Indiana at Nebraska
UCF at Oklahoma St
College Football Predictions
Below is a different type of article, not the usual analysis and game pick. It’s about the handicapping process, for those who like to ‘cap their own games.
If you’re not a handicapper and just want picks skip to the end of the article.
I’m not sure how much time I spent handicapping each week but I know it’s a lot.
I could do the math and figure out how much per day, then multiply it by 7 for my weekly average but I don’t want to because I’m sure it’ll make me think I should be spending more time on other things (a polite way of saying “Get a Life!”)
But what can I say, I love crunching numbers.
I love coming up with new math models or situational spots, then running every game from the previous few weeks through the new system to see if I can come up with a play that gives me a winning or losing percentage to bet ON or AGAINST.
It’s like mining for gold.
This week I spent even more time than usual on handicapping college football and I think my prospecting pan may have come up with a few gold nuggets.
I’m not going to get too wonky and explain the methodology but I do want to share some basics of my handicapping process and some picks with you, sides and totals.
Since my NP spot seems to have bottomed out this season I’m desperate to come up with something new for Over/Unders.
I have one new model that I used for my article this week on the Ohio State game but it doesn’t kick out a lot of spots, so I took the formula that I used for T1 Ov/Un’s and applied it to a new computer simulation that gives out projections on the final score of both teams in a game.
I applied it to every game on last week’s schedule (Week 5) and got records of
Ov 2-3, Un 2-3.
I applied it to Week 4 and got records of
Ov 0-3, Un 6-3
I went back one more week and in Week 3 I got
Ov 2-2, Un 9-4.
The total numbers for the three week look back:
Ov 4-8. That’s a 67% Fade AGAINST.
Un 17-10. That’s a 62% play ON.
Two games qualified this week.
The Troy game on Thursday was an Under and it went Over.
That record is now 17-11, a 60% Fade.
On Friday, BYU qualified for an Over and it stayed Under.
That record is now 4-9, a 69% Fade.
Here are all the games that qualify today…
Ov: Ind/Neb, Tulane/Army, Mia-Oh/Mass, Duke/GT, I’ll/Mich St, C Mich/Ohio, AF/N I’ll.
Un: UCF/Ok St, WF/NC St, Maryland/Ohio St,
SD St/Oregon St, LSU/Kent, Coastal/Marsh.
For sides, I decided to try using one of my Bowl formulas on regular season games. In one of my articles this week I mentioned the 16 Dogs I gave out at PredictEm for last year’s Bowls.
I eliminated two of the teams, Memphis and Missouri State, because I had a conflict wherein another system gave me a high percentage play AGAINST them.
The remaining dogs went 10-4.
It was the first year I applied this model.
It’s based on a plus/minus differential within an odd statistic that most handicappers don’t look at.
For example, let’s use turnovers.
I look for a positive number versus a negative number.
If I see Team A is -4 on turnovers for the season and Team B is +7 AND team A is the Favorite in the game, the play would be on the dog, Team B.
This new model is based on a plus-minus differential (not turnovers. I was just using that for an example.)
Because the obscure stat I base it on changes after each week’s games I can’t go back and run the previous week’s games through this system and see what record I get.
But I know how well it performed in last year’s Bowls and I can apply it to this week’s games.
Here are the dogs that qualify this week:
South Alabama, Washington State, UCF, Tulane, and Syracuse.
South Alabama and Washington State Games have already been played and the new model covered both times as the Dogs won.
I could get into the standard stats for each of the teams I’m betting today, how they perform on Ov/Un’s or what the record is when they’re Dogs, but it’s irrelevant. These plays are based strictly on new, unique handicapping models I came up with.
Usually you only roll the dice at the craps table.
This week, I’m rolling the dice at the sports book and hoping these new models keep kicking out profitable numbers and don’t start to level out.
My plays:
UCF +10′
Ind/Neb Un 48′
Check the PredictEm Forum for my Saturday updates and any added games.
