2024 College Football Preseason Bets- Part 1
We’re only a week away from college football season, which means it is time for my preseason bets. This is always one of my favorite blog posts to write all season- I’ve had a pretty good track record on win totals bets in the last few years.
If you’re new to my site for the 2024 season, my picks are all based off of a computer model that I have been developing since 2011. If you’re interested in learning about the model, the most recent documentation I have on it is a post I wrote on my old blog back in 2017. I’ve made several changes in the years since that post, but the fundamental bones of the model remain the same as they were back in 2017.
All of my picks are suggested by my model and then vetted by me. I find it useful to combine both a quantitative and a qualitative approach to making picks. For example, in 2020 my model had a hard time dealing with teams having large numbers of COVID absences, and a lot of manual adjustments were necessary. I spend a good amount of time each summer learning about all 134 FBS teams so that I can provide some human context to my picks. This mixture of math and intuition can hopefully provide another winning season to my readers.
In today’s article I will tackle the SEC and Big Ten, with the rest of the conferences to come later this week.
Betting History
2018: -5.88 units
2019: +30.71 units
2020: +34.36 units
2021: -34.75 units
2022: +9.31 units
2023: -2.52 units
Total: +31.23 units
SEC
Ole Miss under 9.5 wins -105 (4 units)
Ole Miss to miss College Football Playoff +100 (2 units)
Ole Miss is in the preseason AP top 10 for the first time since 2009- this year’s Rebels squad has the highest expectations of any team in my lifetime. You can see why- last year’s team finished 9th in the AP poll, QB Jaxson Dart returns, and Lane Kiffin dominated the portal this offseason. However, I’m not really buying the hype. For starters, they weren’t close to a top 10 team last year- their 11-2 record disguises the fact that both losses were blowouts and they squeaked past mediocre Arkansas and Auburn teams. Second, despite the work in the portal, their overall talent level is still quite a bit below the top teams of the SEC. They’ve been good recently, but they haven’t been stacking up several years of top 10 classes that schools like LSU and Alabama have. This is one of my favorite bets of the preseason.
Florida over 4.5 wins -155 (4 units)
Florida +10 -110 @ Tennessee (1 unit)
2024 Florida is going to play one of the toughest schedules of all time. There’s an 8 game SEC slate featuring Georgia, Texas, LSU, Ole Miss, Tennessee and Texas A&M (and for the first time in 30 years, no Vanderbilt, as the SEC has done away with divisions). This is bookended by non-conference games against Florida State, Miami and UCF. Many people have labeled HC Billy Napier a dead man walking in only his third season in Gainesville. I’m going to go against the grain and say that the Gators have enough talent to make a bowl game against this slate. Last year’s team may have gone 5-7, but they were one of the best teams to finish with a losing record in a decade. The recruiting is still firmly in the top half of the SEC and they have stable QB play in Graham Mertz. Florida is a fringe top 25 team in my model and that is enough for six wins even against this schedule. I’m also throwing in a bet on the Gators against a Tennessee team that I think is a bit overrated.
Texas to miss College Football Playoff +175 (2 units)
Texas finally broke through last season with a Playoff appearance and their first top 5 finish since 2009. However, they finished the season a bit outside the top 5 in my ratings, thanks to a series of close calls against bad teams- they really should have lost to an awful Houston team, for example. This year’s team is probably better than the 2023 outfit, but given I was low on them last year that still puts them a full tier below Georgia and a half tier below Alabama in the new look SEC. This price implies they are a top 4 team in the sport and I think they’re more like seventh or eighth best.
Oklahoma to make College Football Playoff +450 (1 unit)
Oklahoma to make SEC Title Game +1000 (0.5 units)
Oklahoma +8.5 -110 vs. Texas (1 unit)
Oklahoma +6 -110 @ Ole Miss (1 unit)
The difference between this line and Texas’ line shows you how people overvalue a few bounces here and there. There was almost no daylight between these teams last year- Oklahoma won their head to head matchup, but missed the Big 12 title game thanks to close losses to Kansas and Oklahoma State. I expect Texas to be the better team of the two this year, but there’s not a massive difference between the two teams.
Luckily there are a lot of lookahead lines available for SEC conference games, so I’m throwing in some bets on Oklahoma when they play SEC teams that I’m bearish on.
Big Ten
Indiana over 5.5 wins -135 (1 unit)
Things got pretty rough in Tom Allen’s last season in Bloomington, as Indiana went 3-9 last year and should have lost to one of the worst teams in FBS in Akron. However, the 2024 Hoosiers would be touchdown favorites over the 2023 squad. New HC Curt Cignetti brought in a whole host of transfers from his old gig at James Madison and the talent on this roster has escaped the basement of the Big Ten. Indiana is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the Big Ten ditching divisions as Penn State falls off the schedule, replaced by Northwestern. I expect a bowl in Cignetti’s first year.