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College football player prop – Ohio State RB CJ Donaldson transferred from West Virginia, and he had solid numbers last season. Over the off season, I started to look at running back success rate and adjusting for opposing defense. In these calculations, Donaldson was predicted to have a success rate of 47.1% against an average FBS defense.
Ohio State returns four offensive linemen that played significant snaps on a national championship team. Texas lost two defensive tackles to the NFL, and their replacement transfers do not seem to have NFL potential at this point.
In addition, Unabated has started releasing their college football player projections this season. Their numbers project 53.6 rushing yards for Donaldson against Texas. There is value in CJ Donaldson over 43.5, -112 available at FanDuel.
Check out all the powerful betting tools at Unabated.
NFL rushing yards future – Connor Allen of 4for4 Bets has a number of reasons to fade RB Breece Hall of the New York Jets.
- Hall might be sharing more of the workload with Braelon Allen and Isaiah Davis.
- The Jets will be terrible, which implies a lot more passing in the second half of games.
On the Move the Line podcast, Connor gave out Breece Hall under 875.5 rushing yards and said there was a lot of wiggle room. The market has moved to 850.5, but I still like the under based on Connor’s analysis.
NFL sacks future – It might seem strange that Los Angeles Rams edge Jared Verse won NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, as he only had 4.5 sacks last season. However, anyone who watched a Rams game saw his dominance.
Ryan Noonan of 4for4 Bets is the expert on defensive props, and on the Move the Line podcast, he noted that Verse had the 4th highest pressure rate in the NFL last season. While those pressures didn’t turn into many sacks, Ryan projects 10.1 sacks for Verse this season despite assuming he misses 1.5 games.
On the podcast, Ryan gave out Jared Verse over 7.75 sacks. The market has moved, but with a projection at 10.1 sacks, there is still value in Jared Verse over 8.75 sacks, -114 available at FanDuel.
Follow Ryan Noonan and Connor Allen for all of their NFL insights. Also, I was on this episode of Move the Line episode with some of my own bets.
College football – Teams tend to persist at a level based on program history and financial resources. While teams have amazing and terrible seasons, Rice will never trade places with Alabama in the college football hierachy.
Every year, my team rankings take margin of victory and adjust for schedule based on my algorithms. Over the past 15 years, consider the teams that have outperformed their four year average by 10 or more points. 81.3% of these teams got worse the next season by an average of 6.3 points.
For 2025, Indiana tops the list, as Curt Cignetti exceeded the program’s four year average by 19.9 points last season. While I expect regression, there is a big reason that I’m high on Indiana for 2025 as I discuss in this episode of The 2025 Preview Series.
Illinois also exceeded their four year average by 10.4 points last season. There is more signal for this team, as I break down in my 3 overrated college football teams episode.
This page has slick navigation to all nine episodes of The 2025 Preview Series.
Football humor – Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones on trading Micah Parsons: “This was a move to be better on defense, stopping the run. This was a move to, if we get behind, not be run on. And it was a deliberate move, a well-thought-out move to make this happen.”
Google AI disagrees with Jones: “No, running the ball is not more important than passing in the modern NFL.” So does the dejection of Cowboys fans and elation of Packers fans.
Smarter sports betting in less than 5 minutes
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