The 2018 college football season is right around the corner. You’ve likely already made your season win total bets and the time is nearing for the week one bets to be placed. This is a good time to take stock of some of last season’s strongest betting trends for Big Ten teams. Which of those trends seems likely to carry over to the early part of this season and which ones should be discarded as irrelevant entering the 2018 season?

-Maryland as an Over Team-

The 2017 Maryland Terrapins had the highest over record of any team in the country (tied with Ole Miss and Oregon State). The Terps were over the posted total in nine of their 12 contests and they topped to the total by an average of 8.8 points per game. For a team that struggled mightily with quarterback injuries, this is quite surprising. The numbers show us a couple of things: Maryland’s defense underperformed expectations for much of the season and their offense still was capable of producing some decent numbers, even with subpar quarterback play. For example, they scored 42 against Indiana and 24 against Rutgers before cratering at the end of the season. Does this information pertain to the early part of the 2018 season? I think it does. The Terrapins have both Tyrell Pigrome and Kasim Hill back and hopefully healthy. The offense should be able to consistently run the ball with Ty Johnson and Lorenzo Harrison and the passing game can’t get much worse than it was near the back end of last season. I think the defense is still a huge question mark and I think the Terrapins will be involved in a number of “shootouts”. The early season schedule features games against Texas (only 3-10 over/under in 2017), Bowling Green (7-5 over/under) and Temple (6-7 over/under) and I would expect those offenses to outperform their expectations and help push those games over the posted total.

-Purdue as an Under Team-

While Maryland was the Big Ten team with the most “over” games, the Purdue Boilermakers were the surprising team with the most “under” contests. The Boilermakers were 4-9 over/under and were under the posted total by a convincing 8.8 points per game. Despite having offensive guru Jeff Brohm at the helm, the Boilers relied heavily on a veteran-laden defense to lead the way for them in 2017. The numbers never quite caught up that as the lines were set to Brohm’s reputation of having great offenses. I think this information is telling but I don’t expect it to apply to 2018. The Purdue defense is in complete rebuild mode and the offense returns both quarterbacks (Elijah Sindelar and David Blough are set to split time unless one emerges as a clear leader), the bulk of their running game and this is year two in Brohm’s system. The schedule is very intriguing as Purdue opens with Northwestern on August 30, hosts Eastern Michigan and has clashes against Missouri and Boston College. The Northwestern line will likely be quite low and I anticipate the Tigers and Boilers to have a shootout while Boston College could run all over the starting from scratch Boiler defensive line. It would be very surprising to me is Purdue was not over in more games than they were under in 2018, a sharp turn from last season.

-Northwestern as Good Value ATS-

The Northwestern Wildcats always seem to be somewhat undervalued. In 2017, Pat Fitzgerald’s crew was 9-4 against the spread (ATS). In 2016, the Wildcats were a very solid 8-5 ATS. 2015 was more of the same as Northwestern again went 8-5 ATS. Since 2015, the Wildcats are a remarkable 25-14 against the spread. That is good for the fifth-best cover percentage (64.1%) in the country and the best mark in the Big Ten. A difficult schedule in 2018 has expectations dampened in Evanston and I think there is more value to be had in taking the Wildcats. I think they have the second best roster in the West and Pat Fitzgerald has a way of getting the most out of his players and their system. They will be slight underdogs at Purdue and probably slight favorites against Duke at home. I anticipate they’ll be heavy underdogs in at least four contests (Michigan, at Michigan State, Wisconsin and Notre Dame) and going against the Wildcats in those situations is a risky proposition. Optimism is high that Clayton Thorson will return to full health by the time the season kicks off, I think their running game has a chance to be better than it was a season ago behind breakout star candidate Jeremy Larkin and I trust Northwestern’s defense to be good in the red zone and solid overall. Bet with the Wildcats, particularly when you get a significant number of points.