LOOKING AHEAD IN BETTING FOOTBALL
With the football season in full swing, now is the best time to examine some betting trends and teams headed in the right and wrong directions.
Football betting trends
College teams coming off three consecutive covers are 5-8-1 ATS in their next outing.
College teams off a home underdog win are 4-10 ATS in their next game.
NFL teams are 4-8 ATS flying two or more time zones away from home.
NFL home dogs are 7-14 against the spread.
NFL teams that are favored by three or less points are 20-10-1 ATS thus far.
Teams going in the right direction
Georgia Tech: Head coach Paul Johnson has brought a disciplined style of organization, with different expectations in his first season. Johnson’s run option attack is chewing up 290.2 yards per game, which is fifth in the country. They still turn the ball over too much but they overcome this problem by having the 14th ranked defense. This is a Play On team, already at 4-0 ATS.
Tulsa: How can you not like a team that scores 56.4 points a game and averages 596 yards a game? At 5-0 and 5-0 ATS, the remainder of the schedule is doable, though hardly certain. Even if Arkansas is down, they are still an SEC team and will present Tulsa problems with their speed in early November. Two weeks later if they are 9-0, a trip to Houston might be the last major obstacle for an unbeaten season. Scoring 50 points a game will help any team cover spreads.
Teams going in the wrong direction
Any Big East team: The Big East is 6-21 ATS in non-conference play. In an article I wrote on this subject, I mentioned that once conference play started, underdogs would hold real value. To date, all four favorites in Big East action are 0-4 ATS.
Washington State: After four non-productive seasons with Bill Doba as head coach, Cougars brass picked up the services of Paul Wulff, who had built a strong program at FCS Eastern Washington.
Dismiss the 48-9 romp over Portland State and the Wazzou offense has scored 50 total points in five contests. On the way, the defense has allowed 48.2 points a game, which means they have lost by 38 PPG against schools in BCS conferences. Finding another win or two and cover might require the services of “The Mentalist”.
North Texas: The fortunes have plummeted since winning the Sun Belt Conference four years in a row and going to the New Orleans Bowl from 2001-04.
Starting in 2005, North Texas is 7-35, 14-26 ATS. How bad are things in Denton, TX? They are next to last in the country in points scored at 13 a game and dead last in points allowed at a ghastly 52.2 per game.
San Diego Chargers: What’s the problem with San Diego? Start with LaDainian Tomlinson who saw no action in the preseason and has been dinged in each game. The Chargers can’t run him to set the tone of the game, and are forced to rely on quarterback Philip Rivers. San Diego also has the worst pass defense in the league surrendering 265.6 yards per game.
Green Bay Packers: One obvious visible note, they are not playing hard and tackling worse. In the Atlanta loss, Packer defensive players were in position to make tackles for little or no gain and instead of wrapping up, they tried to use a shoulder and were bumped off. With injuries piling up and Aaron Rodgers trying to play with a bad wing, the Pack is quickly developing as a play against team.
