Alex Smart Premium Picks

The New York Islanders host the St. Louis Blues tonight at UBS Arena, and the sharp money is all over the home side. At moneyline odds ranging from -128 to -155 across the market, the Islanders represent one of the clearest edges on Saturday’s NHL slate, especially if you can still grab anything south of -140.

New York has been one of the league’s hottest teams over the past three weeks. The Islanders just completed a franchise-record-tying six-win road trip and return home riding a 7-2-1 surge in their last ten games. Overall, they sit at 12-7-2 with the NHL’s third-stingiest defense, surrendering just 2.4 goals per game. Ilya Sorokin has reclaimed his Vezina-caliber form with a .915 save percentage in his starts, and the Isles have allowed a microscopic 2.2 goals against during this ten-game stretch. At UBS Arena, they’re even tougher: 7-3-1 on the season with four consecutive victories and a +8 goal differential in those eleven home dates.

St. Louis, on the other hand, has been a mess. The Blues limp into Long Island with a 6-9-6 record, the league’s worst goal differential (-24), and a brutal 2-5-3 mark on the road. They score a paltry 2.1 goals per game (27th) while hemorrhaging 3.8 (dead last). Their power play is bottom-three, their penalty kill is 26th, and puck possession tilts heavily against them away from home (45.2% Corsi). In short, they’re the exact type of disorganized, low-event offense that New York’s suffocating forecheck feasts on.

The market opened the Islanders around -155 and has already seen steady money pushing the number down at several books.   Anytime you can back a surging home team with elite goaltending and top-three defense at a price that underrates them by five to eight points, you have positive expected value.

  The Islanders moneyline is my top play of the day. from the NHL Public bettors are pounding New York at an 88% clip,  and sharp bettors have joined in.

Bottom line: the Islanders are playing their best hockey of the season, they’re back in a building where they’ve dominated, and they’re facing one of the league’s most dysfunctional offenses. Grab the moneyline. This one has all the makings of a comfortable home win.

History backs the grind-it-out feel. The last three head-to-head meetings averaged just 225 total points, well below tonight’s 228.5 closing number. When these teams get together, the pace slows and the whistles tighten;

Two of the league’s most disappointing teams collide Saturday afternoon in Charlotte, but the betting market has given us a rare gift: a home underdog with legitimate cover potential against a public darling that’s running on fumes.

The Clippers limp into Spectrum Center with a 4-11 record, riding a three-game losing streak and a 1-6 ATS mark away from Crypto.com Arena. Kawhi Leonard remains sidelined with no timetable after another round of ankle and foot issues, while Bradley Beal’s season-ending hip fracture has turned what was supposed to be a Big Three into James Harden and a prayer. Harden has been sensational lately ..31+ points in five of his last six.. but asking one 35-year-old to carry an offense ranked 25th in scoring (111.0 PPG) against a defense that forces chaos is a tall order on the road.

Charlotte isn’t exactly lighting the world on fire at 4-11 themselves, but context matters. The Hornets are coming off four days of rest, have covered 55% of the time as rested home underdogs over the past two seasons, and own a 22-19-1 ATS ledger in this exact spot since the start of last year. LaMelo Ball and Miles Bridges are both probable after shaking off minor knocks, giving Steve Clifford’s group the offensive firepower it desperately needs at home.

Public money has pounded the Clippers to the tune of 76% of spread tickets, pushing this line from an opening -1 to a consensus -2 (and -2.5 in spots). That’s pure name-value inflation. Los Angeles is 3-12 against the spread in its last 15 games overall and has failed to cover in six straight road contests. Models that account for injuries and rest project this game within a single point either way... 114-112 Clippers is the median outcome across major simulations... making anything south of +3 a steal for the home side.

History backs the grind-it-out feel, too. The last three head-to-head meetings averaged just 225 total points, well below tonight’s 228.5 closing number. When these teams get together, the pace slows and the whistles tighten; Charlotte has the length and athleticism to muck things up just enough to stay inside the number.

Fade the one-man Clippers, grab the points with a motivated home dog, and let the public overpay for a brand name that isn’t showing up in the results column.

The betting market has flipped this game in the last 48 hours, and that’s exactly why we’re jumping on the Golden Gophers as small underdogs. When the lines first opened earlier this week, Minnesota was laying as much as 4.5 points. Sharp money and a wave of public respect for San Francisco’s efficient offense has pushed the Dons to a 1.5-point favorite across the industry. That movement has created real value on a Gophers team that still owns the clearer path to a multi-possession victory.

Minnesota’s identity is already crystal clear five games into the season: suffocate on defense and dominate the glass. Ben Johnson’s squad currently ranks 28th nationally in points allowed (62.4 per game) and 29th in rebounding margin (+4.8). They force 13 turnovers a night while holding opponents to just 41% from two and 35.3% from three. Dawson Garcia has been a monster in the paint, averaging 17.2 points and 8.5 boards while altering everything around the rim. That interior presence travels, even to a neutral floor in Sioux Falls.

San Francisco can absolutely score ..they rank top-40 in effective field-goal percentage and knock down 36.1% from deep.. but they’ve done most of their damage at home or against weaker defenses. Their lone true road game resulted in a seven-point loss at Oregon State, and their rebounding margin drops to just +2.1 (142nd nationally) when they leave the Bay Area. The Dons also rank a porous 213th in assists allowed, which plays directly into Minnesota’s ability to muck games up and turn them into a half-court slugfest.

My own  projections see Minnesota winning by 6.8 points on average, giving the +1.5 a 57% cover probability at current pricing. KenPom has the game at Minnesota 69 – San Francisco 64,.

The neutral site does take a sliver of Minnesota’s usual Williams Arena edge off the table, but the Sanford Pentagon is still Big Ten country (just a four-hour drive from campus), and the Gophers will have the crowd advantage in a building that seats only 3,250. San Francisco, meanwhile, is crossing three time zones and playing its third game in six days.

Everything about this matchup screams low-scoring and physical. If the Dons are forced to win ugl.. grinding it out in the half court, battling on the glass, and taking contested twos against Garcia and Lu’Cye Patterson  and they’re at a clear disadvantage. Give me the better defensive team, the better rebounding team, and the team getting points any day of the week.

 Take the points, trust the defense, and let the Gophers remind everyone that early-season West Coast darlings still have to prove they can win east of the Rockies.

Play on Minnesota to cover

Vanderbilt’s magical season is starting to feel a lot like a pumpkin that’s been left on the porch too long. Diego Pavia’s Heisman campaign has gone from trendy dark horse to +2500 afterthought in the span of three weeks, and the Commodores have lost the stats in each of their last three games despite scraping out an 8-2 record. After a 5-0 start that rattled the entire SEC, Clark Lea’s team is now clinging to a slippery vine, and a classic look-ahead spot to hated rival Tennessee next week only makes the drop feel more inevitable.

Enter Mark Stoops and a Kentucky team that has quietly righted the ship. The Wildcats were left for dead at 2-5, but three straight wins — including back-to-back 35+ point explosions capped by last week’s 42-10 demolition of previously undefeated Tennessee Tech ....have them playing their best football of the season. Former backup Cutter Boley has seized the job with poise well beyond his years, and Stoops confirmed this week that even with Zach Calzada now healthy, the offense belongs to the redshirt freshman. When Kentucky is scoring like this and the defense is holding opponents under 24.5 points per game, Stoops has been an absolute ATM for bettors.

That’s the clincher. Mark Stoops is 19-9-1 ATS in his career when Kentucky allows fewer than 24.5 PPG in a season, and an absurd 15-3-1 ATS after the Wildcats themselves hang 35+ on the scoreboard the previous week. Both conditions are in play here. Vanderbilt’s defense has surrendered at least 27 points in three straight games, and the Commodores needed overtime just two weeks ago to escape Auburn on this same field. Fatigue, distraction, and a secondary that’s running on fumes make it extremely likely Kentucky stays under that key 24.5 defensive threshold.

At +8.5 on the road, Kentucky is the sharp side in a game that smells like a flat spot for Vanderbilt. The Commodores are still priced like the team that stunned Alabama a month ago, but they’re not playing like it anymore. Take the points with the Wildcats and trust Stoops in his favorite situational sweet spot. This one stays within one scorel, and an outright upset wouldn’t shock anyone paying attention.

One of the  sharpest number in college football this weekend isn’t the 10.5 hanging on most boards for Oregon-USC; it’s the 12% chance the analytics crowd gives Oregon to even reach the Big Ten championship game despite sitting seventh in the latest CFP release. One more loss and the Ducks tumble out of the protected top-12 bracket, turning a dream season into a nervous at-large sweat. That’s the backdrop for Saturday night in Autzen Stadium, where two top-10 scoring offenses collide and the market is begging you to overrate home-field advantage in a series that has been pure chaos for the visitor.

Oregon rolls in 9-1 with the nation’s third-best total defense (235.4 yards allowed per game) and an offense that churns out an absurd 7.36 yards per play, third nationally. Dante Moore is completing 72.6% of his throws, Noah Whittington is averaging over eight yards a carry, and the Ducks have won 21 straight at home dating back to 2022. On paper, laying less than ten feels like stealing. But dig even one layer deeper and the picture changes dramatically.

USC, quietly 8-2 and owners of a four-game conference win streak, brings the Big Ten’s most prolific passing attack (298.1 yards per game) and a quarterback in Jayden Maiava who has improved every week since taking the reins. Makai Lemon is a legitimate Biletnikoff finalist, Ja’Kobi Lane is a matchup nightmare on the other side, and the Trojans rank second nationally in offensive EPA per play over the last five weeks. More importantly, this is a triple-revenge spot .. USC hasn’t beaten Oregon since 2016.. and Lincoln Riley’s teams have historically feasted when motivated and underestimated.

The trend sheet is almost comical in its one-sidedness. The road team is 3-0 against the spread in the last three meetings. USC is 5-0 ATS in its last five November games played on the 11th weekend of the season. The Trojans are 8-3 ATS in conference triple-revenge spots since Riley arrived, a perfect 4-0 when catching points. Narrow it further: Riley is 7-4 ATS as an underdog against teams .750 or better, including a pristine 4-0 mark on the road. Every meaningful situational angle points the same direction.

The line opened -10 and has already been bet down to -9.5 in many spots, with some respected books hanging 9 flat before booming back up with public money to -10. That’s not public money pounding the favorite in the beginning but now it is; that’s sharp respect flowing to Los Angeles. Oregon will score ..probably a lot ..but the Ducks have shown occasional first-half lethargy at home, and USC’s tempo and vertical passing game are built to exploit the one relative weakness in Oregon’s armor: third-and-long coverage against elite wideouts.

Give me USC +10 all day and twice on Saturday night. The Trojans keep this within a late field goal, or score  and if Maiava and Lemon connect on two or three deep shots early, we’re not ruling out the outright stunner that would send the entire CFP projection into a blender. Lincoln Riley in November, motivated, on the road, catching more than a touchdown? That’s not a trap. That’s free money wearing cardinal and gold. Fight On.

USC to cover

Something feels profoundly wrong when a 4-6 team that just fired its head coach and lost its starting quarterback for the season is laying nearly ten points to a 7-3 bowl-bound visitor. Yet here we are: Penn State, unranked and clinging to .500 dreams under interim head coach Terry Smith, opened as a 9.5-point favorite over Matt Rhule’s surging Nebraska Cornhuskers for Friday night’s prime-time clash in Happy Valley. The line has settled around 8, and every point of that inflated number is screaming “trap.” The smart money is already pounding the Huskers, and for damn good reason.

Start with the historical nightmare this series has been for Penn State. The Nittany Lions are 1-4 straight up and a disastrous 0-4-1 against the spread in the last five meetings with Nebraska dating back to 2011. The Huskers have won three of the last four outright as underdogs in this matchup, including a 30-23 victory the last time these programs met in 2020. History isn’t just repeating itself here; it’s practically yelling through a megaphone.

Then layer on the situational dynamite. Nebraska is 3-0 straight up and 2-0 against the spread this season against teams with losing records, winning those games by an obscene average of 42.3 points. Penn State checks that sub-.500 box in permanent marker. Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions are mired in one of the most bankable negative trends in college football: 3-13 ATS after a double-digit victory over the last decade, including a perfect 0-7 against the number when that big win came at home. Their 21-point drubbing of Michigan State two weeks ago qualifies, and the spot reeks of a classic post-emotional-win hangover.

The personnel edge only widens the gap. Doak Walker semifinalist Emmett Johnson has been a one-man wrecking crew for Nebraska, ranking fifth nationally with 1,131 rushing yards and third in all-purpose yards (1,431). Penn State’s run defense is respectable, but it has shown cracks against physical, downhill runners, surrendering 150+ yards on the ground in three of its six losses. With a bye week to scheme and a second-string quarterback staring down the nation’s No. 3 pass defense on the other sideline, Rhule will happily ride Johnson’s legs and bleed the clock in a hostile environment.

And let’s not ignore the emotional undercurrents that Vegas is overpricing. Yes, Matt Rhule played for Joe Paterno in the 1990s and shares history with interim coach Terry Smith from their Temple days. But nostalgia cuts both ways. Rhule’s weekly presser sli..casually dropping that Penn State has outscored opponents by 93 points despite the 4-6 record..felt less like bulletin-board material and more like a coach who has studied the advanced metrics and knows his team matches up beautifully.

The bottom line: everything about this setup screams Nebraska covers and potentially wins outright. An unranked 4-6 home team laying more than a touchdown to a 7-3 visitor with a top-tier defense and a 1,000-yard rusher is one of the most mispriced lines you’ll see all season. Take the Huskers +8 and thank the books later when Emmett Johnson is dancing into the end zone under the lights while the White Out crowd files out in stunned silence.

Go Big Red. The sharp side has never been clearer.

Florida-Tennessee has never needed extra spice, but this year it comes pre-loaded with 30 years of Steve Spurrier’s ghost still haunting Neyland Stadium. The Head Ball Coach went 8-4 against the Vols while wearing orange and blue, won a Heisman in Gainesville instead of Knoxville, and spent the 1990s turning every post-game press conference into a stand-up routine at Tennessee’s expense. “You can’t spell Citrus without UT” wasn’t just a joke; it was a prophe..Tennessee made three straight trips to Orlando while Spurrier’s Gators went bowling in New Orleans. The hatred never left Volunteer country, and it’s about to get another chapter this Saturday in The Swamp.

Fast-forward to 2025 and these aren’t the Fun ‘n’ Gun Gators or the Peyton Manning Vols, but the betting board is screaming opportunity. Florida limps in at 5-5 overall and 3-4 in the SEC, yet oddsmakers have hung a home underdog number for only the second time in the last decade. History says that’s a mistake: when Vegas dares to make Florida a home puppies, the Gators are 9-1 against the spread over the last ten instances. In this specific rivalry? They’re 4-0 ATS the last four meetings, including two outright upsets as dogs. Single-conference revenge spots have been even kinder...5-1 ATS under Napier and his predecessors when the calendar flips to payback season.

Tennessee rolls into Gainesville ranked and favored, but Josh Heupel’s road résumé is uglier than a Rocky Top hangover. In true road conference games when not coming off a double-digit loss, Heupel is 8-18 straight up and a disastrous 8-18 ATS. Narrow it to games where his defense is allowing 21.7 or more points per game (they currently sit at 29.0 PPG allowed) and it gets comical: 1-8 ATS. The Vols are also 3-7 ATS in their last ten as road favorites, 1-5 ATS in their last six against SEC teams .400 or worse, an..most importantly they have lost ten consecutive games in The Swamp dating back to 2003.

Florida’s offense has been a rollercoaster of frustration, yet Tennessee’s defense is surrendering 387 yards per game and has given up 27 or more in five of its last six contests. That’s the exact threshold where Tennessee is 1-5 ATS this decade. Translation: the same Vols unit that got torched by Arkansas and struggled with Kentucky is now tasked with slowing down a desperate Gator running game on a field where they haven’t won in two decades.

This isn’t 1996, and neither sideline has a future Hall of Fame troll in a visor, but the numbers and the ghosts align perfectly. Florida +3.5 (or better) is the play, with heavy consideration on the moneyline for anyone feeling particularly spicy. The Swamp is about to remind everyone that some rivalries never really change...even when the coaches do.

Pay the citrus tax, Tennessee. Steve Spurrier is somewhere smiling.

Florida to cover

The Big 12’s basement has never looked uglier than it does in late November 2025. Two teams with a combined five wins, one of them already mathematically eliminated from bowl contention, and the other clinging to life with a quarterback room that looks like a MASH unit. Yet here we are, staring at a 13-point spread that feels almost insulting...until you realize Oklahoma State is the one catching the points. Give me UCF -13 and let’s cash this ticket before the Bounce House inflates and common sense deflates.

Scott Frost wasn’t entirely joking when he floated the idea of dusting off his Heisman finalist cleats to run scout-team offense this week. The Knights are down to two scholarship quarterbacks—neither of whom looked particularly healthy in last week’s 48-9 embarrassment against Texas Tech. Tayven Jackson, the nominal starter, limped through 128 passing yards and took a beating. Davi Belfort, a redshirt freshman who has thrown exactly nine collegiate passes, is the emergency parachute. Cam Fancher and Jacurri Brown are both out for the season with broken ribs and a shredded AC joint, respectively. Frost is literally running option plays with walk-ons in practice just to give his defense a look.

And still, somehow, UCF is the play.

Oklahoma State has quit. There’s no kinder way to put it. The Cowboys are 1-9, winless in Big 12 play, and fresh off a 14-6 loss to Kansas State in which they finally won the yardage battle… and still managed to lose by eight because they can’t stop turning the football over. They’ve dropped 18 of their last 19 games dating back to last season. Interim coach Doug Meacham is 0-7, and the roster has checked out faster than seniors on the last day of high school. This is the worst Oklahoma State team in the modern era, and they’re walking into a stadium where UCF has been a covering machine.

The Knights are 10-2 against the spread in their last dozen conference home games when they actually win the game, and even in defeat they rarely get blown out in Orlando. The Bounce House remains one of the most underrated home-field advantages in the spor..sweltering heat, deafening noise, and that ridiculous inflatable tunnel that seems to hypnotize visiting teams into early mistakes. Oklahoma State is 3-5 ATS this year as a two-touchdown (or larger) underdog and has failed to cover in six of its last seven road games.

The advanced metrics are a bloodbath. UCF ranks in the top 20 nationally in points per play allowed (0.30) despite all the offensive chaos. Oklahoma State is 131st in scoring defense (36.3 PPG) and dead last in the Big 12 in turnover margin. The Cowboys give the ball away like it’s burning their hands, and UC...somehow, someway....still forces turnovers at a top-25 rate even while starting backup quarterbacks who learned the playbook last Tuesday.

Yes, the Knights have scored 24 points combined in their last three games. Yes, the quarterback situation is a five-alarm fire. But this week they get an Oklahoma State defense that ranks 134th in total defense and has allowed 427 yards per game in conference play. RJ Harvey is still healthy, still averaging 5.2 yards per carry, and still capable of ripping off 150+ on the ground against a Cowboys front that quit tackling sometime around Halloween.

Lay the 13. Take it to 17 if it goes in that direction. UCF’s season is on life support, and nothing resuscitates a dying campaign like beating up on the one team in the league that’s already flatlined. The Knights still control their own bowl destiny with games against Oklahoma State and Colorado remaining. They’re not letting this one slip away at home.

Projected score: UCF 38, Oklahoma State 17. Cover feels like the floor, not the ceiling.