Welcome to the patent-pending, unique-to-FF, oft-imitated-but-never-duplicated FOLLOWING FOOTBALL forecasts for this weekend's key games in the NCAA, NFL, and even the CFL!
Let's start with the Canadian Football League! Four weeks left in the regular season, and Calgary's sitting at 13-1-1, on an eleven game winning streak and showing no signs of weakening. They're favored by 15.5, and you're still better off taking the Stampeders to cover yet again, as they almost always have on this streak. Meanwhile, we have three more competitive games: Hamilton's favored over Ottawa (2.5, playing at home); we think Ottawa covers. The BC Lions have a challenging game hosting Winnipeg, and are almost a TD favorite - take the Lions to LOSE to the Blue Bombers! Finally, we like the resurgent Saskatchewan Rough Riders to upset the Toronto Argos, despite Toronto's half-point favorite's status. Want to bet on the Grey Cup? Take Calgary at any odds; they will NOT lose a game that matters.
On to the NFL! We agree with the odds makers on every game (having been equally wrong about Denver/SD last night!), so it's all a matter of degree. We think the Giants are going to fare better at home versus Baltimore than +3...we see the poor 49ers losing by more than eight to Buffalo...Chicago may not be great at 1-4, but Jacksonville isn't up to the journey to Soldier Field yet... Green Bay over Dallas by four? Try nine...Indy is a three point underdog to Houston; we have it more like a ten point margin. (I disagree with one of my system's predictions: Cincinnati covering the nine-point spread against the Patriots. The problem is that my system didn't know Mr. Brady was gone for four games...I still like New England.)
The NCAA has many more games, and twenty-two conferences to watch in Division One alone: ten in the FBS and twelve in the FCS. We'll take a quick scan and touch on the games we think will be most interesting...
We think Duke loses by less than 35 to Louisville... Syracuse stays closer than 20 against VaTech at home...Georgia Southern will NOT be eleven point losers to GaTech: we have it as a virtual tie!... Maryland is favored at Minnesota: we have it the other way around!... we also like Texas Tech at home against the one-point favorite Mountaineers of WVU... USC is NOT eight points better than Arizona on the road... and as much as I'd love it to be true, Colorado is NOT two TDs better than AZ State... LSU can't be 26 points better than Southern Miss if they can't score 26 points!...
Temple at home should be favored over UCF, not the other way around...we also like Western Kentucky over Middle Tennessee, unlike Vegas...Bowling Green is truly awful this year, but the FF tiers still don't think they're thirty points worse than Toledo. (I'm not sure it's right about this one.)... We are taking underdog Nevada over San Jose St, despite the travel... We are huge Boise State fans, but 31 points is too many against Colorado State. They might cover, but I'm not going to bet that way (we see three TDs, not 4 1/2)... UL-Monroe, at home, is NOT a touchdown worse than Texas State... finally, although we are also impressed with Troy this season and hope the best for them, seventeen points is too high a spread against a decent Georgia State team that just wiped out that TxSt team we just discussed last week.
Moving into the FCS, we'll give you OUR point spreads, since Vegas doesn't officially put out lines on FCS games... Cal Poly SLO @ Portland State (-4.5) should be good...Northern Colorado is only a half-point underdog at UC Davis on our board...My own alma mater, Sacramento State, has it tough, playing my ex's school, Montana (-29.5), while our son's current school, Idaho State, is also a heavy underdog @ Northern Arizona (-19)... It'll be interesting to see Liberty at Kennesaw State, a second year program who's only a six point underdog... Huge games in the Colonial, where James Madison is a two point favorite at New Hampshire, and Richmond is a five point fave hosting Villanova... The most interesting game in the uber-powerful Missouri Valley this week is Northern Iowa at one-point favorite Youngstown State... If you watch car wrecks, bottom feeder Austin Peay should be 42 point underdogs at last year's FCS finalist Jacksonville State in the Ohio Valley conference... One of the Pioneer League games of the year is also in Jacksonville (this time the one in Florida, not Alabama), when Dayton travels to play the Dolphins, whom we have as two-point favorites... There are other close games in the PFL this week, especially if you follow the weakest teams in the weakest conference in football: Butler at Davidson (favored by 1 even with the lowest Sagarin rating in football), and Marist at Morehead State (-1.5)...The Southern conference has its two best teams meeting Saturday, when Chattanooga plays at the Citadel (we have this as a dead-heat!)...Two of the best of the Southland conference meet as upstart Central Arkansas goes to McNeese State (-3)...Of interest to me is the game between Nicholls St and Houston Baptist, two teams on their way up from terrible-ness towards respectability. (NSU is farther along the journey - they should've beaten Georgia, for heaven's sake!)
Finally, let's look at the "fringe" FCS conferences - the HBCs first: Southern @ Jackson State is the game of the week in the SWAC, with the Jaguars up by ten on our chart...The most interesting game, the closest game on our MEAC board, is the two lowest teams, where Florida A&M plays at Delaware State (we have the home field advantage as the only difference)... Then, the two "elite school" conferences - the Ivy League and the Patriot League have some interesting games across the league lines, namely Holy Cross @ Harvard (-4) and Yale @ Fordham (-14.5), where the two home teams are the current league favorites for the Ivy and Patriot, respectively. Again, as usual.
Last week, our tiers balanced out to the accuracy where our predictions were back to being BETTER than Vegas finally, at 29-18 (we'd been consistently better last year), so we're pretty confident in most of our FF system's forecasts. Our NFL and CFL predictions have been ahead of Vegas all season, although not by a huge margin (NFL: 36-32, CFL: 40-25 on winners only)...so don't plan on making money off our predictions. We make NO PROMISES about the forecasts we make - all we can do is the best we can do, and hope that our mathematical system and observational skills will guide us to accurate point spreads across the board. If you're a bettor, good luck - we refuse to wager on any of our predictions, as a matter of principle.
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