Picking Winners in College Football

by: Jim Kruger

Before any sports season starts that I am going to be betting on, I try to find as many angles as I can from any and all sources that I believe can give me an advantage in betting on the team that will cover the spread.  Some handicappers look at the fundamentals of a team such as how a team blocks and tackles, stops the run, etc.  Others look at situational aspects such as how a team, any team, does after a win as a road underdog and now they are favored.  Others look at specific team trends, such as the bad ATS (against the spread) record Fresno State has had after a loss.  

The bottom line is that it really doesn’t matter how one handicaps, all that matters is whether you are cashing tickets.  I like to find some high level filtering approaches that help me put teams in early categories of “play on” or “play against”.  Naturally, as a season transpires, teams can move from one category to the other. 

In some sports, there is credibility in the premise if you can pick who is going to win the game straight-up, you will have a winning year betting.  In college football last season, including bowl games, the team with the most points at the end of the game had a 565-202 record against the spread.  Of course you must remember that any underdog that won a game outright obviously covered the number in that game.  College football underdogs last season won games straight-up 23.1% of the time. 

Last season there were 30 teams that covered the spread at a rate of more than 60% for the season including post-season play.  Only five of those 30 teams, 16.7%, had a straight-up losing record.  Two squads clocked in at .500 records, both 6-6 for the year.  The combined SU record of these 30 teams was 275-128, 68.2%.  Collectively, they beat the number 67.8% of the time, 257-122. 

If teams with winning records do such a good job in beating the oddsmaker's line, do losing teams have a strong tendency to have a poor ATS mark?  To quote the former governor of Alaska, “you betcha!”

Teams that finished with a below 40% ATS record for the 2008 campaign in college football only won outright 143 times out of 382 games, a 37.4% frequency.  The rate that you cashed a ticket betting on these teams was even lower, a 30.2% ATS record.  Of the 31 teams that fall into the “below 40% ATS category”, only 7 had winning records with one coming in with a .500 slate.  

So, just being able to pick which team will win a game outright should help you increase your winning percentage betting on college football.  As noted above, teams with winning records have a better shot at having a winning ATS season.  And, just the opposite is true with losing teams dropping more games against the spread than they win.  It would be advantageous if we could determine what a team’s final record will be in 2009.  Is there a method to project what a teams’ won-loss record will be? 

Obviously, one can put many, many hours into studying a team and evaluating their schedule to try to determine what their final record might be before the season kicks-off.  This is very time consuming.  There is a short-cut to help determine whether a team will win more or fewer games this season compared to their SU record last year.

First, note which teams’ won-loss record  improved or worsened by three games or more from the season before.  Looking at how teams did in 2008 compared to 2007, 44 of the 120 FBS schools won-loss records varied by three or more games between the two seasons.  Starting with the 2003 season and marking each season’s record, there were some very interesting results.

If a team won three or less fewer games from the previous season, there is a very strong trend that they will improve their record the next season.  Actual numbers show these teams that dropped down three or more wins from the previous season have the same or a better record 85.1% of the time in the coming season.  Over the past four years, this has happened 63 out of 74 times.  In this scenario, only 11 teams out of 74 have had a worse record the following year.  Some of the teams that suffered a three game or more drop in wins last year are Tennessee, Michigan, and Central Florida. 

On the flipside of the equation, when a team improves by three or more total straight-up wins from one season to the next, there is a trend definitely worth noting regarding how their won-loss record will be this year.  After a three or more jump in the number of seasonal wins from the previous year, teams fail to improve their win total 80.3% of the time in the following campaign.  Eighty-one teams have had a three game or more improvement since 2003, but only 16 of them had a better record the next year after such an improvement.  Three of the 24 teams that had such a jump in 2008 and could fall in season wins this year from the previous season are Rice, Minnesota, and Ball State.  

The stats and trends I have mentioned are more tools one can use in handicapping college football.  The method of looking at the differential in straight-up wins from one season to the next can be beneficial for bettors who like to place wagers on a team’s season wins number.  No matter how you do it, having a road map at the beginning of a season on how you believe every team will perform for the year is beneficial to building your bankroll.

Jim Kruger Past Articles

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