Betting Weekday College Football

College football on Thursday night’s has become part of the fabric of television viewing for fans and bettors alike. It’s an outstanding way to start off a hectic sports wagering weekend, with mostly just a one game to focus on. Over the years the lineup has changed, starting with Western Athletic Conference, Mountain West and Conference USA teams, to now SEC, ACC and even Pac-10 squads are now viewed moreregularly.

For fans attending these games, it’s a nice way to break up the week and for college students at the game, it’s just one more excuse to get into the adult beverage department to be primed for an evening football game. ESPN has always supported these events by sending an excellent announcing team, lending further street cred to the importance of the contest.

A database we use goes back to 1992 college football, thus we thought we would dig up numbers to see what has happened on Thursday nights in betting college football. When the process started, the thought occurred to include other week nights, more specifically Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday nights. Since ESPN has widened the window of days that college football can be seen, it made sense to at least investigate what might be out there.

At is the case in any of our studies; we set up parameters to simplify matters. For example, Thursday games only include those that were on major networks. This eliminated several games from the first week of the season, when eight to 12 encounters were to be played, yet only a couple was actually televised. Games that appeared on ESPNU and other similar networks were not included, though we did include the Mountain West games that have started to dot the Thursday lineup, as these teams used to be on the docket and the conference is certainly legitimate.

On the other days of the week the same rules applied, nationally televised games was a prerequisite, thus that took off MAC and Sun Belt games that were shown either in local markets or regional based cable outlets. We did include all televised contests from the day after Thanksgiving in our work. Once again for the sake of simplicity, we eliminated all games in which a “Push” was involved, thus if the numbers don’t exactly jive, that would be the reason.

We decided to break up Thursday into two segments, 1992-1999 and 2000 to present. Don’t worry about why, we just did it that way because it seemed like the thing to do.

Thursday Night College Football Records 1992-1999

Home Favorites 30-11 SU
Home Favorites 23-17 ATS
Home Underdogs 13-32 SU
Home Underdogs 23-22 ATS
Totals –Over -32
Total- Under -54

Home favorites were a very steady winner as expected, winning outright 73.1 percent of the time. With a big enthusiastic home crowd and the players pumped up to be the focus of a national cable audience, this was and continues to be a big deal, being the only football game on television. It is interesting to note, a 57.5 percent spread cover percentage is quite good for these teams. The home underdog straight up record though accurate, is somewhat misleading. Why you ask, ESPN will often times try to set up games with more well-known schools on the road, setting up the potential upset or quality game. If a team is significantly better, they should win on the road, yet as the spread record shows, home underdogs have held their own. We did notice that majority of covers by home dogs came when they were catching eight more points. Smaller spreads saw the visitor covering just over 57 percent of the time.

It’s impossible not to notice the wide differential in the total, with the Under being the play 62.7 percent of the time. The best theory is many of these games involved the smaller conferences known for high scoring games. The oddsmaker placed too much value in the public supporting this idea and raised the numbers above typical parameters. The players having additional motivation were more keyed up for defensive effort, thus leading to lower scores, again one possible explanation.


Thursday Night College Football Records 2000- to present

Home Favorites 62-13 SU
Home Favorites- 42-32 ATS
Home Underdogs 23-27 SU
Home Underdogs 29-20 ATS
Totals –Over -61
Total- Under -64

What jumps off the page is the winning percentage of home favorites, 82.6 percent. What was even more remarkable, six of the losses have been since 2006, meaning the winning percentage was much higher. Despite the difference, the spread record of the home favorite remained about the same at just under 57 percent. Home underdogs had far greater success covering the lines at 59.1 percent and won outright 46 percent of the time, up over 17 percent from previous years. The oddsmakers got a better handle on the Totals and they were virtually even.

Friday College Football Records 1992- to present

Home Favorites 67-21 SU
Home Favorites 41-47 ATS
Home Underdogs 16-37 SU
Home Underdogs 26-27 ATS


This is a difficult day to gauge results because of how the games setup. Most regular ESPN Friday night games have involved non-conference games, where teams no little about each other. Later in the season, we do have conference matchups from the WAC, MAC and C-USA delivering a variety of results. Then the aforementioned Thanksgiving Friday is completely about rivalries and we all know anything goes with those heated affairs. The easiest aspect to understand this is not an easy day to find value looking any particular way.

Tuesday and Wednesday are relative newcomers to the wagering landscape and don’t think for a minute the World Wide Leader in Sports doesn’t know that bettors will watch almost anything when it comes to football. Tuesday did not yield anything in terms of being useful with home favorites 8-7 and 6-9 ATS and home underdogs 5-3-1 against the spread, winning only twice in nine tries.

Wednesday has one area that will be worth considering this college football campaign. Over the last several seasons, home favorites have won 12 of 17 games played and covered a strong percentage of the time at 11-5-1 ATS, a 62.5 percent clip. A very nice play for a little Hump Day action.

In summation, Thursday home favorites are tremendous on the money line if you can take a few losses and are running a hair over 57 percent winners since 1992. Home underdogs have shown an inclination to be a good wager this decade and Wednesday night home favorites do deliver almost as good as Dominoes.