Month: March 2021

Over the years since I started this blog, I’ve tracked a lot of picks.  I track straight up picks, picks against the spread, and most recently started grading money line picks since the last couple of years the “money line sprinkle” is all the craze.  Most years I post a writeup up preseason predictions but don’t track it in any meaningful way.  It is mostly for fun so we can go back after the season and see how absurd some people’s predictions were.  

As I patiently await the season preview for 2021, I looked over the odds.  Alabama’s odds have already shortened from +325 to +300. Two other top-five teams including Georgia and Oklahoma, saw their odds fade slightly.  Clemson and Ohio State are steady as a rock at the moment.  I’m not a futures bettor so I couldn’t tell you who I like.  But I compiled a list of the College Gameday analysts’ preseason predictions to do a little analysis.

I know TV analysts are in the business of generating buzz.  Let’s face it: it is boring if they all choose Alabama or Clemson to win in the preseason.  However, sometimes they can get a little too cute with their preseason picks, so I wondered what it would look like if we took the College Gameday crew’s preseason predictions and used them as futures bets.  Would anybody show a profit?

For our experiment, we took the preseason playoff predictions from Lee Corso, Kirk Herbstreit and Desmond Howard for examination.  First, each preseason championship prediction for the playoff era is treated as a $100 futures bet and we calculate losses and profits.  Second, we also took all four playoff picks and treated them each as a $100 futures bet since most people bet more than one team in the futures.  Let’s see how things compare.  Historical futures odds are courtesy of sportsoddshistory.com.

2020	Championship Pick	Runner Up	Semifinal	Semifinal
Lee Corso	Alabama+300	Clemson+200	Oklahoma+1200	Notre Dame+1600
Kirk Herbstreit	Clemson+200	Alabama+300	Texas+1600	Florida
Desmond Howard	Alabama+300	Clemson+200	Cincinnati+100000	Oklahoma+1200
2019
Lee Corso	Alabama+250	Utah+4000	Clemson+250	Ohio State+1600
Kirk Herbstreit	Alabama+250	Clemson+250	Texas+2500	Ohio State+1600
Desmond Howard	Clemson+250	Georgia+250	Wisconsin+30000	Oregon+4000
2018
Lee Corso	Wisconsin+2000	Clemson+400	Washington+1500	Georgia+600
Kirk Herbstreit	Alabama+175	Clemson+400	Washington+1500	Penn State+2500
Desmond Howard	Michigan+1000	Alabama+175	West Virginia+6000	Clemson+400
2017
Lee Corso	Southern Cal+700	Alabama+250	Ohio State+300	Florida State+800
Kirk Herbstreit	Ohio State+300	Alabama+250	Southern Cal+700	Florida State+800
Desmond Howard	Stanford+5000	Alabama+250	Wisconsin+2000	Miami (FL)+6000
2016
Lee Corso	LSU+800	Michigan+800	Florida State+700	Oklahoma+1200
Kirk Herbstreit	Clemson+700	Alabama+600	Ohio State+800	TCU+3000
Desmond Howard	Clemson+700	LSU+800	Stanford+2500	Michigan+800
2015
Lee Corso	LSU+2000	Ohio State+250	Oregon+2000	Baylor+800
Kirk Herbstreit	Ohio State+250	LSU+2000	Oklahoma+3000	Arizona State+20000
Desmond Howard	Stanford+3000	TCU+600	Michigan State+2000	Texas A&M+10000
2014
Lee Corso	UCLA+1000	Florida State+300	Michigan State+2500	Alabama+450
Kirk Herbstreit	Florida State+300	Alabama+450	Michigan State+2500	UCLA+1000
Desmond Howard	UCLA+1000	Georgia+1800	Florida State+300	Wisconsin+3000

As we look at each analysts’ year by year championship picks, we see some people going out on a limb with their picks on occasion.  Does this show a better profit than sticking to chalk?  The “cutest” championship predictions in the playoff era are:  

Lee Corso picking Wisconsin+2000 and Desmond Howard picking Michigan+1000 in 2018

Desmond Howard picking Stanford+5000 in 2017

Desmond Howard picking Stanford+3000 in 2015

Lee Corso and Desmond Howard both picking UCLA+1000 in 2014

Kirk pretty much picks chalk every year.  Clemson, Alabama, Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, Ohio State, Florida State. That’s the preseason favorite 5 out 7 years.  He went out on a limb the other two years and picked the 2nd favorite.

If you bet $100 on the preseason odds-on favorite every year at close, you’d be down $50 over 7 seasons. 

2020:  200 (Clemson+200)

2019: -100 (take your pick, Bama or Clemson+250)

2018: -100 (Alabama+175)

2017: 250 (Alabama+250)

2016: -100 (Alabama+600)

2015: -100 (Ohio State+250)

2014: -100 (Florida State+300)

 If you bet $100 on each Gameday analyst’s preseason pick the results would be the following:

	Lee Corso	Kirk Herbstreit	Desmond Howard
2020	300	-100	300
2019	-100	-100	-100
2018	-100	-100	-100
2017	-100	-100	-100
2016	-100	700	700
2015	-100	-100	-100
2014	-100	-100	-100
Total	-300	100	500

If we took the second approach and used each analysts’ final four predictions as a $100 futures bet, the results are below:

Payout:

	Lee Corso	Kirk Herbstreit	Desmond Howard
2020	0	0	0
2019	-400	-400	-400
2018	100	100	100
2017	-50	-50	-50
2016	-400	400	400
2015	-400	-400	-400
2014	-400	-400	-400
Total	-1550	-750	-750

So what does this all mean?  Betting straight favorites results in a small loss.  It appears betting the Gameday analysts’ final four is disastrous.  Don’t do it.  They took a handful of crazy long shots (Cincinnati+100000?  Texas A&M+10000?) which seem much more likely to generate buzz than value.  Desmond Howard profited the most betting ONLY championship picks at $500 while Kirk Herbstreit profited $100.  Lee Corso lost $300 betting his pick each season.  The profit for Desmond and Kirk comes entirely from Clemson+700 in 2016.  In hindsight, it seems obvious that picking anyone outside of the playoff blue bloods is suicidal.  LSU+2500 in 2019 is the lone exception, and it is hard to call them a true dark horse.  I guess all I could say is, pay attention to Desmond Howard if he sticks to chalk in his 2021 prediction.  Kirk Herbstreit will definitely stick to chalk, but that won’t profit you much.  Don’t go out on a limb and bet a bunch on Texas, or throw your money away on Michigan, or pick Arizona State as a dark horse.  And as much as I hate to say it, don’t bet on Lee Corso’s preseason prediction.