Answers to College Football Questions

While perusing a variety of forums, one common theme found is people have questions and can’t always get the answers they are looking for. This spawned an idea that possibly a number of people have the same or similar questions and we could answer them effectively and efficiently. Let’s not mess around and get to them.

Is it a good idea to bet on heavy college football favorites?

To properly answer this question, it must be determined what a heavy favorite is. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll say favorites of 10 or more points are the dividing line. The standard deviation for home field advantage is 3.7 to 3.8 depending on the year and encompassing all 120 FBS universities. That would mean any home team is roughly six points better than their opposition if playing at home and favored by 10 points. If a team is 10-point road favorite, they would 14 points better (14-4=10) on a neutral field.

Betting large favorites is purely a losing proposition in looking at all games that fit criteria.

ATS Record
2009 - 90-92, 49.4 percent
2008 – 97-103, 48 percent
2007 – 107-122, 46.7 percent
2006 – 115-125, 47.9 percent

This does not include the vig on each wager lost. It’s clearly not a huge losing proposition, but certainly not a good one. Playing these teams as underdog’s is not a good a great wager either (51.9 percent). It’s best to be selective and keep detailed records over a period of time to find out if you have a particular skill in uncovering what side you should be on in games with larger spreads.

Is it better to play sides or totals in college football?

Without a doubt, totals is the way to go, but only if you spend the time to study and know your numbers. Most people bet sides, which the oddsmakers are completely understand. They will always post the sides first, since this leads to immediate action and they can start making a dollar for every 11/10 wager on losers’ vs winners. After the sides have been processed, the totals will typically be released a day later. Because the focus is on the meat and potatoes product (sides), totals releases will often have money limits on bets, since sharps are like circling vultures, looking to pound bad numbers. An indication of what I mean is found in two places. Early line moves on college totals this season (three points or more by Wednesday morning) are 36-21, 63.1 percent and totals that end three or points different than starting number are jaw-dropping 97-50, 65.9 percent.

I’m an old school bettor, does betting on teams that have covered or failed to cover three in a row still hold up?

For probably more than a decade, this was a safe and convenient play for the bettor that needed a quick fix. A team that had covered the spread three consecutive times was set for downfall and was a solid Play Against team in the 54-60 percent range. Teams that had failed to cover for three consecutive games were a quality bet ranging from 55 to 63 percent. These days, not so much. (Numbers based on three continuous games, no bye weeks)

3ATS Wins
2008 24-25
2007 21-22
2006 30-27
2005 34-32

3ATS Losses
2008 21-28
2007 26-25
2006 16-33
2005 29-28

The one angle that has offered the most hope is playing against teams failing to cover a trio of oddsmakers numbers. Thus far in 2009, three-time spread winners are 12-11 ATS and three-time losers are 14-9 ATS in next encounter.

All my buddies tell me they win at parlays, but everything I read says to stay away from them. Should I be playing three-team parlays and what are my chances of winning?
The basic reason one would make a parlay wager is obvious, the payout is higher than a straight bet, and parlays offer the potential for a big payoff from a smaller wager.

Typical payoffs for winning parlays are as follows:

# of games --Payout

2--13 to 5

3--6 to 1

4 --10 to 1

5 --20 to 1

Using these numbers, making three straight bets of $110 each would pay $300 profit if all three games won. With a three team parlay, one wager of $100 and winning all three games would show a profit of $600. Sounds great but here is the sticky part.

A point spread is intended to make any contest a 50-50 proposition. The true odds of winning a three-team parlay against the point spread are 7-1. As shown above, the value derived of winning is 6-1, which any wagering analyst or professional sports bettor would explain are poor odds in one’s favor.

The other negative is you could win two of three bets in the parlay wager and lose $100, as compared to showing a profit of $90 by make three straight wagers at 11/10 and winning twice.

It’s a foregone conclusion the team that wins the turnover battle wins the game most of the time. How does anyone predict who will win the turnovers in order to make money betting?

If it were only that simple. Start with the idea at this juncture of the season, teams that commit a lot of turnovers will probably continue to do so and teams that take care of the ball likely will. The largest deviation from year to year in turnovers is fumbles. A fumble is a random event, once the ball is on the ground, it’s roughly 50-50 what team will fall on it. Much like in baseball winning one run games, fumbles are cyclical events. Some teams are better at forcing them through training and technique; however that doesn’t mean they will land on them every time. From year to year, sometimes you get the breaks and other times you don’t.

One aspect that has the potential to profit from is those teams that commit five or more turnovers and what they do against the spread in the next game. In the last three years including this season, these squads are 73-52 ATS, 58.4 percent. This makes sense as coaches emphasize the importance of ball security after a turnover prone game and the squad comes through a winner.

How do I win betting college football?

Start with the old joke, the quickest way to have $1,000 dollars betting on sports is starting with $2,000. But seriously, each person needs to find their own method. Analytical handicapping is the most full proof in my opinion, as you are dealing with facts. At this point of the season, there is ample information to study from. Knowing how teams do running and passing the ball as well as stopping both tells a compelling story. Within this area is other information to understand.

A team might average 400 yards total offense, yet the opponents they have faced might allow 395 yards per game, which leads to the conclusion this is ordinary offensive team that could struggle against very good defensive club. This creates opportunity to play against such a team.

Situational handicapping is crucial to understand. UTEP is probably the best example of 2009. The Miners have played at home as underdogs versus Houston and Tulsa right after they faced big emotional contests at home. Each team lacked the spark needed to play against hungry opponent and lost outright to UTEP. The Miners were also caught in the same dilemma. After upsetting the Cougars, they went on the road to Memphis, TN as 1.5-point favorites and were drilled by less than menacing Memphis Tigers 35-20.

A number of wise sports bettors place little or no value in trends. I would say it is not a large component to consider, but in college football there are a number of peculiar angles that win year after year and have to be in the mix of information.

Being analytical and using situational handicapping builds winners.