CFB Pre-Season Magazines offer intrigue

An annual right of summer is to gather the various college football magazines and go over the predictions from each conference. As a writer and sports handicapper, I have been pouring over data for months now and have strong feelings and opinions about how the various conferences races could play out. Part of winning college football wagers is having the necessary information to place your self into a position to win. This is why I annually make pilgrimages to the various book stores to purchase all the magazines (thankfully, the StatFox Edge was delivered to me) containing college football material.

The reasons for doing this are attaining knowledge and giving myself the best chance to win. First, I’m seeking information on the coaches and teams I may have missed in my own personal research. No matter how hard or far you dig, you will always find other useful nuggets. Next, is learning about all the players, particularly the difference-makers on each team, which is a powerful tool to understand if a team may be over or underrated before the season starts. Lastly, just to see what other so-called experts believe in making predictions. For example, in the Big East, FIVE DIFFERENT teams have been chosen to finish first and earn the BCS berth, talk about a difference of opinion! This is worth reading to understand why these publications would have such varying of beliefs. You can judge for yourself if the points are valid or just nonsense. Plus this allows one to find strong situations to place futures wagers at places like DiamondSportsbook.com on particular teams.

Listed below is the accumulation of all the conferences and the teams ranked in order, taking all the pre-season publications that were acquired, along with further analysis. Today we will at the ACC, Big East, MWC, Big 12, WAC, C-USA and Independents.

ACC -Atlantic
1) Florida State
2) Clemson
3) N.C. State
4) Wake Forest
5) Boston College
6) Maryland


ACC – Coastal
1) Virginia Tech
2) Georgia Tech
3) North Carolina
4) Miami
5) Virginia
6) Duke

Analysis- Virginia Tech ended the ACC’s eight-year BCS bowl drought with 20-7 win over Cincinnati in the Orange Bowl last season. Now, coach Frank Beamer wants to climb back into the national spotlight and an opening game victory over Alabama could do just that. Virginia Tech is unanimous choice to play in ACC title tilt. Georgia Tech has 17 starters back and is thought to be the only team in the Coastal Division to give the Hokies a run. Butch Davis is acquiring more talent annually in Chapel Hill; however the offensive losses hold North Carolina back. Florida State was almost everyone’s pick to capture the Atlantic Division, as talent is getting back towards the glory years, still with quite a ways to go. Clemson and North Carolina State are the most likely contenders to take down the Seminoles. Both have offensive weapons, which are curtailed with defensive deficiencies. The Nov. 14 contest in Raleigh could be meaningful. Its clearer today why Tom O’Brien left Boston College, as the Eagles could be grounded. This conference has a great deal of ground to makeup to be in elite status, but should be competitive. They must find the right place for ACC title game, since the crowds are embarrassment to league.

Big East
1) West Virginia
2) South Florida
3) Rutgers
4) Pittsburgh
5) Cincinnati
6) Connecticut
7) Louisville
8) Syracuse

Analysis- Conference’s that are not particularly outstanding will talk about having balance. This can make for extraordinarily entertaining football on the campuses involved, but it plays havoc trying to pick a winner. In reviewing the different college football magazines, the Big East stood out with five different teams chosen to finish atop the conference. Here is the other really crazy aspect, four of the top five listed above were also picked to finish 5th. (Rutgers was exception, there lowest rating was 4th) What makes this conference so confounding is every positive is outweighed by a negative. New quarterbacks, changing defenses and sometimes questionable coaching, suggest this league is ripe for underdogs to flourish.

Mountain West
1) Utah
2) TCU
3) BYU
4) Air Force
5) Colorado State
6) UNLV
7) New Mexico
8) San Diego State
9) Wyoming

Analysis – Utah completed second unbeaten season in five years, with big time blowout win against Alabama in the Sugar Bowl. The Utes might not have finished with a perfect record, since they hosted nearest competitors TCU and BYU in Salt Lake City. Everything won’t be quite so easy in 2009, having to play those teams on the road in what should be three hotly-contested affairs between the best three squads in the Mountain West. The Horned Frogs are more settled on offense and has better athletes on defense than BYU, giving them slight edge. The rest of the conference will have three new head coaches and the chasm between the top teams and the rest is roughly about the length of the Continental Divide across the western United States.

Big 12 North
1) Nebraska
2) Kansas
3) Missouri
4) Colorado
5) Kansas State
6) Iowa State

Big 12 South
1) Texas
2) Oklahoma
3) Oklahoma State
4) Texas Tech
5) Baylor
6) Texas A&M

Analysis – The quarterback position in the Big 12 won’t have the same depth as last season; nevertheless the conference should feature more than enough firepower from its field generals. Current Heisman Trophy winner Sam Bradford returns to Oklahoma, just not with the same cast on offense that averaged video game-like 51.1 points per contest. The Sooners defense should be considerably tougher with nine starters back and they picked up a few first place votes over favored Texas. In almost any other year, Colt McCoy would have won the Heisman himself, after completing NCAA record 76.7 percent of pass attempts. The Longhorns only weak spots are finding every down running back and defensive linemen to chase down talented signal callers. Oklahoma State should break into top three in the South, with QB Zac Robinson, RB Kendall Hunter and WR Dez Bryant leading the way. In the North Division, Nebraska has few more talented football players than Kansas; however don’t count the Jayhawks out with Todd Reesing at the controls. Missouri will fall without Chase Daniels around. Colorado is sleeper pick (in this case good or bad), with 10 offensive starters back and home games against Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska. Buffs have only four starters returning on defense that ranked 78th in 2008.

WAC
1) Boise State
2) Nevada
3) Louisiana Tech
4) Fresno State
5) Hawaii
6) San Jose State
7) Utah State
8) Idaho
9) New Mexico State

Analysis- Last season was to be rebuilding year for Boise State and all they did was finish 12-0 and lost 17-16 to very good TCU outfit in the Poinsettia Bowl. Now the Broncos are still relatively youthful with a ton of experience and everyone’s choice to win the WAC yet again. In the unlikely event Boise State stumbles, look for Nevada to be ready to step in. The Wolf Pack has quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who plays like the Pistol offense was made for him. Louisiana Tech with 17 starters back in the fold and a running game that averaged 4.65 yards per carry could make noise in the WAC. If the Bulldogs should upset Nevada on the road in October, mark down Nov.6 as the biggest day ever potentially in Ruston, LA, with Boise State coming to town. Fresno State and Hawaii are middle of the pack in the WAC, with San Jose State the best of the rest.

Conference USA East Division
1) East Carolina
2) Southern Miss
3) Memphis
4) Marshall
5) Central Florida
6) UAB

Conference USA West Division
1) Houston
2) Tulsa
3) UTEP
4) SMU
5) Rice
6) Tulane

Analysis- The Big 12 offenses last season averaged a college football best 439.6 yards per game, guess who was second? That’s right football wizard, Conference USA at 401.8 yards per game. Every one has to find their niche in life and after much turmoil; C-USA is attracting offensive talent, which just isn’t determined good enough for the bigger conferences. It was also a banner postseason for the conference with 4-1 SU and ATS record. Houston has unfinished business of losing the West Division in last regular season contest to city rival Rice. Nearly everyone figures quarterback Case Keenum will finish the deal in 2009. Tulsa and UTEP are next in line, but several paces behind. In the East Division, a slight edge goes to East Carolina, being the surprise defending conference champions, with 18 regulars back in Greenville. Southern Miss is loaded as well, with 16 starters and they visit ECU on Nov. 28. The only true unanimous choice in C-USA action is UAB will finish last.

Independents
1) Notre Dame
2) Navy
3) Army

Analysis- Being the football coach and quarterback at Notre Dame are always pressure-packed positions, but maybe never more than this year. It’s BCS or join the unemployment line for Charley Weis in South Bend. Most magazines have Jimmy Clausen rated 13th to 23rd best quarterback in the country, if he’s not in Top 10 by season’s end, he and the Irish will have failed. The beat keeps rolling along for the Navy, with another winning season and minor bowl to compete in. Normally conservative Army stepped out of character and brought in Rich Ellerson to change results of 12 straight losing seasons. Ellerson was known innovator at Cal Poly and will install triple-option offense with passing efficiency a real key.

Part 2 - Friday

Be cautious when betting on NBA streaks

I can’t cook, I’m terrible. If I was the head cook at Leavenworth Federal Prison, inmates on death row would turn down their last meal. Every time I go near the stove, our dog howls. Since I work out of my house (never late for work!), I do a fair amount of cooking dinner for my wife and I.

Before I went off to college (40 miles from home), my mom (probably the worst cook there is) tried to teach me everything I needed to know to survive on my own. Unfortunately, along with sewing buttons on a shirt, I never got the grasp of how to prepare a meal very well. However, last week was different.

On Monday I looked up a recipe for cooking salmon. I had never heard of putting mayonnaise on a fish before, but Rachael Ray swears by it, so who am I to argue. I mean, she has a TV show, I don’t. With some seasonings, it was surprisingly good.

Tuesday, I decided to finally pull the crock pot out of storage that my Aunt June (also, a terrible cook) had gotten us as a wedding gift. I cooked a rump roast that was so tender and tasty my wife thought I should open a restaurant. Three consecutive great meals, I’m on a roll!

That streak of fine food ended abruptly the next night cooking steaks on the grill. First, I accidentally seasoned them with taco spice instead of pepper. I went inside, got distracted by an intriguing episode of “Cops”, and forgot about the food. The asparagus and mushrooms had literally turned to ashes and the filet mignons were now part of the grill itself. I was on a streak, everything was looking great. But then I failed miserably, the streak was over.

There probably isn’t a sports handicapper out there that doesn’t look at streaks. Everybody loves to bet the team on the winning streak or against the team on the losing streak. And why not? That seems logical.

I had a friend call me Sunday saying he didn’t understand why the Lakers were only favored by 3.5 points at Atlanta. He stated the Lakers had won their last 5 games covering their last 4 while Atlanta had lost 2 games in a row. He wanted to back the truck up and put it all on LA. I tried talking him out of the wager saying that just because a team is on a streak cannot be the only criteria to use to handicap an NBA game.

I quickly did a database query and found that teams on a three-game or longer winning streak when playing a team on a two-game losing streak only cover the spread 42.9% of the time. I also looked at a team winning more than 60% of the time was on a 5 game winning streak and were away faves, just like LA. They only beat the number 14 out of 36 times, 38.9%. I know my friend didn’t like to hear what I was saying, but hopefully he listened as underdog Atlanta beat the Lakers outright by ten points.

To further understand how teams do when on a streak, I looked at teams who had lost three straight games. To get any worthwhile results, you have to know whether the team is at home or on the road. I did find a spot where betting against the losing team is correct, assuming they are playing at home. Betting against the 3 straight game losers at home is winning at a 57.0% rate, 151-114. Even more profitable is to take the Over in this situation, a 153-112 mark, 57.7%. Just the opposite results occur if our 3-game losers are on the road, they cover at a 54.0% clip.

I expanded the streak to include teams losing straight-up 3 to 5 consecutive games. Again, it depended upon whether the team was home or on the road. Betting against the home team streaking downward provided 57.6% winners with 54.9% of those games going Over the total.

Again, the other end of the spectrum prevailed if our bad streaking team was on the road, 56.2%, 318-248.To determine whether good teams perform differently than bad teams in streaks, I added a team’s winning percentage range to my query. Unless otherwise stated, all records start with the 2005 season and do not include playoffs.

Starting with the smallest of streaks, one game, I looked at how bad teams, ones with a below 40% season record, perform. Remember, a streak starts when you have the opposite result of the previous game. A one-game winning streak means the team lost their game before that. Bad teams that just started a winning streak cover their next game only 48.2% of the time. Bad teams beginning a losing streak of one do better and cover their next game 53.9% of the time.

Good teams, higher than a 60% record, have an unusual pattern after a one-game streak. There is nothing of note on the ATS side, but there is an interesting O/U trend. If our good team has a one-game losing streak and their game is at home, the Under has a 151-118 mark, 56.1%. Even better is if the streak is a winning one—gamer and the game is away: the Under cashes 57.8% of the time.

A good situation to go against the streak is when you have a good team, over 60% winning percentage, which has a losing streak of 2, 3, or 4 games and is an away favorite. Their ATS mark in their next game is 32-12, 72.7%. Since the 2005 season began, a four game losing streak is as long as there has been with a team still favored on the road. If our good team had been a road dog in that exact same scenario, their ATS record has been 22-25.

To emphasize the dichotomy of wagering results home and away, let’s look at how a bad team, below 40%, does on a 5-game losing streak. If their game is on the road, betting on our losers to cover cashes your tickets at a 67.1% frequency, 47-23. Not too far behind is also betting the Over, 43-28, 60.6%. However, if our team is at home, just the opposite happens, they only cover 36.8% of the games.

I believe it is going to be worthy looking for a team that’s dropped 5 straight. Some cappers put more validity in an ATS streak: beating the point spread in consecutive games. They aren’t worried if a team is not winning straight-up, just beating the number. There is virtually no advantage on blindly betting against a team on a streak not covering the number or betting on one that is. I stopped at 5 game streaks, both winning and losing, with the only streak with at least a 5% edge being when teams have covered 5 straight games, 65-53 ATS, 55.1%.

Sometimes you should do the opposite of what seems like the correct wager. Instead of betting against bad teams, less than 40% W/L record, that are on an ATS losing streak of 1 to 5 games and are away, bet on them and you cash that ticket 57.4% of the time, 364-270. It’s kind of like when George Costanza on Seinfeld started doing the opposite of what he thought was right and everything worked out great.

Taking it a step deeper, how about teams that have won and covered in equal streaks: 3 straight wins and 3 straight covers for example. I did the losing side of these streaks also. The results? Goose egg, zilch, nada, nothing! To illustrate, a team that has a streak of 4 in SU and ATS wins has a 50-55 ATS record in their next game. A streak of 3 losses and non-covers has a 122-115 ATS mark in their following contest.

Using teams with correlating and equal streaks gives you no advantage if that is your only handicapping tool. Sure, it’s easy to believe that a team that has won and covered three straight is a good bet. The 3-year results of 131-131 says no.

A statement I hear frequently is to ride out the hot streaks and bet against the cold streaks. Only using a SU or ATS streak as your sole reason for betting on an NBA game is an extremely lazy method to handicap a game and will cost you lots of money.

Jim Kruger of Vegas Sports Authority created this article.