 This is covering the spread part of the fan tool podcast network It is time to talk some college football here on covering the spread because I'm not sure if you realize it said but a week from today We're talking week is zero. It is already that time of year We are thick into it with college football today We're gonna talk to you my Wednesday co-host doctor at fang get his read on some college football win totals break down What is college football betting model? Looks like get you said for another fun year of college football. My name is Jim saw this I am a senior writer and analyst for number fire comm joined here as I am every Wednesday by doctor at fang You can find his work at the power bank comm you can find it on Twitter at the power I can add we're a week away from week zero. How are you doing today? I'm doing well dormants 2 and 0 and you know, I was My son and I were watching the game on Friday and they were losing 1-0 to fryburg and you know they lost the the best goal scorer in Europe essentially over the offseason and They don't have geo rena back and I was like, yeah, it's gonna be a long season. They're not gonna be able to score goals I don't know who's who's gonna get goals and then and then they bang home three in the second half And another 2 and 0 so that would give you a taste for some of my soccer hot takes I had some other ones that I threw at Bill Connelly on my podcast the football show So we'll see if those seem as bad as as my take on dormant But anyways, I'm happy we're in the kids the 2 and 0 and They still haven't they still haven't played geo rena yet. So so maybe things are looking up They had they had key contributions from 17 and 18 year olds Yeah, I saw you and Bill tweeting back and forth Bill Connelly the SPN about Dortmund Is he a Dortmund fan, too? Or is that just you? So he is big into German football As part of his job. So when was that espionage and he went over and did a really long piece on Bayern Munich And I think that was kind of the start of it I don't think he's not a Dortmund fan But he would say he's a German fan and so am I I will wear the Dortmund kit now, but probably when they get out of champions like I mean I might actually have a Bayern Munich kit for for late spring because they'll probably be alive And it actually looked pretty good right now despite losing that one of the top goalscores in Europe over the over the offseason so You know, I mean, there's there's a wide range of I mean, there's a wide wide Range of ways to engage in European club football and so so we definitely stick with German clubs because we like them Okay, I like that. So we can you know, check out the football analytics show to get I hope Bill's takes on German football too, you know So the vast majority of the podcast was Was college football Disappointing, you know, who'd want to hear Bill Connelly talk about college football. We could instead get European soccer thoughts. Yeah He's really an expert on both. I know that's the fun thing That was definitely the fun thing. We could have we could have joined on about soccer for a while But at some point you gotta cut it off. Yeah, I just he didn't he wears both the hats very well I mean who can turn that down? So you said I was on the football analytics show, correct? That's right Okay, just check that out there to get some more Bill Connelly thoughts some more German football thoughts today here on the show We will stick to the the boring side of things here at the college football analysis We're gonna talk about Ed's model his college football betting model what it says about this year in terms of win totals and Try to just get a feel for what that model what goes into it in case you are a new listener who doesn't know What goes into Ed's model? We'll talk about all that in just one second But first a reminder to make sure you are subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast We once again are here every weekday Monday through Friday breaking down MLB whatever it may be We had Brandon Caduola on talk PGA yesterday With the timestamp for that isn't the podcast if you want to skip over the baseball stuff from yesterday Check that out in the podcast feed on covering the spread jump to the timestamp branded to get his thoughts on the BMW Championship for some outrides and non-outrides as well tomorrow I'll be talking some baseball and some NASCAR and then on Friday Tom Vecchia will swing by and break down Whatever he wants to discuss from a betting perspective because I'll be at a bachelor party and will be unavailable At the end of this week next we can go to Ireland for the Northwestern, Nebraska game the most natural Place to host a Northwestern versus Nebraska game because why not? I mean when you can watch Northwestern lose by 12 and a half in Ireland, you got to do it, right Ed Shoot, I got to make sure I take that game is neutral. Yeah. Well, I don't know. It shouldn't be though because One coach's name fits Gerald. I know that like Scott Frost is like, you know, potentially I don't know. He might be Irish like Fitzgerald feels like it should be worth like three points in Ireland. That could be just me I don't know. I'm not trying to encourage your model But yes, that will technically be a neutral side if you don't want to count the Fitzgerald narrative in Ireland We'll talk about college football in just one second But first NFL kickoff is still a few weeks away You can get in on the action right now on Fandal Sportsbook with their NFL super win bonus right now Anyone who places at least a $50 Super Bowl winner bed will get $5 back for each win Their team has during the regular season There are a ton of other futures markets available the like team win totals division winners player props and so many more There's no better place to get ready for the football season that on Fandal America's number one sportsbook and official sports spending partner of the NFL Must be 21 plus and present in select a estates only Bonus issued is non with throwable free bets that expire seven days after receipt max free bet $50 restrictions apply See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com gambling problem call 1800 gambler or visit fandal.com slash rg in Arizona 1800 next step or tax next step to 5334 2 in Connecticut 1 888 789 777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Indiana 1809 with it in Louisiana 1 877 770 stop in New York 1 877 8 hope and wire text open Why in Tennessee call the red line at 1 888 997 8 9 in Wyoming 1 800 5 2 2 4700 in West Virginia 1 800 gambler dot net. Let's take a notice and college football and Ed I'm listening a lot of our listeners have been listening to us and heard about your college football model in the past they probably know what kind of goes into it, but There are probably some new listeners who made you listening here to college football for the first time and may not know What you care about when you're trying to model out college stuff So what key things are you looking at when trying to analyze the strength of a team from a betting perspective on the college side of things? Well, I presume you want to talk about the preseason What's doing in in particular, right? So this season I kind of made the decision to change some things around I used to run a model that I believe is a little bit out of date it is not College football changes and you have things like the transfer portal and you have teams like USC that are bringing in elite quarterbacks elite wide receivers and You know like you can either put in a ton of work to try to account for those types of things But I also do a lot of things with NFL and college basketball and there's a lot of other things on my plate So I've changed things up. So instead of on my site There's a couple different things I do I still have a basic model that I use from My own metrics. So every year I have team ratings that are based on margin of victory Adjusted for strength of schedule. Those adjustments are made by the algorithm that I developed and What in the preseason I will take four years of team history and run a regression model to figure out where the team should be for this upcoming season and So it's a basic model. It's not going to be the most accurate It's clearly not accounting for returning starters or what teams get in the transfer portal I still do we think it is useful to put in In in the model because it is different from a lot of the other kind of public models that you'll see out there and I do do shrink the schedule adjustments pretty well and I feel pretty confident about that like for example, I have James Madison pretty near college football average and A lot of the other models don't have James. So James Madison is the newest FBS team They're they're making the jump this year into the Sun Belt I'm a lot higher than a lot of the other models and I think that's because like I'm adjusting for strength of schedule and When you look at James Madison's results, you look at who they played like they've been pretty good Now being FBS average is probably a little bit of an overestimate for James Madison because they did lose a lot of talent But my model is saying program-wise like these guys deserve to be considered near FBS average And if they are FBS average, they're gonna essentially gonna be at the top of the Sun Belt with the app states and the Coastal Carolinas of the world So I do want to acknowledge that you know things have changed my model is not as good as it used to be So on the public part of the site I take that model and I also take a couple of publicly available college football models that I've back tested And it's a combination of those things. So that's what's going on with What you'll see on the power rank on the public part of the site and and those are the preseason numbers that I use one thing that I do hold back from members is Another preseason model in which I take Wind totals in the markets and then I adjust for who teams are supposed to have played So I back out a rating that's consistent with the wind totals for 131 FBS teams So this is useful for you know week one spreads right because I'm getting a rating and you know You account for home field yada yada and the fact that I actually do not have north-west site I'm this is why I'm glad I talked to you I make mistakes like this and I think I I I think I just completely forgot to go through all the neutral games week Week zero week one. So really need to do that But so that is a model that is Is something that I use I save it for members of my site because I've actually found out to be the most accurate and predicting The spread in games, especially over the first couple weeks of the season, which is really what you need it for But it's also not very useful when you're trying to bet against wind totals because that rating should be exactly consistent with with what the market wind total is and and it's designed to be that way and that's what my Yeah, I had to develop some methods in order to do that. So it's not useful for betting against wind totals So today we're talking about wind totals I'll be talking more about the public stuff that you can see on my site Which is a combination of my models and then some other public models that I've tested So basically it's lean it's depending on wisdom of the crowds and that's something you've discussed a lot in terms of being a Powerful tool for betting Why yeah for people who don't know that why is that the case? Why is wisdom of the crowds such an important thing for us to integrate if we want to strengthen our numbers? I mean, that's a deeply philosophical question I don't know if I can answer that on a true really why I Do know that it works. Yeah, I do know that if I really wanted to save my edge. I should shut up about it It honestly works I mean and there's a couple of different levels of wisdom of crowds here, right? the markets are one aspect of wisdom of crowds and you have a lot of people betting on these college football wind totals and So that there's that crowd and then there's kind of the crowd of different computer models and Each one of them has its strengths kind of like I tried to talk about with James Madison and then maybe the USC each model has its strength and You know turns out the combination of most of them is going to be best on average, you know, for example USC I talked about in My numerical model, they've been kind of terrible under under Clay Halton and now they have Lincoln Riley I think they're in the 50s. I think they're in the 50s in Bill's S&P preseason. He's gonna have a new one coming out. So so check that out when it comes out They're 14th my market model So just to show you how different things can be right the market is Clearly considering that he's bringing in Kayla Williams as quarterback Jordan Addison the wide receiver from Pittsburgh who who might be the reason that that offense exploded last year I know Kenny Pickett obviously went on to do some pretty good things and in the coordinator Mark Whipple is actually at Nebraska But kind of I don't remember that that offense wasn't very good before last year. No So I'm not exactly sure about that hire. Yeah, it was not good. Kenny Pickett was not good last year Was not good. Yeah odd But I think that it's it's interesting that that you're leading on smart people to kind of help guide things and Whenever you can have more smart minds influencing the way things go. I think that's always an advantageous thing for sure So we're focusing for today on the win total model That is the one that blends all that stuff in and we'll talk about the other model Like you said next week when talking about the week zero specific games Let's dive in here to some win totals over at Fandals Sportsbook starting off with the big 10 side of things We got some pretty big win totals Ohio State Michigan, Wisconsin all at nine wins or higher at Fandals Sportsbook So when you look at this market ad any number sent out to you as being values in the big 10 specifically The one that I like most is Illinois under four and a half So Brett Bealmore came in last year and he kept a lot of guys on that team a lot of super seniors and you know I had a pretty decent five and seven season in 2021 but as Bill Connelly notes like they're a hundred and third in returning production coming into this year So they lost a lot of production on both sides of the ball They don't bring the quarterback Brandon Peters is no longer there after I think six years and in college football spanning like at Michigan in Illinois and I don't know the quarterback position They got a couple of other power five castoffs Arthur Satowski from Rutgers and Tommy DeVito from Syracuse You know really doesn't give you a ton of confidence there. So You know, I don't know. I mean this this is probably actually when total I liked the most when when I was looking over this You know, they're gonna be fcs Chattanooga But like how are they gonna get over four and a half, right? I mean You know, they they do have like kind of toss-up-ish games against Indiana North Northwestern and Cannot read my handwriting But but they have a couple of toss-up games You know, you kind of expect them to regress a little bit, you know, just losing so much, right? Bealom a second year Probably doesn't have it hasn't had the chance to bring in the talent that he wants So probably gonna be a tough year for Illinois So I'm asking you this on the spot. This is a data-driven question So feel free to say I don't know but we've talked a lot about like third-year coaches, you know That's when they get there their guys are in there further and does that window change at all? With the transfer portal stuff. I because I don't know and you can say I don't know either But like it is it is a shift like you were talking about Do you think that window will shift with what is somewhat a new era in college football? It's hard to give a dated based response right there because the transfer portal is you know I mean the the transfer rules have changed relatively recently so So I don't know Obviously, we've already talked about USC multiple times, but like they're they're using it I have a couple other like Nebraska's using it Because Scott Frost needs it and you got to pay attention to that kind of stuff, right? I Know we talked about Bill enough, but he certainly deserves it like I just go to I go to his write-ups So yes, I'm right. I think I think you need to sign up for ESPN plus But it's we should sign up for ESPN plus just so you can watch Bundesliga, right? I mean it I mean it's like Kind of the best deal ever and you get Bill Connolly. So he'll you know, he'll devote I don't know 300 or 400 words every program to give like what's the biggest question here, you know Are they loading up on transfers and the answer is yes for Nebraska and the answer is no for Clemson despite how bad that offense was last year, so Couple hundred words to get you ready for every team It's the resource I use so if you want to if you want to bet these wind totals you want to bet games I would I would highly recommend Checking those out. Yeah, read Bill Connolly's just good advice. Just just good advice broadly Read and listen to Bill Connolly is good advice for college football. Okay Let's go now to the SEC and talk about the wind totals there over at Fandall Sports Book Anything's popping for you on the SEC side of things for this year so the numbers really like Auburn over six and a half and You can kind of see what's going on. They were one and four and one score games last year So that's gonna tend to regress to 500 if you remember they played off they played to Alabama really tough Towards the end of the year. I think they were up in that game or you know, that was a one-score game against the team that made it to the national title game and Lost a lot of close games towards the end of the season got off to a good start It's Brian Harsons first year and then you know, I mean there's a lot of drama because it's Auburn And it's a big blue blood program and they decided to keep Harsons so he's there and there's a huge number of turnover In the coordinator positions and stuff over their off-season and you know, they do have a question at quarterback Bowen X was never that good last year They they break it probably Zach Calzada from who played at Texas A&M last year is gonna come over probably win the job but you know not Not inspiring too much confidence there at the quarterback position But the defense should be great. The defense was pretty good last year There's always a lot of talent and in general, there's always a lot of talent at Auburn. That's never really the issue So you're looking at six and a half win total, right? So So you're probably got four wins that you can count on the three out of conference and Mizzou in the out of division game and then you're probably not beating Georgia in Alabama So let's eliminate those so the the rest of the games by my numbers look essentially toss-up ish So that's six other games. So You know, you got to hit three of those to go over so you so I haven't bet this yet, but I'm very intrigued by it I think it is something that you know There's not like when when you look at and I'll post all these win totals from this public model on the site They're not up yet, but you know, there's not a ton of differences, right? It's tough to find too many teams where where the projected win total is different from from what the markets have This is one of them And I actually think you can kind of understand why the market is a little low Just with the drama there with the questions about harsh in But it's Auburn, you know, you can you can kind of imagine like a ten-win team You can imagine it all go into crap and a three-win team. Maybe right? Yeah So I think there's a wide range of possibilities here and Yeah, so so that's one that the numbers like all right So I'm gonna quiz you or I take it ask you a question here because you can get a different number depending on where you go Fandal you get the push at six because it's at six flat and it's minus 115 on the over you go to Redacted a different sportsbook. You can get over six and a half at plus 135. Is that Plus money worth it for you given how many Toss-up gains they have over six and a half at plus 135 or do you rather have the leniency of the push at six at fandal at minus 115 That's actually something you can quantify and I have some code to do that. So Yeah, I mean you can just run some simulations and figure out the odds and Exactly on six. Yeah, I don't have the answer off the top of my head, but I don't know. I mean it feels like I would rather bet over six and knowing that it has a pretty decent likelihood of landing on six Yeah, okay. I like that. So check that out That one is six at fandal minus 115 on the over and the Illinois under four and a half is plus 110 at fandal as well Any other wind totals you like for this year where you're finding value fandal has I think most I don't think they have all 131 up unfortunately, but uh, you know bummer for you building out your Wind total model there, but any others popping for you right now I think last time I checked I don't we don't want to throw John Shearan on the bus I think they were just missing a couple of independence. Okay, New Mexico was in the new Mexico states of the world Uh, yeah, let me throw a couple more at you. Um, they actually think the the numbers suggest a massive edge on Arkansas under seven and a half and Sam Pittman has come in and done a great job over two years like this program was a mess And they had a really good season last year. They're pretty good on on both sides of the ball So I feel like This number in the market is a nod to say we like Sam Pittman. We trust this guy But you know, they I mean it's it's hard It's hard to be a good coach in in the sdc west and a lot of people who try to do it with varying levels of success Uh, they do get the quarterback back On offense. So they should be good. They do lose three of their key receivers and they Lost a ton on a defense that was that was pretty good last season So they're rebuilding with with transfers there. So it's it's this seems like one where the numbers kind of don't support The optimism over the coach. I feel like that's kind of what uh, the that analysis is saying to me Um, it really did like Arkansas under seven and a half wins. Let me Pull up the total It was Arkansas. Yeah, I had the the model had at six and a half Okay, that's about as big as the difference as you will see So, you know, not not not not to necessarily say the market is wrong. I mean, maybe there's something I'm missing and maybe Pittman is Great, but it the numbers don't seem to to match that up um, and uh, yeah So another one that I've been thinking about is Michigan State So this is a team that I felt was clossily overrated and just remember all the biases that I have living here in Ann Arbor Uh, and the fact that Michigan State did be Michigan last year um, but last year that Michigan State team was a team that Kind of got fortunate in terms of big plays like as in they got a lot of them on offense That helped them a lot and they did not give up a lot of them on defense And and the reason I say that is when you look at the yards per play versus success rate On offense and defense the yards per play were significantly better than the success rate. So on both sides of the ball, they were uh, they they they They were fortunate in terms of not giving up big plays. Uh, I think the defense was particularly bad And uh, I think they were in the 80s when I look at success rate adjusted for who you played The good news is that they bring a lot of those guys back. Uh, the bad news is that they might not be very good football players Uh, I do like Peyton Thorne as the quarterback. I think he's pretty solid He's got one of his top receivers back Kenneth Walker is gone Probably matters a little bit because we're talking about college Right and not the NFL running back student out of there Also, you're talking about explosive plays and those those are probably Kenneth Walker on the other a lot of those Yeah, michigan had a really hard time tackling that dude last year so seven and a half wins from michigan state And the model is pretty much at seven and a half Uh, I would definitely mean under uh, if you were to bet this I would definitely suggest the under I I don't think I I can see a situation where the bottom falls out and everyone Is uh, asking a lot of questions about giving milk Tucker that obscene contract Uh, I think he's got a lot to prove. He had a good season last year. So let's give him credit for that But you know, not not a ton of wins at michigan state before that not a track record before that I personally think he's got a lot to prove right to to live up to that contract that that he got And we'll see whether you can do it. I mean, he certainly has a good good start with the quarterback there But uh, I think he's got a lot to prove. Yeah, uh the Under there is a plus 100 f handle sports book on uh, seven and a half, but also we got to mention, uh, mel Tucker Uh timing king Because he signed that extension last year. I believe right before the ohio steak game where they got toasted And so even if they regress Full respect to our finesse king mel Tucker for getting that contract done before the ohio steak game before Stuff got real bad in that game They might go under this year, but salute to you sir for getting that contract done before that game Let let's uh, I mean he probably had nothing to do with that. That's his agent. I have no idea who his agent is but That was either right someone deserves a raise. That's all I can say We could look back upon this and say look ohio state had the greatest wide receiver room ever in college football That might happen again this year at part two Well, maybe well, they they lost first two first round draft picks, right? Yeah, but they got another one who was their best receiver in the room last year who is coming back So jackson smith and the jibas is just Insane and some of those other guys could be just as good. So um, but like You know when you talk about We could be sitting here in five years Like watching those three guys just dominate the nfl. I mean that that's a distinct possibility And then maybe you know, that's that's the pass that mel Tucker gets and the secondary gets better heading into the 2022 season now and and it's all fine, but But yeah, I mean, I think that was a perfect example to just just how like they didn't get a donut defense um and and The lack of explosive plays earlier was was was very helpful for the michigan state team Yeah, they have some regression on offense in terms of those explosive plays that could further expose the defense and those issues there So uh some frailty in the michigan state team. So I'd like the under seven and a half at plus 100 That's all we got here for it today on our final pre season edition of covering the spread for college football because next week They're actual gains. We'll still have a show next week talk college football before I hop on a flight My air lingus flight out to Dublin to go watch the cats uh over in ireland But it's going to be a blast. It was fun to talk some college football with you ed talk about your numbers You mentioned that some of these numbers are public people want to find your public numbers Where can they get those and where can they start it to become a member to get the non public member numbers? The public numbers are at the power rank dot com. It's actually all at the power rank dot com Uh, so you can check out the college football rankings that will be uh available By the time this podcast drops and then I will post the win total projections from that on the site And then you can also figure out how to become a member. Um, feel very good about my college football model heading into this year And um, yeah, also, I mean and to get it to kind of get a taste for what is going on I would suggest signing up for the email newsletter I I give a sample of of some of my member predictions and some thoughts on about those predictions So you can sign up for that at the power rank dot com Anything going on for on for you on the football analytic show for this week? Yeah, I haven't done the interview, but uh, there will be a pod and then Definitely check out the episode with bill getting some really nice feedback on that on his yearly appearance And then, you know, we're a couple weeks away from the preview series Yeah for the football analytics show. So this is like a daily series. Uh, it'll start On august 28th or 29th or whatever that monday is So these episodes are about 10 minutes long And uh, just give you a number of space perspective for both betting and thinking about the 2022 season And you launched your patreon this week as well. Yeah, patreon. That's exciting. How uh, you happy with things so far Yeah, absolutely. Uh, just honored that people listen and um, a fraction of them are willing to part with their harder and money to support me that's always, uh, it's just an honor and and uh Yeah, no, it's uh, it's good. I'm looking forward to doing it more. There are some uh, patron only episodes so there's one on home and rest advantage in the nfl Which is interesting because I was kind of very surprised with the results and the journey that it took to get there. So Yeah, so every month, they'll be you know, there'll be one premium episode Perfect love to hear it. Uh, excited about that congratulations to you all launching that and uh, go check out all of ed's Work at the power rank dot com and check out the uh podcasts as well on the football and analytics show Check out the patreon. I'm shooting you links to that over at the power rank as well. Find ed on twitter At the power rank. I am on twitter at jim sonnis j i m s a n n e s as a reminder Make sure you're subscribed to covering the spread wherever you get your podcast tomorrow breaking down some mlb money lines for thursday They'll be look at heads because i'm recording it wednesday night But should get you a better number at that point as well then talking some NASCAR for Watkins glenn This weekend on the thursday show find that right here in the covering the spread podcast feed Good luck to you with all your college football win bets. We'll talk to you once again tomorrow To get you set for some more quality bets. This has been covering the spread right here on the fan dual podcast network