College Football Handicapping – Betting on Bad Teams; 40+ Point Underdogs

College Football – Betting on Bad Teams; 40+ Point Underdogs
by Jerald of Predictem.com

In handicapping we have all heard the phrase the trend is your friend but we need to constantly evaluate the trend to see if it is relative to the current times. A few years ago it was pointed out to me that it was very profitable to bet on college underdogs who were getting 40 points or more. I went back and did some research and found that it was indeed very profitable. Here are the results from 1996 thru 2005:

• 1996 6 wins 3 losses
• 1997 5 wins 5 losses
• 1998 5 wins 3 losses
• 1999 4 wins 3 losses
• 2000 10 wins 4 losses
• 2001 6 win 1 losses
• 2002 5 wins 2 losses
• 2003 4 wins 0 losses
• 2004 2 win 1 losses
• 2005 2 win 1 losses

The combined record is 49-23 (68.1%). A 1 unit play on each of these games would have netted you +23.7 units.

I went into the year of 2006 with great expectations when the opportunity arose to play on a 40 point dog; however, I was greatly disappointed by the results. There 5 games that qualified under this scenario and only 1 of them was a winner. Is there a reason they did so poorly last year of is this a trend that has passed its time? I feel that it is just an aberration as there is a long history of success with this trend and I will not abandon it after 1 disappointing season.

I also lowered the threshold to see if there was an advantage of playing underdogs of 35 points or more. I only have the numbers to support the 2005 and 2006 seasons but it does look like there is not much advantage as there were 15 wins and 14 losses.

As with any trend we constantly have to monitor them to see if they will continue to hold true. I will be looking for underdogs of 40 points or more and play them this season but if they are underdogs in the range of 35-40 points I will need to have other reasons to support them other than the fact that they are getting a lot of points.