CFB Plays: Army at Tulane, Texas State at Marshall, Akron at Ball State
It’s time to make some moves.
I have some solid data accumulated over the first couple of weeks of the season.
I need to use my numbers now, before reversion toward the mean comes into play and the stats start to level out.
And I know exactly which of my plays I’m going to turn to this weekend.
Including Tuesday and Wednesday’s games, one of the two models I use for handicapping college totals, T1, is 13-10.
Doesn’t look like much overall, just three games above .500, but breaking it down into the subcategory Hm/Rd gets me some very playable results.
At Hm, the record is 9-4, 69%, after picking up wins on Tuesday with the Liberty game (I didn’t use it) and Wednesday with the UTEP game (I wasn’t going to make the same mistake twice, so I jumped on this one.)
The total on UTEP/Sam Houston was 47.
They combined for 52 points and a W on the Over.
It should have been Over by much more.
Red Zone turnovers and TWO blocked field goals made it a little scary in the 4th quarter, but in the end, I got the number I needed.
And, good news – I have NINE games that qualify on Saturday.
The bad news?
I have NINE games that qualify on Saturday.
I like choice, but nine is a bit much.
I’m tempted to play them all, but I’d rather have a smaller card.
Question is – how do I whittle it down?
The answer – comparing handicapping models.
This is one of the benefits of running various models for the same sport.
T1 is 9-4 on Overs.
The other model I ‘cap is T2.
I don’t get a lot of plays in that model early in the season, but now that we’re at the midway point, more games are starting to qualify.
And four of the nine Overs in T1 also qualify as Overs in T2.
How does this help me get out of making nine buys?
T2 has a record of 0-4 on Overs.
It’s a small data sample, but I’m not going to buy a spot that’s off to a 0-4 start.
So I eliminate following games:
Wash/Mich, Ohio St/Wisconsin, Penn St/Iowa, and Mizzoo/Auburn.
That leaves me with five spots:
Army/Tulane, Tex St/Marshall, AK/Ball St, S Miss/LA Laf and Fla Atl/S Fla.
Before I buy any of those spots, I’m going to look through the first few weeks of the season and see if any of those teams qualify as a T1 Over.
Last week LA Laf qualified for an Over and the game stayed Under.
Eliminate the Not-So-Ragin Cajuns.
Also, last week, South Florida qualified for an Over, and the game went Over.
Buy the Bulls ( maybe; depends on how the earlier action goes.)
That leaves me with three other spots to look at.
The Army game is an early start at 12:00 EST. Let’s see if we can start the morning with a winner.
Based on the number for this game, Army would have a record of 4-2 on the Over, 1-1-1 when they’re on the Rd like this game.
Tulane would be 5-1 to the Over, 2-1-1 at Home.
This spot looks good to me.
The other two are midday starts, I’m buying both of them too.
Based on the number for this week’s game, five of the Zips’ seven games would have gone Over, including 3-0 on the road.
Ball State would be 3-2-1, 1-1 at Hm.
Texas State would be 3-3, 1-2 on the road.
Marshall would be 3-3 also, 1-2 at Hm (but Marshall’s last three games all easily sailed Over the total on this one so hopefully that trend will continue.)
The South Florida game is late afternoon.
By the time it kicks off, I’ll know the results from the other three games, so I’ll wait to buy that one and make a decision after I see the earlier results.
That’s it for this week, the games I’m playing and the thought process for the handicapping behind making the picks.
I could add other standard stats for these teams, but it’s irrelevant.
I’m buying these games based on my own handicapping methods.
I’m buying these games based on what has consistently worked well for me in the past.
After a couple of dry weeks with only a few plays, I actually have seven NP spots, including four Unders.
I’ll take a closer look at those spots in either another article or the forum later this week.
Buys:
Army/Tulane Ov (wait to buy; opened 46, now 44′)
Tex St/Marsh Ov 66′
AK/Ball St Ov (wait; opened 43 now at 41)
Recap: 2-0-1
Record: 11-11
Review: Had W’s with Kent St and Hawaii, got a Push with ‘Bama
