UNLV at Hawaii
College Football Free Pick
I LIKE when two of my unique handicapping models both point to the same play.
I LOVE when THREE models all point to the same play
And that’s exactly what I have on the UNLV at Hawaii game.
It’s early in the season, I don’t have a lot of data accumulated yet. So for my first play, last week, I relied on numbers from last season.
In 2025/26 college football, one of my models for picking Wrong Favorites (WF1) was 25-41, providing me with a very nice 62% Fade.
Broken down into the subcategory of Hm/Rd,
I get:
Hm 8-13, 62%
Rd 17-28, 62%
Two games qualified last week.
WF1 said NC State should be the Fav, rather than Virginia -4.
Virginia won the game 34-8, easily covering the spread by 22 points.
WF1 said Hawaii should be the Fav over Stanford -5.
Stanford won 37-27.
So WF1 is already off to a 0-2 start this season.
The Hm/Rd breakdown is:
Hm 0-0
Rd 0-2
This week, WF1 says San Jose State, Baylor, BC, and Hawaii should all be the Favorite in their games.
Guess which one I’m Fading.
The Hawaii Fade gives me two WF1 edges.
First, the overall play (all teams) at 0-2.
Second, a subcategory, the team specific stat (a record of how a specific team performs when they’re in this spot) that has Hawaii at 0-1.
And I have a new model I’m trying out this season, replacing an old one that wasn’t giving me any edges. It’s based on point spreads and totals. It’s new, so it’s unreliable until I get more data in, but it was 2-1 last week.
And it says play UNLV -3 this week.
It also doesn’t hurt that Hawaii might be a little bit down after last week’s game, when they came from behind, scoring THREE 4th quarter touchdowns to take the lead only to lose in the final minute and a half of the game.
These two last met in November of 2025. Nevada came away the winner, 38-10, but that was a home game for the Rebels. Hawaii is 13-4 all-time against UNLV in Honolulu so it’s not going to be an easy road game for UNLV.
Both teams lost their season openers.
Hawaii blew the 4th quarter lead I noted above while Nevada blew a 21-14 lead at halftime after putting up a big fat zero in the second half.
The Hm team plus a field goal looks a little too obvious to me, and the numbers from my handicapping models back up my gut feeling on this one that the team more likely to drop to 0-2 is the team with the unfortunate woke sounding name, the Rainbow Warriors.
When to Buy Recommendation
The common number right now is -3, but it wouldn’t surprise me if late money comes on Hawaii, especially if Joe Public catches on to that 13-4 record for Hawaii at home vs UNLV.
Since the -3 is available everywhere it won’t hurt to wait a little bit to buy this one.
Books loathe moving off a three point spread on football games but it does happen when money dictates a move. If I’m right and money comes in on Hawaii but the line stays at -3, worst case we’ll get better juice laying the three.
My play:
UNLV -3
Record: 1-0
Here’s a summary of all my plays this weekend, as given out in articles over the last couple weeks.
On July 25th I recommended an early Buy on Oklahoma at -40.
They’re -41′ now.
On July 26th, I bought N Tex/Ind Ov 54′.
It’s 55′ today.
On August 30th, I gave out Miz St/Tex A&M Over.
I bought it at 52′.
It’s 53′ today.
On September 3rd, I gave out Ball St/Ohio St Ov with a Wait to Buy recommendation. It was another good move as the 56′ is down to 55′ now, and still dropping?
I had the correct call on an early buy for all three spots already bought, as all three lines moved against me.
Whether or not I made the correct call on buying them at all will be determined on Friday and Saturday, but you need every edge to Beat the Books and buying at the proper time will improve your bottom line buy a few percentage points over the course of a full season.
