are rightly the two favorites. However, Brazilian Alison dos Santos has run times comparable to the two favorites over the past three seasons. There is value in Alison dos Santos +350 to win the men’s 400m hurdles (final on Friday, August 9 at 3:45pm Eastern).
College football predictions – These member college football predictions come from my member preseason college football rankings that mostly depend on market win totals. Here is a sample of games:
- Florida State will beat Georgia Tech by 14.3 points in Ireland. This is a week 0 game, and former Clemson and Oregon State QB DJ Uiagalelei will make his debut for Florida State.
- Michigan will beat Fresno State by 23.1 points at home. Alex Orji most likely takes over for Michigan at quarterback, and he has impressed as a runner. However, Orji has one career pass attempt, and that happened in 2021.
Big Ten Football – On The Football Analytics Show, Ben Stevens of SportsGrid noted the drastic change in schedule for Rutgers. The Scarlet Knights do not play Ohio State, Michigan or Penn State like in past years. Instead, they get games like Illinois and UCLA at home.
In addition, Rutgers returns talent like running back Kyle Monangai and linebacker Mohamed Toure. They brought in QB Athan Kaliakmanis from Minnesota. Ben likes Rutgers over 6.5 wins, +100 available at FanDuel, as he wouldn’t be surprised if they won 8 or 9 games.
NFL Spread Predictons – In 2012, Nate Silver blew my mind. In The New York Times, he discussed predicting the NCAA tournament with the preseason AP poll.
He had the numbers to back it up. I’ve updated his analysis, and the higher ranked team in the preseason AP poll has won 71.1% of March Madness games in the past 20 tournaments. This inspired me to apply the same ideas to the NFL.
I talk about this preseason NFL wisdom of crowds model in The 60 Minute Guide to the 2024 Football Season, my audio product. It is a surprising 55.6% against the spread during the first six weeks of the season (2014 through 2023 seasons).
The joy of creating The 60 Minute Guide was digging a deeper into the numbers. If the preseason AP poll does so well in the tournament, how does the same model perform in the NFL playoffs?
To find out, check out The 60 Minute Guide to the 2024 Football Season, available the week after the Olympics. To listen to a sample an earlier draft, check out this episode of the podcast.
Football humor – Ed O’Neill is most well known for his role on Modern Family, but he also tried out for the Pittsburgh Steelers as an undrafted free agent. He drops a hilarious, somehow football relevant bomb at the end of this :37 clip.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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