[bigboydan]

I found this article and, thought you guys might want to check it out.

Betting tips for the bowl games

By Stephen Nover

Downgrade a team if it plays at home. Go against a team that has been playing well. Disregard a team’s home statistics.

No, this isn’t a primer on how to lose football wagers. It’s the way to successfully handicap college bowl games.

“Since practically all bowl teams play on the road, I throw out all their home stats,” said handicapper Bryan Leonard.

Arizona State is one of the rare exceptions this bowl season. The Sun Devils meet Rutgers in Phoenix for the Insight Bowl. Arizona State plays its home games in nearby Tempe, Ariz. That’s not necessarily a good thing, though, for the Sun Devils.

“Players are more likely to go stale because they don’t get to take a trip or visit a place with a special atmosphere,” said professional gambler Dave Malinsky.

It’s an entirely different experience handicapping bowl games compared to regular season games. In no other situation do teams wait four-to-six weeks before resume playing again.

This can ruin any momentum a hot team might have had leading up to its bowl game.

“I like to go against teams that are surging at the end of the season, and go on teams that are fading at the end of the season,” Leonard said.

The reason for this is line value. With some teams going 1 ½ months without playing things can level out.

Colorado may be a perfect example. The Buffaloes were 7-2, but then lost their last three games, including a 70-3 loss to Texas in the Big 12 championship game. Those three defeats probably had something to do with Colorado buying out Coach Gary Barnett’s contract. He won’t coach the Buffaloes when they meet Clemson in the Champ Sports Bowl.

“Colorado looked terrible the last three games,” Leonard said. “No one will bet on them. But the line will be greatly inflated because of that.”

The quality of a team’s conference and coaching are key bowl handicapping elements.

“Over the last two months of the regular season it’s 90 percent conference games,” Malinsky said. “So here’s where you get the chance to handicap conference vs. conference.”

This is where you can really match wits with the linesmaker because it’s difficult to make a number on two mediocre teams from different conferences matching up.

“Weak team against weak team is the toughest lines to set,” Malinsky said. “Texas-Southern Cal is an easy line to set. Akron-Memphis is a whole different story.”

Coaching can’t be overlooked.

“A prime factor is what coaches do with the preparation time,” Malinsky said. “For some teams it’s a blessing. For others it doesn’t help at all. One thing that impresses me about Southern Cal and Pete Carroll in recent bowls is how well prepared they’ve been. The last three bowls they’ve played, against three very good teams, they gave up one first half touchdown.”

Studying a team’s recent bowl history sometimes can prove useful.

“I look at track records,” Leonard said. “For instance, Boston College always seems to cover in bowls. Notre Dame doesn’t. That kind of thing can help.

“I also want to see if a team is excited to be in a bowl. Michigan is a team that normally gets to go to quality bowls. Now they’re not. The situation with Oregon being a possible BCS participant not going to a BCS bowl bears watching. Those are teams I might be looking to fade.”

Some Georgia Tech players voiced their displeasure about playing in the Emerald Bowl in San Francisco against Utah.

“Sometimes when teams get sent to a place they don’t want to go to there can be a backlash,” Malinsky said. “Georgia Tech got stuck going all the way to San Francisco. They thought they got shafted. The coach had to tell the players to stop talking about it and to start focusing.

“Sometimes those teams don’t play very well.”

Money won’t really start coming in on the bowl games until later in the month.

“So far action has been minimal on the bowl games, mostly from those who are shaping up the market now,” said Jeff Sherman, sports book manager at the Las Vegas Hilton.

Some of the early moves at the Hilton are Rutgers from +13 ½ down to 11 ½ against Arizona State; Louisville from +9 ½ down to 7 ½ against Virginia Tech; West Virginia from +9 to 8 against Georgia; Cal up from -6 to 7 against BYU; Oregon from -2 to 3 against Oklahoma and Texas Tech from -1 ½ to 2 ½ against Alabama.

Bookmakers traditionally do well on the bowls. Handle should be especially huge on the Texas-Southern Cal game, the matchup many were hoping would happen.

“With the higher volume of wagering and teams more recognizable to the public, the bowl season has recently fared better than the regular season for the books,” Sherman said. “There is an unprecedented anticipation for this year’s Rose Bowl between two highly backed public teams (Texas and USC).”

[Illusion]

Good info, thanks dan.