Here are all the current college football handicapping articles
from Maddux Sports.
If you are like me then the biggest sporting activity of
every summer is counting the seconds until the next college
football season starts. While college football bettors can
get very impatient in the dog days of summer, there are a
lot of things they can be doing to sharpen their knowledge
and prepare themselves to be ready to find the edge next season
- especially early on in the season when most people won't
have done their homework ad won't be prepared as a result.
Here are six good ways for college football bettors to spend
their summer months.
Every spring college football fans are inundated with news
from spring games. We can even watch more and more of them
every year as they show up on TV to satisfy hungry fans. Calling
most of them games is being generous - they feature adapted
rules and even scoring systems at times, and coaches typically
don't hesitate to get right on the field if they need
to. A lot of what happens at a spring game doesn't mean
much, but there are a few things that smart bettors will want
to keep an eye on because they can give us clues about how
prepared a team might be for the start of the season. Before
we look at those elements, though, there is one thing to keep
in mind - you need to remember who isn't playing in
the game. Starters who aren't healthy aren't going
to play, and incoming freshmen may be expected to start once
they make it to campus. before you draw any conclusions from
the spring game you need to look at how closely the lineup
that is playing the spring game is related to the one that
we'll see in the fall.
The major college football preseason polls are out. Every
year when they come out I immediately rush to absorb what
they have to say. Soon after, though, I find myself thinking
about what they mean and the impact that they have for bettors
- both positive and negative. Here's a look at how the
polls can be helpful, and how they can cause bettors - especially
more casual ones - some problems.
We constantly hear about the importance of returning players
in college football. The biggest reason why Boise State is
so good this year is because virtually all of their players
have played together before. Why are Florida and Texas struggling
in the face of major expectations? Well, a major loss of personnel
starting at the quarterback hasn't helped either team.
Early in each college football season there are countless
issues that can cause headaches for bettors that need to be
considered. One of the more challenging is determining whether
a new starting QB is ready to be a strong contributor from
the start or if betting against him is going to be an attractive
option. Here are eight questions to ask to help evaluate how
strong a QB might be out of the gate.
I don't think that there is a better sport to bet on
than college football. There are so many games each week that
you can find something attractive no matter what you like
to bet on, and the lines are usually not nearly as tight as
they are in the NFL. It can be a betting gold mine, but it
can also be very easy to make mistakes that will harm your
chances of being profitable. Here are six of the biggest mistakes
casual college football bettors make.
I'm not sure that there is a time in any sport that
is better for making money with relatively little risk than
the first two or three weeks of the non-conference season.
Teams aren't game tested, and most bettors haven't
done the work required to be ready for the season, so the
lines are soft and value is available in full supply. To cash
in, though, you have to know where to look, and you have to
be willing to put in the work that most bettors won't.
Here are five places where you can often find nice value in
the early non-conference season.
When you are thinking about betting on college football you
have two general options. You can bet on the high profile
games that everyone will be watching, talking about, and betting
on, or you can instead go for more obscure games featuring
ignored teams from lesser conferences that are well off the
public radar. There are advantages and disadvantages of both
types of games for bettors. Here's a look at four advantages
of each.
I love almost everything about college football. In my eyes
there is no better sport on the planet. There are just a very
few things that I don't like about it. One of them tends
to happen most in the first couple of weeks of the season
- when top level teams from BCS conferences play virtual exhibition
games against FCS teams. There are a handful of BCS teams
that can give BCS teams a good contest, but for the most part
it's just a massacre. I don't take any pleasure
at all in watching a team lose by 50 points, and I don't
gain any respect for a team that wins like that. I just wish
they didn't exist - I'd rather cut the schedule
to 11 games than have one game for a lot of teams look like
this. Regardless, the games do exist, so we have to deal with
them. The biggest question, then, is what can actually learn
from these games? How do we assess what we actually learned
from these games, and what was deceptive? Here are six things
to keep in mind when you try to make your assessment.
Read the full article on
College
Football Blowouts
In non-conference play it is very common for good teams from
the top conferences to schedule games against badly outclassed
opponents from weaker conferences. Since there is no preseason
in college football teams use these games to work out the
kinks, build confidence, and give young players game experience
in a relatively low stress setting. These games are rarely
exciting to watch, and they often feature very high scores.
They also typically involve very high point spreads - spreads
of 30 points or more are quite common. Point spreads that
big provide real challenges for bettors. It is obviously easy
to figure out which team is better, and which one is very
likely to win the game. You just need to decide how much they
are likely to win by. A team can easily win a game handily
and still fail to cover a giant spread, and that can cause
serious headaches for someone who bet the favorite.
Read the full article on
How
To Pick CFB Games
So far this college football season we have already seen
some truly demoralizing, soul crushing losses. I'm talking
about games where a team goes in with high hopes, yet comes
out trying to figure out how they lost by 20. Or 50. If the
team that gets blown out is a generally lousy team then it's
not that hard for bettor's to deal with them going forward.
It's when a team seemed decent going into a game and then
gets blown out, though, that really makes handicapper's head
hurt. How do you deal with those teams next time out? Here
are six questions to ask yourself when you face these situations.
We have seen teams play other opponents in their conference
in college football in each week since the start of the season.
We are at the point in the schedule, though, here conference
games start to become more of a rule than an exception. In
many ways football is just football, but there are key ways
in which handicappers have to make adjustments when handicapping
conference games compared to when picking winners in non-conference
contests. Here are four ways in which handicappers need to
adjust.
There is nothing in college football that gets more attention
than the polls. Where a team is ranked and how they are moving
in the polls is a topic of endless discussion, debate, and
arguments. Used properly and logically, the polls can be a
useful tool for bettors - especially those who don't
pay really close attention to college football. If you don't
use them logically, though, then there are even more ways
that the polls can cause you problems and lead you to bad
decisions. Here's a look at both sides.
Read the full article on
Top
25 Poll Betting
One of the challenges of handicapping college football is
the presence of gimmick offenses. Gimmicks don't really
work in the NFL, but coaches like Mike Leach (before he got
himself fired) and Paul Johnson have built successful careers
out of doing what no one else is doing. Year after year their
offenses have worked to pile up massive amounts of yards,
and to put big totals on the boards and win more games than
their recruiting should probably allow them to win. Determining
how a team is going to play against a quirky, pass-heavy offense
like Texas Tech was or Houston is, or how they will face the
relentless, non-stop running attack of Navy, Air Force, or
Georgia Tech is a tough thing to do. Here are seven sets of
questions you can ask yourself to help decode whether a gimmicky
offense is scary enough to win, or whether it will be tamed.
Betting on halves in football can be more attractive in a
lot of ways than betting on whole games. When you are only
betting on 30 minutes instead of 60 then there is less time
for the unexpected to occur, and fewer things that can work
against you. First half bets can be particularly attractive
because, unlike betting the second half, you have several
days before the game to handicap and look for value spots.
When you are betting on the first half in college football
the easiest way to find value is to look for situations that
are likely to create at least a temporary mismatch. If you
can predict that one team is likely to be off balance and
somewhat unprepared early on then you may be able to predict
that they are going to have a substandard start to the game,
and that betting against them in the first half could be advantageous.
The advantage of betting the first half instead of the whole
game in these situations is that the coaches have the opportunity
at halftime to make adjustments and get the game back on track,
and that can minimize the advantage over the whole game. Here
are seven common situations in which first half bets can be
attractive.
Read the full article on
1st Half CFB Betting
On the surface betting the second half in college football
games seem like a great idea. After all, before you have to
lock up your money and make a bet you get to watch the entire
first half, or at least see the stats to get a sense of how
the game is going. While the bets are attractive for that
reason and others, the problem is that you have a very short
amount of time to make a decision, and it can be particularly
challenging on a busy day when a lot of games are at the half
at the same time. That doesn't mean that these bets
aren't worth making - they definitely are. It just means
that you have to have a plan in place and solid discipline
if you want to make these bets effectively. If you lack those
factors then second half bets are an easy place to go broke.
Here are six rules for making winning second half bets in
college football.
Read the full article on
2nd
Half CFB Betting
Betting totals in college football can be a very lucrative
undertaking if you do it properly. When a lot of people are
betting on the sport, though, they consistently make simple
mistakes that cost them money and make what should be a very
profitable bet. Here are seven mistakes to avoid when betting
on college football totals.
We are two-thirds of the way into the college football season
- more in several cases. In most cases we know about how good
most teams are by now. More importantly, by this point the
general betting public feels very strongly that they know
what teams are like and what to expect from them. There is
an opportunity to be had, then, every time that a team performs
better than they are perceived to be capable of. One type
of team that can perform like this is one that started the
season playing poorly but is quietly rounding into form. Because
of their bad form they aren't getting a lot of attention
paid to them, so their improvement doesn't get the attention
it deserves, and the odds they face better reflect how they
were than how they are. Here are four ways to judge a team
that could be ready to outperform their perceptions.
We're at the point in the college football season -
about two-thirds of the way through - when it becomes clear
that there are some coaches who are coaching their final games
with their team. Some schools will fire their coaches in-season
- a couple have already this year - but more often the schools
will keep the coach around through the season in an attempt
to minimize the disruption of the change. It's not hard
for handicappers to spot situations like this, but it can
be much harder to figure out how a team is going to react.
Sometimes a team will totally quit on the coach because they
know they have nothing to play for. Other times, though, they
will rally around the departing coach. Both situations can
be very profitable, but you have to figure out which one is
likely with a team so you can be sure to be on the right side.
Here are five questions you can ask yourself as you try to
figure it out.
We are nearing the end of the college football season. That
means one fantastic thing - rivalry games. The most storied
programs save their most hated opponents for the end of their
schedule. That makes for spectacular spectating. It also makes
for very interesting handicapping. In some ways these games
are just the same as any other football game - you still have
to move the ball down the field and get it in the end zone
more often than your opponent does. In some key ways, though,
rivalry games are different, and they need to be looked at
differently than other games. Here are five ways the games
are unique. Before we get to those, though, we should be specific
- I am not talking about games between fierce conference rivals,
or teams that have played tough games against each other for
the last couple of years. I am talking about historic series
against hated opponents that have been played for decades
- the Big Game, the Iron Bowl, the Civil War, the Holy War,
Bedlam, and so on. These are blood games. If a team struggles
all year but wins their rivalry game the fans will be happy.
We are in the dying days of the college football season -
most teams have just one or two games left. At this time of
year it can be very profitable to be able to spot teams that
have packed it in - those that just don't care anymore.
Those teams are likely to be underdogs, and often serious
underdogs, but often times they play badly enough that they
easily lose by far more than the spread facing them - especially
if they are playing a good team. Here are six ways to spot
a team that could be on the verge of quitting.
The end of each college football season means that there
are a stunning number of coaching changes. Guys are fired
because they don't meet expectations, and the dominoes
start to fall as people move up to better jobs, coordinators
become coaches, and so on. Typically, nearly a fifth of jobs
change coaches every year. That's a lot of change for
handicappers to stay on top of - new coaches bring new philosophies,
new schemes, and new coordinators, and they recruit different
types of players.
We're heading into conference championship weekend - including
what could potentially be the last Big 12 championship ever.
In most ways conference championship games are just like other
games - or at least other games with a lot at stake. In some
key ways, though, these games are different. Smart bettors
will recognize these differences and look for ways to exploit
them. Here are six of those ways.
When the college football season ends most sports bettors
just move on to the next sport. If you really want to be successful
with your betting, though, you need to take a little time
to look at what happened last season, and what you can do
next season to improve your bottom line. Here are five quick
ways you can look back at the bets you made to learn from
them and see what mistakes to avoid. Most of them rely on
you having records of the bets you made and how they turned
out to look back at. If you aren't keeping records of
each bet you make - something as simple as a spreadsheet or
even an old fashioned notebook - then you absolutely need
to start. Now.
We hoped enjoyed these articles, more college football stuff
can be found on our
blog. We will be diving into the bowl games as well but here
are some additional
articles on betting college football and tips to win!
