College Football Against The Spread Trends
Several years ago I started looking at how each individual team performed against the spread in one year, and compared that to how they did the following season. I tend to gravitate towards teams who start to get on a nice little run against the spread, or teams in general who seem to be good against the spread just about every season like Boise State and TCU, and in recent years Alabama.
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12 thoughts on “College Football Against The Spread Trends”
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Good article here, GS, and a lot of truth in it. The successful gambler doesn’t get attached to one or two teams in B2B seasons. Vegas catches on to these trends as well.
I agree with you on Kansas State and LSU. I think Vegas will likely inflate the lines on these teams a bit. Although, I think Kansas State is still going to be one of those teams that brings down almost every football game to the final drive. That is just Snyder’s style of play. Unlike last year though, I think K-State’s luck runs out this year and they lose several more of those close games. It is going to be hard for me to bet on ANY K-State games where they are laying points and I will probably stay away from their lines even if they are getting points Under a TD. However, the opposite effect should hold profitable — fading K-State whenever they are giving a good number of points should be a good bet this year.
I think Oklahoma State could be another team that gets inflated lines. They are on a rare B2B run of 9 ATS wins seasons. Unlike some of the dumb Pokes around here, I think this is going to be a rebuilding year this season. Playing a true freshman at college football’s most important position is going to reap some mistakes. I think since Gundy has his contract well secured now, he is more willing to use a season to build for the future. I already see Vegas over-inflating that Arizona game line at -9.5. We can talk more about this game later, but I think if all things remain the same, Arizona has a chance to win this game SU and having +9.5 for cushion is a gift.
By the way, you just had to mention 2007, didn’t you? (Aarrghhh)
BS…I agree about K-State, with the style of football they play, they’ll probably be in about every game this year. But the difference this season is they won’t be a dog in most of those games this time. The only two games they were favored in Big 12 play last season was against Kansas and Iowa State. And they were just 1-1 ATS in those games. This is where the problem lies with this team. They are a team built to play tight games and cover spreads as dogs. But with their disciplined style of offense where they’ll use up all 4 downs at times to keep drives alive, they won’t be a good team at extending leads and covering the bigger spreads as favorites.
A good example of the difference between last year and this year will be their second game against Miami. Last year they were +13 dogs at Miami. This year they’ll probably be double digit favorites, or close to it. What I’m hoping will happen is KSU covers their game against Miami. This will give us some nice inflated lines down the road. And that could very well happen. When I watched the KSU/Miami game last year, KSU could have beat them by 3 TD’s if it hadn’t been for some uncharacteristic mistakes. So they could very well cover that number this year at home as long as the line doesn’t get too inflated.
About OSU, their biggest problem will be in the passing game. I think they’ll be a terrific rushing team. But there are two problems I have with the Pokes this year. They’ve basically been a program that Gundy built for the last 3 years to reach their goal of winning the Big 12 title and make it to a BCS bowl. Where do you go from there? I think what will happen is they’ll relax a little and rest on their accomplishments this season while trying to get back some of their swagger which they are sure to lose this year. So yes, I would say this is at least a semi-rebuilding year in more ways than one. One other important fact that I don’t think I mentioned in Part 1 of my Spread Trends is NO team has won 8 games ATS or more 3 years in a row since I’ve been doing this! Something to keep in mind with the Pokes this year. With a freshman QB and inexperienced receivers, they are more than likely going to have an under .500 ATS season. Which will make me very hesitant to bet on them.
Good research GS…similar to NFL win totals that get stretched each year based on the teams performance the prior season…if you faded the move on rams, bucs, and bengals the last few years you would have been quite profitable (i’m on rams over 5.5 this year)
Great read, can’t wait for part 2. USC looks to be loaded again and I would expect them to do well as other Pac-12 teams drift off. Stanford on the other hand looks to be a big loser here with losing leaders on that squad.
I like the potential of the site, but I’m at a loss why a serious handicapper of the game would spend any time with this type of thing.
Shoebox, thanks for the constructive feedback. So what in your opinion should a serious handicapper be spending their time on?
Shoebox…If your a game to game or week to week handicapper, this kind of info will probably mean nothing to you. To me, playing the spreads in college football and the NFL is no different than going to Las Vegas and gambling. I prefer to find the games that give me the best odds at winning. I look at college football the same way. I try to find the teams that will give me the best odds of beating the spread.
All I was trying to give you was a little bit of a pattern that I’ve noticed over the years when it comes to teams covering spreads. And tie that to how on average they’ve done the next season. Will it keep you from making a play on a side you really like? Probably not. But what I’m trying to do is give you the big picture on how a particualr team will do during the season based somewhat on how it did last year. There are patterns to how teams play after having big seasons ATS. And there are other teams like for example Notre Dame, who has always been a public team, but a poor side for betting. I like to have this kind of info at my side before diving blind into a new season.
Ok, that makes a little more sense to me. Early in the year is more difficult as a whole with no or little data for the current team. I have just found over the years that trends, in my opinion, are more misleading than helpful. That would also hold true for data carried forward to the next year.
Pez…Each matchup has it’s own set of characteristics. For starters I would spend time on statistics, situations, regression, and other vital things that would be important to a good model. As you probably know, it would take a book to explain everything.
Shoebox, thanks for the expanded explanation. I am big into stats but only recently (a few years ago) started getting into regression analysis and models. I would love add some information on those subjects onto the site but don’t feel qualified to write about it. Send me an email if you have any interest and/or anywhere/anyone you can direct me towards? Thx.
This is great info for the upcoming season. I will keep this list handy. I have to agree with you on the Vandy team that surprised many last year.
Thanks for putting this together and sharing it.
FadeMeToWin…It was my pleasure. I hope this info helps. It certainly has helped me over the years. I should have my list of teams that I think have a good chance to beat the spread this year up by sometime early next week. 2012 should be an interesting year. This looks like the most wide open season of football that I’ve seen since 2007. At least it appears that way to me…Good luck