Please note that all of my plays are posted first on my Patreon. The dates/times that each play was posted is listed below. As you’ll see some of them were submitted awhile ago so obviously some of the lines have moved and some of the writeups might be a tad outdated.

To get my plays as soon as I lock them in, you can subscribe to my Patreon. You’ll get all of my CFB plays and writeups on time as well as my NFL Pass Attempt model projections (starting Week 4 or 5) that hit 69% last season.

NOTE: These are all my plays at the time of publishing this blog. Some plays will be added throughout the season after the weekly publishing of this post (FCS plays, player props, live plays, etc.) The best way to get those is to subscribe to my Patreon.

Last Week Recap

Week 1: 10-5, +10.32 Units
YTD: 12-8, (60%), +5.33 Units

That’s more like it! That week was more fun than Week 0. So far my higher volume approach seems to be paying dividends. I think we maybe got a little unlucky with the Gabbert loss as the coach did every thing he could to keep him under the total, but a little lucky with the SJSU TT hitting on the last drive of the game. It kind of evened out for me and 10-5 seems about fair. We could have had the Calhoun over as well as he had double digit targets and 5 catches but no chunk plays.

I might take a break from the FCS this week. The books are making it very hard to get down right now by not posting lines until the last available moment. Unless they hang a really low South Dakota State number I’ll probably sit this week out from the FCS.

NCAA Football Week 2 Official Play Write-Ups

We already cashed out first play of the week last night on a live play: Louisville TT Over 24.5 (+120). Nice to start the week off with a win. Make sure to follow me on Twitter X (@MikeyLoBets) even if you don’t subscribe to my Patreon so you don’t miss live plays like this.

Jeff Sims (NEB) Over 64.5 (-114) Rush Yds @ COL (Fan Duel)
Risking 3.42 Units to win 3.00 Units
Posted: 9/7 @ 2:58 PM

The Colorado run defense was putrid in Week one vs TCU allowing 262 rushing yards & 7.1 ypc. I very much expect Nebraska to try to attack this Colorado defense on the ground as Sims struggled with turnover worthy plays vs Minnesota. Sims was a huge part of the rushing attack in their first game with 19 rushes for 91 yards. The next highest rusher on Nebraska had only 9 carries, so Sims was the workhorse despite being the QB. 14 of the 19 rushes were designed QB runs and the Nebraska coaching staff has given every indication that the QB run game will be here to stay. In college football, sacks count against a QB rushing yards which can be annoying when you bet an over. But last week Sims had 91 despite being sacked 3 times and I think that is less of a concern this week. Colorado had 0 sacks & 0 TFL in Week one against TCU so I’m hopeful Sims won’t be sacked much at all. I think it’s absolutely reasonable to expect him to have a similar workload this week that he had last week and if that’s the case I’d be shocked if he doesn’t clear 64.5 against this run defense.

Iowa (-2.5) (-110) @ Iowa State (Fan Duel)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units
Posted: 6/30 @ 10:40 PM

9/5 Update to old Writeup: Iowa State struggled more with FCS Northern Iowa than the final score would indicate. I don’t think they have much confidence in their offensive unit. They played at a very slow pace even against an FCS team and gained only 41% of the available yards, had just a 33% success rate and only an 11% success rate on passing downs. Now they will go from playing an FCS defense to one of the top defenses in the country in Iowa. I would expect them to find themselves in a lot more passing downs than they were against UNI which is an area where they really struggled.

FanDuel already has this game up as a game of the year, so I’m moving on it now. This is a play that I already liked, but decided to move now because there is a possibility it could move significantly in the near future. There have been a lot of rumors this offseason that Iowa State could have some key players in hot water for sports gambling rules violations. The news came out yesterday that Iowa State is the only team in the conference that won’t be sending a QB, RB or linemen to Big 12 Media Days. Instead they are sending a WR who wasn’t great last year, 2 DBs & a LB. This is very suspicious and coincides with the internet rumors that the players that are in hot water are all very key players: Dekkers (QB1), Brock (RB1), Hanika, Remsburg & Lee. I think this is a still a strong play regardless of the status of those players, but if they end up suspended (especially Dekkers) it moves to a great play.

I’m high on Iowa this year. They had a top 5 defense last year and despite losing Campbell & Benson they return enough that they go into this season with the #1 ranked defense according to Bill Connelly’s SP+ ranking (the best publicly available power ranking for CFB). Iowa State’s offense was unspectacular last year (106th in EPA, 99th in success rate, 100th in explosive plays). They scored 14 or fewer points in 7 games last year (including only 10 points vs Iowa in a game they won because Iowa’s offense was just that bad last year). I think even at full strength this Iowa State offense will really struggle vs Iowa, and if they are down to their 2nd QB it could get very ugly.

The question with Iowa will be can their offense improve from awful to average. I’m optimistic that it can. I really like the addition of QB Cade McNamara in the transfer portal. He QB’d Michigan to a playoff spot two seasons ago before losing the starting job to JJ McCarthy and I think this is a very similar situation: lean on your defense, manage the game, make the right throws & don’t turn the ball over. He has a career 21-7 TD-INT ratio. As a point of comparison Iowa’s QB the last three seasons, Spencer Petras, had a 24-19 TD-INT ratio so McNamara should be a lot better with the TO’s .

I think there will be a sense of urgency with Iowa this year. This is really their last good chance to play for a conference championship with divisions going away next season and USC/UCLA joining the conference. I think Kirk Ferentz knows this. His son, the OC, is in some hot water and has a contract stipulation that he needs to average 25 ppg this season and the long-time Iowa AD is leaving. I think maybe the sense of comfort is leaving Ferentz a little bit and there will be a little more urgency this season.

I think the Iowa defense should be able to squeeze the life out of the Cyclone offense and the Hawkeye offense should be able to do enough to end up with a 21-10 type win.

Conner Weigman (A&M) Over 237.5 Pass Yds (-115) @ MIA (Draft Kings)
Risking 3.45 Units to win 3.00 Units
Posted: 9/8 @ 9:06 AM

I think Texas A&M has a really good receiving corps and I’m optimistic that with a QB as talented as Weigman and Bobby Petrino coming in at OC that they will start to put up bigger numbers this season. Despite Brett Gabbert going under vs MIA last week I wasn’t super impressed with the Miami secondary. I thought Miami-OH had some guys open but the coaching staff was super conservative. I also think that the A&M O-Line will do a much better job at protecting their QB than Miami-OH did last week. This should be a pretty close game and I think A&M will need to continue to score throughout the game. I think Weigman should be able to clear this line.

UTEP (-1.5) (-110) @ Northwestern (Bet Online)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units
Posted: 9/7 @ 10:47 AM

I can’t believe I’m betting on a road G5 favorite playing at a Big Ten team… but here we are. Northwestern looks painfully bad to me and I think they matchup poorly with UTEP. The biggest weakness of NU is their defensive line and UTEP is coming off a game in which they rushed for 329 yards. I felt like once Rutgers got up early on Northwestern last week they really just kind of coasted and didn’t let things get as bad as it could of. I also think the NU secondary will be susceptible to Gavin Hardison deep balls to Tyrin Smith and I just don’t think the Northwestern offense will have enough to keep up.

Texas State/UTSA Over 63 (-110) (Draft Kings)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units
Posted: 9/3 @ 8:52 PM

This is a game where both teams will likely play at a really fast pace. The game will also take place on the fast track of the Alamodome. Texas State surprised a ton of people in their Week 1 win vs Baylor and they looked awesome. As great as they were, they could have scored more points if not for some turnovers and drops. They honestly could have hung 50 on Baylor if not for the 2 lost fumbles.

Baylor was able to put up 31 on Texas State despite not being able to run the ball at all (25% rush success rate). Despite those struggles they should have scored more than 31 themselves if not for 2 green zone TOs. I would expect UTSA and veteran QB Frank Harris to be better on offense than Baylor was and generate more offense. I see this one as a 40-31 type game.

Houston (-8.5) (-110) @ Rice (Draft Kings)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units
Posted: 9/3 @ 3:09 PM

This is really more of a numbers play than anything else. Almost all of the power rankings that I respect have Houston covering this number. Rice was only able to generate 1.1 yards per/rush vs Texas last week and I don’t have a lot of confidence in journeyman QB JT Daniels. The Houston win vs UTSA was a weird game but they came out on top against a good opponent. I think QB Donovan Smith will play well against Rice and HC Dana isn’t afraid to run up the score. This is a hot seat year for him so he has to beat the cupcakes.

Auburn/California Over 56.5 (-110) (Draft Kings)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units
Posted: 9/4 @ 12:42 PM

I’m surprised to see this line moving against me. Hopefully it’s like the Auburn spread last week where I lost 3 points of CLV and still won easily. I’m not sure what people are seeing here that make them want to bet the under. This isn’t your father’s Cal team. New OC Jake Spavital had them playing at a super fast pace in Week 1 (around 20/seconds per play) and they generated an elite 16% explosive play rate which is great for over bets.

I wasn’t particularly impressed with the Auburn defense. They gave up only 14 points to UMass but the 5.5 yards/play was pretty high. And if you watched that game, UMass marched right down the field (aided by several QB runs) on the first drive to score a TD. But the UMass QB got hurt on that first drive so they stopped calling running plays for him after that drive. That completely took UMass out of their game plan. It was fortunate for my Auburn bet, but I think if he doesn’t get shaken up and they could continue to run him, UMass would have scored some more on that Auburn defense.

Auburn’s offense looked great against UMass scoring 50+ points. I have complete confidence in HC Hugh Freeze’s ability to scheme guys open and I would expect them to have another nice performance on the West Coast this week. I see this one being a 38-30 type game.

Marshawn Lloyd (USC) Over 57.5 Rush Yds (-118) vs STAN (Bet Online)
Risking 3.54 Units to win 3.00 Units
Posted: 9/8 @ 9:06 AM

We saw last week in our winning Stanford bet vs Hawaii that the Cardinal will be playing at a very fast pace this season. The new coach came over from FCS Sacramento State and is bringing that offense with him. This should mean more possessions for USC and with the total being around 70 the bookmakers seem to agree with this. Marshawn Lloyd is averaging 7.4 yards per carry this season and could only need around 8-10 carries to reach this over. He’s capable of popping one at any moment. We didn’t get a chance to really assess the Stanford run defense in Week one as they played an Air Raid Hawaii team but I think they could struggle here this season. I’ll roll with Lloyd going over this number.

Official Plays – Week 2

J. Sims (NEB) Over 64.5 Rush Yds (-114) @ COL (Fan Duel)
Risking 3.42 Units to win 3.00 Units

Iowa (-2.5) (-110) @ Iowa State (Fan Duel)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units

C. Weigman (A&M) Over 237.5 Pass Yds (-115) @ MIA (Draft Kings)
Risking 3.45 Units to win 3.00 Units

UTEP (-1.5) (-110) @ Northwestern (Bet Online)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units

Texas State/UTSA Over 63 (-110) (Draft Kings)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units

Houston (-8.5) (-110) @ Rice (Draft Kings)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units

Auburn/California Over 56.5 (-110) (Draft Kings)
Risking 3.30 Units to win 3.00 Units

M. Lloyd (USC) Over 57.5 Rush Yds (-118) vs STAN (Bet Online)
Risking 3.54 Units to win 3.00 Units