Handicapping a College Football Game

We’ve been talking a lot about the nuts and bolts of handicapping, what’s important, what isn’t, where to get great stats and injury information… and the weather. Now, it’s time to put it all together. Get out your pencils, or pens if you prefer. There won’t be a test after this. The real test will be when you bet your hard-earned money…

Let’s start at the beginning…

We get the current sheet showing the rotation numbers and the corresponding teams/contests. The sheet will look like this:

Lines come up at different times, but the very first lines for college football come up online. BetOnLine tends to put them up first on the internet. In Las Vegas, NV, Wynn Sportsbook has been the first to post college football lines, typically a few hours after the lines are posted online. Check with your local sportsbook about when it plans to hang its lines. You may not get a straight answer, so keep checking to see when it happens. Typically, individual sportsbooks will maintain the same schedule.

However, prior to the lines being posted, you should have done some prior work, getting an idea in your mind what the correct line should be. It’s okay if you haven’t had time to do this, but it helps to figure out, at a glance, if the opening lines available to you are right on or a little off, or maybe way off. I use Sports Insights for this. But others are available, Vegas Insider is also a good one.

It is helpful to see which books are hanging what lines. In the initial posting, there may be a point or two difference, which may offer value if you can bet quickly. Yet, by game time, the lines have settled and there is often no difference at all.

POWER RATINGS

In a previous Advanced Content post, we discussed Power Ratings, where to find them and how to use them. This is where they come in, as you evaluate the games and the associated power-rated differences between the two teams in the matchup. The two sets of Power Ratings I use most are S&P+ from Football Outsiders and Sagarin. Note at the bottom of the Sagarin page, he has provided his “Predictions.” These are final score predictions his computer has calculated. This can be a useful tool, but please do your own work first. You can use the predictions as a reference. Or not, you can go straight to the predictions if you want. But you will find, they are about 50% accurate. You cannot make money at this if you are only right half the time!

Use both sets of Power Ratings I discuss here the same. Subtract the smaller number from the larger number and this is the predicted margin of victory, after adding Home Field Advantage, which will be discussed, below. When using the S&P+ stats, use the numbers in the Rating column. I write those numbers into the College Football Sheet grid, as shown by the image to the right.

The S&P+ power ratings are the set on the left, Sagarin the set on the right. As you can see, there are some large discrepancies in the power ratings and the betting line available at the time this sheet was printed.

POWER RATING ADJUSTMENTS

The first thing we should consider, especially after you have done this a while and have a feel for college football, how the game is played, what you know about coaches, personnel and schedule, is what line seems right and what line seems off. Lines that are right on, we won’t usually consider further. We don’t have to cap and bet all the games. What we are looking for are the lines that are off and offer the most betting Value.

I don’t have the space and time in this post to go through the process for every single game where I have recorded the Power Ratings. Instead, let’s scan the list looking for a game that pops out, again based on the numbers we have so far.

Rotation Number 327 pops right out – Old Dominion at 328 Florida Atlantic. I have a bias toward betting underdogs because of the inherent value of taking points, instead of laying points. To start, I’m already getting two whole touchdowns, the extra points AND the hook when betting this game. Hence, for betting purposes, at the start of the contest the score is Old Dominion 14.5 / Florida Atlantic 0. But we have plenty more work to do before we run up to the counter and get our bet down.

INJURIES

As the season wears on, injuries will pile up. As I write this, there is no official procedure for noting and announcing player injuries and other factors, like suspensions or academic ineligibility in college football. The NFL has a protocol for this procedure, but college football does not. College football most likely will in the future, so stay tuned.

You must have the most up-to-date information, thus you want to use sites that update on a regular basis. The site I use (unless or until I find a better one) is Don Best. Right at the top of the list of alphabetized college football programs, the site displays the most recent update. Be sure to check this throughout the week, as things happen in practice and with bad grades. Now, we scan down to our two teams: Florida Atlantic looks pretty healthy:

However, as I write this, that wily old dog Lane Kiffin is the Owls head coach. So, we really shouldn’t trust what he’s saying about injuries. This is a great time to go to the school’s football website.

Here is a link to the football program portion of the website and I have navigated to Recent News. Well that doesn’t tell us much and it certainly doesn’t update us about injuries. We can look at the Roster, but that isn’t going to tell us who’s in and who’s out. We can also search local newspapers for information. But we know a lot about Coach Kiffin and he is unlikely to give us any information we can use to handicap this game.

Let’s see what Old Dominion has to say about the health of the Monarch squad:

Okay! Looks like both squads are healthy! Or neither side is being forthcoming about the health of their players, which is more likely. Knowing the status of injured players might give us an advantage, but that might also provide an advantage to the other team, knowing who is in and who is out.

WEATHER

Weather matters in football contests played outside. Time of day, heat, humidity, rain and wind all matter. The factor that matters most is Wind. Windy conditions affect the passing ability of the teams more than any other factor. We would like to have a good idea what game time playing conditions will be. Take your pick of whatever weather site you want to use, but do not rely on the Weather Channel. They could provide us a huge service by breaking down the weather for each contest, but they don’t.

Florida Atlantic University is located in Boca Raton, FL, zip code 33431. I like National Weather Service. According to the Saturday forecast, looks like it might be breezy, perhaps even a little rain, which could affect the passing game, possibly even the kicking game:

SATURDAY

A 20 percent chance of showers after 2pm. Mostly sunny, with a high near 87. Breezy, with an east wind 8 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.

You can also get general college football weather forecasts at other sites, like Vegas Insider.

HOME FIELD ADVANTAGE

The rule of thumb is to add about 3.0 points to the home team’s Power Ratings, to account for the Home Field Advantage (HFA). This is a very rough approximation. In my experience, this number should not be used universally. Some stadiums will enjoy a greater HFA, some stadiums may not have a HFA at all. Yet, we can find information about the stadium and general playing conditions and average crowd size. The Steele magazine tells us FAU Stadium has a Grass playing surface, holds 29,495 people, and Last Year’s Average Capacity was 64.4%, which ranks 91 out of 130 FBS stadiums. We can infer from this, even if the joint is full, which it likely won’t be even though this is an important conference game, it won’t be very loud or disruptive.

Of course, other factors go into HFA, most importantly is that the other team has had to travel to play this game. The Old Dominion Monarchs are located in Norfolk, VA, which is about a two hour plane ride from Boca Raton. However, they stay in the Eastern Time Zone, so disruption to their schedules and internal body clocks will be minimized.

Let’s give the Owls the benefit of the doubt on HFA and add 2.0 points to the Power Ratings. The S&P+ margin would then be 10.5 and Sagarin winds up at 13.0. Sagarin Ratings tend to be very close to the opening Betting Line.

SCHEDULE

Strength of Schedule (SOS) matters. According to Sagarin, FAU has played the #58 schedule, ODU has played the #110 schedule. In other words, FAU has faced the more difficult competition (schedule) thus far in the season. The Owls opened up at Oklahoma and got pounded. Old Dominion hosted Virginia Tech and came away with a thrilling victory. I’m not saying SOS doesn’t matter here, it does, but ODU will be ready to play. Since this is an important conference game, I will not add points to either side for SOS. This is a judgment call on my part.

COMMON OPPONENTS

Sometimes we can get valuable insight when handicapping a matchup by analyzing how two teams have played a common opponent, especially if the common opponent is in the same conference. We do not have that factor to consider with this matchup.

SCHEDULE – SANDWICH GAMES AND LOOK-AHEAD GAMES

We must always analyze the schedule for both teams in the matchup. This is an important conference game, so both teams should have the other team’s full attention. However, there are games known as Sandwich Games and Lookahead Games. These occur when there is a relatively “easy” opponent is scheduled prior to (Lookahead) or in-between (Sandwich) the next opponent. The concept is the same with both situations. Often a college football team will be more concerned with its next opponent, than the opponent they are playing this week. Because lines are set largely due to Power Ratings, oddsmakers often will not adjust for this situational spot. Underdog bettors can get exceptional value betting these situational spots, so always consider the schedule and who’s “on-deck.” Sometimes a team will have a Bye week on deck. In this case, the team will either go all out knowing it can rest for the next 10 to 14 days or so, or if they have injuries piling up, the team may limp into the Bye week and take it easy, to lessen or minimize the injury situation. This is up to you to handicap and decide what is most important and how a team is likely to play!

PUBLIC TEAMS

We don’t have to worry one bit about either FAU or ODU being Public Teams. However, the concept must be considered in other situations. Public Teams are those that are well-known, which the public love to bet, and often are considered to be teams that “cannot lose,” much less who couldn’t cover the huge spread. Oddsmakers know who the public teams are and will add a few points to the Public Team line to punish public team bettors. Think about it for a few seconds and you will come up with a list of Public Teams in your head (Alabama and Notre Dame should immediately come to mind!).

BETTING AGAINST THE PUBLIC

The concept of Public Teams leads us directly to the notion of Betting Against the Public. It is human nature, and well known by the oddsmakers, the “Conventional Wisdom” will lead recreational bettors to over-bet those teams the public is most familiar with. Not only have the oddsmakers already added a few too many points to the Public Team betting lines, but now the recreational bettors want to load up on the Public Teams, thinking “No way can this team lose.” What is usually left out of this subjective reasoning is the Public does not bother to think about the “lesser” team covering the spread. It seems counter-intuitive when you first get started to take a team getting 30 points, because that team seems so inferior when considering their stronger opponent. This is often exactly where you want to be as a bettor. The Public will load up on a Public Team, without considering their schedule and other important factors. This is where you can get tremendous value because you have considered these factors. Some weeks a Public Team will take the week off and just go through the motions, especially if they have a huge game on deck next week. Always be on the lookout for these situations.

You can stay on top of the betting action by using one of the many online betting tools available that breakdown and display where the action is. I have mentioned Sports Insights many times and this is an excellent resource. There are plenty of others out there, so feel free to look for another site you might like better.

Sports Insights breaks down where the bets are on the Spread, Total and Moneyline. They seem to be constantly changing the participating sportsbooks and criteria they use in their algorithms, but the information presented is tremendously valuable, when you know how to use it. The public does not always get it wrong, so you must consider all the factors discussed in this article.

Considering our ODU / FAU contest, Sports Insights shows the Spread Breakdown as 46% of the spread bets on ODU, with the remaining 54% of spread bets on FAU. This is not a large discrepancy, but it might give us some insight, especially as the numbers change, as we get closer to kickoff.

Sports Insights has a companion website called Action Network. Action Network does an excellent job breaking down and analyzing where the Public Money is and where the Sharp Money has been wagered. I recommend paying the small annual fee to be able to access this data.

TALKING HEADS

We want to do the vast majority of our own work. But, from time to time, there is value in listening to what others have to say about the contest. We won’t hear many of the talking heads talking about our ODU / FAU matchup, but we will hear them talking about other matchups, usually games of greater magnitude or more meaningful to the college football playoff.

Disregard much of what you hear, as the majority of that is opinion. The talking heads have not put the time into handicapping the matchup, as you have, but sometimes these guys have angles you have not considered. Be sure to be able to discern between fact and opinion. I use the Talking Heads as confirmation of my play, or to alert me to something that has somehow escaped me. Yet, as I said about this matchup, not many Talking Heads are even considering it.

OPPORTUNE BETTING TIME

Sometimes this is the hardest part – betting to get the most value out of the line. Often, when lines are first posted, we find the greatest value. We have done our work and know the number we want. When we see it – we bet it! Other times, we use our judgment to wait out the line, thinking we can get a half point, or more, for free. A lot of judgment comes into betting optimal lines, so consider this to be a work in progress on your part. However, the test is this: You are doing an excellent job handicapping and betting when you get the best number, especially when compared to the closing line. In short, you have done your job when you get the best number and the line moves to a worse number. What do I mean by that? Let’s get back to this example of Old Dominion and Florida Atlantic. Sports Insights tells us the line opened at Florida Atlantic -14.5. As I write this, the line is down to FAU -13.5 in a lot of shops. We will record where the line closes, which means the final line immediately prior to kickoff, to see exactly how we did. But, as it stands right now, we got 1.0 points for free, betting the opening line. We are on the upside of the Key Number of 14.0, which is substantially better than being on the downside of 14.0 at 13.5, for obvious reasons.

HALF POINTS (HOOKS) MATTER

I cannot stress enough the importance of getting the best number or getting “your number.” It might seem ridiculous, but half-points matter more than you think. People often ask why lines are not always whole numbers like 3.0, 7.0 and 10.0? What’s the deal with the half point? This is a topic for another article, because numbers are so critical. But the important thing to know now is, for wagering purposes, half-points often decide which side wins and which side loses. We would much rather have +14.5 than +14.0 (because we avoid the tie if the game ends with a margin of 14.0) and +14.0 is much better to have than +13.5, because if the game ends on the number (14.0), we lose.

THE HOOK

You will hear, as you get deeper into this, about the “efficiency” of the market. As we progress across the spectrum of sports betting and handicapping, the Power Rating algorithms are constantly getting sharper. A sharp line is a line that is difficult to beat. Or, in other words, the sharper the lines, the more efficient the market. One of the reasons to set a line with a hook, say -3.5, is due to the efficiency of the market. Power Ratings may well say the efficient line should be -3.0. However, oddsmakers are exceptionally good at what they do, so they will often add the Hook (the half point) to get bettors on the wrong side. It is our job, as handicappers, to know which side of the Hook to be on. As I write this, most sportsbooks will allow us to “buy the hook” to the whole number of 3.0. But if they do, they charge much greater juice of -130 and even -140. Personally, I have found -3.5 is an awful line to bet. I will either take the dog at +3.5, buy the hook to -3.0 or +4.0, depending on the side I like, or stay away from the game (line) entirely.

AGAINST THE SPREAD (ATS) STATISTICS

Trends matter. However, trends can lose one week, or more, but the trend is still in effect. Be careful about trends and do not bet them blindly. One trend we are interested in, though, is Against the Spread (ATS) stats. Why is this important? The only constant in college football is change! One team may stink for a lot of seasons but, with the hiring of a new coach and the implementation of new schemes, a team’s prospects can (will) improve. This is enormously important because these teams will almost always be under-the-radar. If we can identify a team that is winning ATS, and they may not be winning their games straight up, we can make a lot of money. Action Network, as mentioned above, provides ATS stats, as do other websites. Familiarize yourself with teams that other bettors may not be considering.

As I write this, here are the current ATS statistics:

As I write this, FAU is second to last in ATS success, going 0 for 5 in their five games, so far this season. Old Dominion isn’t much better, going 1-2 ATS on the road, but going 2-3 ATS overall. This is a battle for the ages!

Box Scores

Often, the final score of a game does not tell the true story of what happened during the game. Turnovers are a huge factor, as is Time of Possession and Red Zone success. Sunday morning is an excellent time to review the box scores of the games played Saturday. Grab a cup of coffee and go through the box scores to get an idea of how truly dominant, or lucky, one team was over the other. Turnovers are considered in the realm of “Luck.” They are currently celebrated on the sidelines, as they should be due to the huge disruption they cause. But if one team was unlucky on turnovers this week, or even over the course of an entire season, that trend probably will not continue and may well quickly reverse. Understand how important turnovers were to the outcome of a contest.

Keeping Relevant Statistics

Most of the websites I have mentioned in this article keep many of the relevant statistics for us. As long as we can take a “global” perspective, we don’t have to record a lot of stuff ourselves. If we know where to find the important numbers, and can keep some of that stuff in our heads, we can access the information quickly. However, what we must do is keep accurate accounts of what we have bet and how we have bet. If you are a golfer, you know reporting a 5 when you really shot a Snowman doesn’t help your game, in the long run. Keep excellent records. You will quickly be able to tell where your betting game is strong and where it is lacking. Sometimes the truth hurts, but you’re never going to get better at betting if you don’t know where your money is, and your wins and losses are, at all times.

Final Forecast

I have not cherry-picked this game and am finishing this write-up on How-To Handicap College Football Saturday morning, about four hours prior to kick-off for the game between the Old Dominion Monarchs and the Florida Atlantic Owls. And here’s the deal about handicapping and betting sports: We must do all of our work ahead of time. Unlike any other job you have ever done, this job is different. We have no ability to affect the outcome of the game. Even if we have done our work perfectly, two groups of young men, along with the team’s coaching staffs, will decide how this game is played and, ultimately, whether we win or lose or bet.

The Bet: Old Dominion Monarchs +14.5

After all that analysis, it is time to go up and make the bet. I have circled the Rotation Number and the start time of the game. The start time might seem superfluous, but if you have traveled to Las Vegas or are not on your normal time wherever you are placing the bet, it is critical to know the start time of the game, in LOCAL time. All times shown on this sheet are Pacific Time. Always be sure to understand the correct time, and make any necessary conversions, wherever you are in the world!

And that’s about all there is to it. The approach I have detailed is my standard approach to handicapping and betting a college football game. You may follow the exact same approach, disregard it entirely, or adapt the approach I have outlined to your specific approach. There are many paths to the correct answer. By all means, if you find something I have not considered, please contact me and tell me all about it. I have absolutely no ego when it comes to handicapping and betting sports. The idea is to win money at this!

Okay…that’s enough for now.