Advice: Should I target a specific conference (New to CFB)

[pats3peat]

I have never seriously capped or followed college football. Ive heard people say focusing on a specific conference helps you. Can you guys go further on this advice, maybe what Conference would you recommend I focus on (a bigger one or a lesser known one).

What would you do if you were starting out?
Did you just focus on your favorite teams, I really dont have any besides maybe BC

[steve18]

Focus on one conference to figure out the trends of teams. It is easier that way to find soft lines.

[pinnacle212]

These are few things i focus on:

Home Dogs: No matter how weak a team may seem. Some will put up a fight. Especially teams with good defenses and weak offenses. This is especially true in the SEC. There is a lot more pro style offenses and solid defenses. A weak team will run the ball all day to give themselves a shot a the end.
Rivalry Games: Rivalry games will eat up a lot of public money. This is especially true if a team has got on a roll. For instance. The Alabama vs Auburn game las year. Auburn is there big rival and played to upset there BCS Championship hopes. At public money like a fat kid eats cake.
When the game is played: If there is a big Thursday Night game big(SEC, Big 12 etc) conference game, Look closely at the dog. Small conference games usually play true to form and a lot of overs.

[pats3peat]

thanks guys. steve/pinnacle.

steve: what do you mean by small conference games usually play "true to form"?, and youre talking about confs like Sun Belt etc right

[pinnacle212]

thanks guys. steve/pinnacle.

steve: what do you mean by small conference games usually play "true to form"?, and youre talking about confs like Sun Belt etc right

True to Form. To be more specific, I like to bet on two small schools (MAC) for example. They are usually very high scoring. This is the main reason ESPN puts them on. Everybody likes to see scoring. The players are rarely on TV so they play to get noticed. I try to pick a team that has been more consistent in there defense, if i take a side. Watch the totals as the year goes on because books will start to adjust.

[BigdaddyQH]

I can not agree. If you concentrate on one conference only, youseverly limit the number of wagersthat you can make. Say you concentrate on the ACC. First, what do you do for the first week, when all of these teams play non-con games? Then what happens when the conference season starts. Let's take one week, say October 9th. Here is the schedule: Va Tech hosts Central Michigan, a MAC team. North Carolina hosts Clemson. Ga. Tech hosts Virginia, Miami hosts Florida State, N.C. State hosts Boston College, Wake Forest goes to Navy, an Independent. Duke and Maryland have bye weeks. So you have 4 conference games to wager on if you concentrate solely on the ACC. You have two possible additional games where one of your conference teams is involved. That is not nearly enough options to wager on.

Another major disadvantage of concentrating on one conference is that it is much easier to figure out early non-con games because the linesmakers have not caught up to the teams yet. They have not made the corrections. The longer the season goes, the closer the linesmakers get to the perfect line. The percentage of upsets is higher in conference games than in non-con games.

[pats3peat]

True to Form. To be more specific, I like to bet on two small schools (MAC) for example. They are usually very high scoring. This is the main reason ESPN puts them on. Everybody likes to see scoring. The players are rarely on TV so they play to get noticed. I try to pick a team that has been more consistent in there defense, if i take a side. Watch the totals as the year goes on because books will start to adjust.

alright so in tv games with small confs, both teams are higher scoring - you pick the consistent defense

I can not agree. If you concentrate on one conference only, youseverly limit the number of wagersthat you can make. Say you concentrate on the ACC. First, what do you do for the first week, when all of these teams play non-con games? Then what happens when the conference season starts. Let's take one week, say October 9th. Here is the schedule: Va Tech hosts Central Michigan, a MAC team. North Carolina hosts Clemson. Ga. Tech hosts Virginia, Miami hosts Florida State, N.C. State hosts Boston College, Wake Forest goes to Navy, an Independent. Duke and Maryland have bye weeks. So you have 4 conference games to wager on if you concentrate solely on the ACC. You have two possible additional games where one of your conference teams is involved. That is not nearly enough options to wager on.

Another major disadvantage of concentrating on one conference is that it is much easier to figure out early non-con games because the linesmakers have not caught up to the teams yet. They have not made the corrections. The longer the season goes, the closer the linesmakers get to the perfect line. The percentage of upsets is higher in conference games than in non-con games.

Good to have differing perspectives in this thread. I figure many people on this forum and bettors regularly bet across many conferences. I see what you mean that it might be limiting.

Does it become too much, Then would it be enough to focus on two conferences for a beginner or what

[pinnacle212]

alright so in tv games with small confs, both teams are higher scoring - you pick the consistent defense Good to have differing perspectives in this thread. I figure many people on this forum and bettors regularly bet across many conferences. I see what you mean that it might be limiting. Does it become too much, Then would it be enough to focus on two conferences for a beginner or what

I am not a one conference guy. There are conference that I pick better than others. The SEC thats my bag. I am from SEC country. This not to be confused with SEC dominates everything guy because they dont. Its hard for me to get a peg on the B12 now the Little 8 featuring Texas and Oklahoma because they will destroy everyone in their conference. Not this year Oklahoma will kill them. The conference is very top heavy. If you need a sure fire bet Oklahoma wins the Little 8.

[BigdaddyQH]

Pinnacle212 raises a good point. Obviously you are from the Boston area, so you would probably want to concentrate on the Big East and the ACC to get started. That would give you 20 teams to concentrate on. I believe ther are 6 games between ACC and Big East opponents, so that gives you 6 potential non-con games to wager on.

[fishmonger]

I like to..

Concentrate on lesser know conferences like the mac, sun belt and wac. When the big conferences play these guys everyone jumps on the big conference fav to cover. If you been studying those conferences you can sometimes pick out the small guys that will cover that the public has overlooked. They are always good teams to pick in sandwich game situations. I try NOT to bet high profile games that have all the espn guys talking about and everyone has an opinion on. The better a game should be, is a harder game to cap. You don't want to watch good games, you'll get burned betting games that everyone wants to watch. My friends hate watching football with me because I rather watch middle tenn st. play ul monroe than the penn state vs. iowa game.

[pats3peat]

good points everyone, fish, bigdaddy, pinnacle. Yeah Maybe I should focus on the ACC/Big east, but really I dont talk to anyone around the area that is interested in CFB so Im not sure if it will matter that much. Maybe I will go that direction though.
Im leaning toward looking at the smaller conferences a bit more like fish and some others that say that market is more beatable
Yeah fish i will def avoid the games that are going to be hyped up/with "good battles" as much as possible if i think its real hard to predict.

Its probably better for confidence to avoid those because it seems like crazy things happen in televised games that nobody expects (just the lesser likely team playing good and stuff) but maybe thats a sign to take the underdog if you find the right situation you know?

Lmao @ watching middle tenn vs ul monroe, I agree - Im gonna be that type of person this year, like you fish - trying to watch the smaller conf games. Ive already practiced watching boring stuff (WNBA games im watchin em so i can cap it) haha

[iwant2lrn]

Middle tenn st covers, anything under 7 would be a good bet. Dasher is NASTY.

[pats3peat]

good analysis
who is dasher?

[The DiB]

good analysis
who is dasher?

Dwight Dasher, MTSU's duel threat QB. Went off in their bowl game.

[IrishTim]

Absolutely.

[larojoes]

Theoretically, the non-BCS conference games will have softer lines. Though it's a real grind, I feel compelled to 'cap a certain minimum number of games to uncover a certain minimum number of plays. Don't think 'capping just two conferences would be enough for me at this point but it would probably be a good start for someone just getting into this; two conferences are plenty to think about.

[pats3peat]

Theoretically, the non-BCS conference games will have softer lines. Though it's a real grind, I feel compelled to 'cap a certain minimum number of games to uncover a certain minimum number of plays. Don't think 'capping just two conferences would be enough for me at this point but it would probably be a good start for someone just getting into this; two conferences are plenty to think about.

gotcha, sounds good
what are your minimums?

[SoonerBS]

Here's an article I did a couple of years ago and not much has changed:

Handicapping 101

This is kind of a BIG subject with me, but I have been asked by a couple of posters how do I go about capping college football. I want to start my answer by first mentioning that there are different approaches to capping college football for profit and mine is only one approach. I want to encourage others to add to this thread their own approaches and info on capping this great sport.

First, my handicapping begins by gathering info and researching teams from the start of April whenever they start their Spring football sessions. You cannot learn everything you need to know from these sessions, but you do get some idea as to what the coaches are going to use personnel-wise for the upcoming season. You can also gather some info on what kind of offensive and defensive schemes they intend to run if they have intentions of changing them from the previous season. From April to the start of the first game, it is also important to keep a log of injuries, suspensions, transfers and other business that causes the absence of key personnel on each team. I usually spend the Summer reading articles about each team from the internet, Phil Steele's magazine, and Blue Ribbon Magazine.

Secondly, I try to find some great situations through the season for each team where there will likely be mismatches, "look ahead" spots, or revenge games that I can play on. This helps me to assess further the strengths and weaknesses of each team so I can increase my knowledge on them. This also helps me to know what teams are likely to be "fade" teams for the season, "play on" teams for the season, "UNDER" teams for the season, and "OVER" teams for the season.

Thirdly, I look for factors that will help me in my evaluation of the strength and weaknesses of teams. Personally, my handicapping of strength and weakness in a team begins with the offensive and defensive lines. Skill players, no matter how great they are, cannot perform without solid offensive lines. A good case of this was Colt McCoy for Texas. In 2006, Texas fans were touting his greatness due to the fantastic season he had as a freshman. What was not observed was the fact that he was playing behind one of the greatest offensive lines ever to play at Texas. Last season, many of those offensive linemen moved on. McCoy's numbers and production took a nose-dive because his protection was not as great with the weakness of the offensive line (that should improve this season by the way . . . ). Defensively, offenses can establish the run game against a weak defensive line. If a team can establish the run game, it opens the entire offense up to success. So, the lines are important to me whenever I start to assess how strong a team will be. Of course, you have to have good skill players as well (QB, RB, and WR). From there the linebacking corps and defensive backs need to be assessed. A team with a piss-poor defensive backfield will be slaughtered when playing a good passing team (Anyone remember Louisville last season?) Also, special team play has become very important in college football and should be assessed for the strength and weakness of a team. Other factors are coaching and roster depth (you can find this in Phil Steele's magazine).

By the time I come to the games and through the season, I look for situations (revenge, look-ahead, previous game let-downs, rivalry, etc.) to help me decide whether a line is worth playing. I am mostly a "situational" player myself. I love to play against teams in "look ahead" spots where they are going to be playing somebody better than their present opponent and I love to play on teams that lost or didn't cover the week before because they played well below their potential. I also like to fade teams in a game where the week before they played way over their heads.

I look at factors such as power rankings and trends in games to see if anything is way out of whack with a line. However, last season wreaked havoc on power ratings. BUT, last season was an unusual season and I don't think we are likely to see it as a norm.

There is also an element that cannot be explained by numbers, trends or situations. It's called the "gut" factor. Last year in Bowl season, I dropped a lot of my normal handicapping (mainly because it didn't produce well last year) and went mostly to the "gut" factor. I relied more on my knowledge of the strength and weaknesses of teams and played on teams that I felt were more powerful and likely to cover the spread. It ended up being vastly productive! Even more interesting is the fact that I used this same factor whenever I switched over to capping the NBA. The results were to end the season at 60% (would have been even better had I quit before the playoffs started -sigh-). I can't explain to you how to go by your gut instincts. In fact, some people's guts stink! (Pardon the pun). My gut instincts are always based on nearly 10 months of continual research and knowledge on college football.

Lastly, how do we judge whether a line is worth playing or not? Let me start by mentioning this -- Vegas is very good at setting lines on games. I think (and this is what I learned from last season) that we need to stop analyzing lines as much as simply accepting that the line is right. Now, we need to ask ourselves, since the line is right, which team, because of situations, strengths, weaknesses, offensive and defensive schemes, personnel, or otherwise is most likely to play better than the other and cover the line. I know that sounds too simplistic, but I think sometimes we make this more difficult than we need to do. Again, this has to be done by having knowledge on the teams playing and looking for motivating factors that might give one team an edge over others. Let me help you eliminate some games: it's not wise to play on a "road" favorite laying a bunch of points ever, I don't care how good they are and how great the line may look. Always play on teams that have a great chance of winning the game straight up and are catching points at home (you will not likely find this situation often, but occasionally it does occur.) Do not play on teams that are in a "rebuilding" year at the beginning of the season. However, monitor their progress because the losses they had the beginning of the season can easily turn into wins at the end of the season as the team gets more experience and plays better. Vegas usually sets good "dog" lines on these teams because of the way they started their season. Do not play on teams that have sucked all season long but catch what looks like a great line in one of their closing games.Whenever you have games where two teams of equal strengths and situations are playing and the line is close to a "pick 'em", play on the team with the most capable coach. Again, you need to have knowledge of the teams and coaches to implement this. Do not play against teams that are playing their last home game of the season. Also known as "Senior Day." These teams are usually highly motivated and need to be played on rather than against. Fade teams that are playing their first game on the road with a new starting QB.

[pats3peat]

Thanks Sooner, its an honor hearing you post i love your stuff. I will be trying to read up on as much CFB i can starting now.

on this rule "Do not play on teams that have sucked all season long but catch what looks like a great line in one of their closing games." do you think people fall victim to this a lot? basically its a trap youre saying.. like the books overvalue the line by say like -7 so you think its a good line value or whatever, but really you shouldnt be betting on bad teams? I feel like that happens definitely. Do you still follow this rule?

[HoulihansTX]

In college football Home teams/ and coaching is everything.

Know your coaches, and a teams playing style as these factors usually play to form.

[larojoes]

gotcha, sounds good
what are your minimums?

The number of college games I 'cap for a typical weekend ranges in the low to mid-30s. I've averaged around 7 college side wagers/weekend the last couple of years. With the board as big as it is--relative to the NFL--it's difficult not to come up with at least 5.

[BGboothA]

love the idea of focusing on smaller conferences.

[pats3peat]

The number of college games I 'cap for a typical weekend ranges in the low to mid-30s. I've averaged around 7 college side wagers/weekend the last couple of years. With the board as big as it is--relative to the NFL--it's difficult not to come up with at least 5.

thats pretty insane, 30 games to cap, picking 7 out of those. How long does it take you?

[larojoes]

thats pretty insane, 30 games to cap, picking 7 out of those. How long does it take you?

It is insane, given that I 'cap the 14-16 weekly pro games as well. Don't do much else during football season. It takes about 20 minutes/game to perform the calculations for my math model, then 5-10 min. more/game to look at technical trends, injuries, weather, etc., so anywhere from 10-12 hours to 'cap 30+ games. Will eliminate some things I did last year to streamline the process for the coming season.

[M.W.]

I have never seriously capped or followed college football.

Then don't bet on it.

[Wrecktangle]

Unless you work a db and/or model you absolutely cannot cover the entire slate. For starters concentrate on 2 minor confs, stay up on injuries, read local papers, watch games. IMO, The best to watch are the western confs and look for big home dogs vs top confs and just out of the ranking teams.

[CLASSIC ROCK]

Great advice from soonerbs he's one of the best cappers out there

[Wrecktangle]

From my vantage point, injuries (except for the rare "super" player), revenge, look-ahead, are all overrated in the market.

[pats3peat]

Unless you work a db and/or model you absolutely cannot cover the entire slate. For starters concentrate on 2 minor confs, stay up on injuries, read local papers, watch games. IMO, The best to watch are the western confs and look for big home dogs vs top confs and just out of the ranking teams.

which are the western ones... midwest conference, Sun belt?

From my vantage point, injuries (except for the rare "super" player), revenge, look-ahead, are all overrated in the market.

yea man I totally agree with this, its something i think most people just go with the flow and bandwagon on. One person says its a 'look-ahead game' and people just totally look too much into that. I think you have to be careful with these factors but its probably still pretty useful

Do you take positional injuries like an offensive linemen or defensive linemen pretty serious though, i know a lot of people put a lot of stock into the OL/DL.

[SoonerBS]

which are the western ones... midwest conference, Sun belt?


yea man I totally agree with this, its something i think most people just go with the flow and bandwagon on. One person says its a 'look-ahead game' and people just totally look too much into that. I think you have to be careful with these factors but its probably still pretty useful

Do you take positional injuries like an offensive linemen or defensive linemen pretty serious though, i know a lot of people put a lot of stock into the OL/DL.

PAC 10, Mountain West Conference and the WAC.

Hey, P3P, choose a conference that includes the area in which you live. Do you have a team you back? Follow thew team by reading local news and try to see if you can get a feel for their attitudes about upcoming games. It's always easier to get local and regional news than it is to get news for some conference clear across the country from you.

[pats3peat]

Then don't bet on it.

Man youre so fkn smart. Do you have a newsletter I can subscribe to? you just exude intelligence and knowledge on sports betting.

[pats3peat]

PAC 10, Mid West Conference and the WAC.

Hey, P3P, choose a conference that includes the area in which you live. Do you have a team you back? Follow thew team by reading local news and try to see if you can get a feel for their attitudes about upcoming games. It's always easier to get local and regional news than it is to get news for some conference clear across the country from you.

Yo, sweet sooners - my local team is BC, but like I dont care for them enough that I even watch more than like 1game/year. I guess being in the local/regional area helps with like TV and junk (more of your games are on TV, more people talking about it) - is that what you mean.

But as for online: I can just look up ANY teams news sites, My problem is im definitely going to focus on the small confs (from advice given here i should only do like 2, but im prob gonna do the WAC, MAC, and Sun Belt - that was my plan.. do you think thats too random) .
Im really determined and for whichever confs I follow I will be building a resources list where i can get info on all the teams so I can see whats up with them as quick as possible. News, blogs, forums

So whatever conference BC is in I could cover too but I dont know if it will make much of a difference, what do you think

[SoonerBS]

Yo, sweet sooners - my local team is BC, but like I dont care for them enough that I even watch more than like 1game/year. I guess being in the local/regional area helps with like TV and junk (more of your games are on TV, more people talking about it) - is that what you mean.

But as for online: I can just look up ANY teams news sites, My problem is im definitely going to focus on the small confs (from advice given here i should only do like 2, but im prob gonna do the WAC, MAC, and Sun Belt - that was my plan.. do you think thats too random) .
Im really determined and for whichever confs I follow I will be building a resources list where i can get info on all the teams so I can see whats up with them as quick as possible. News, blogs, forums

So whatever conference BC is in I could cover too but I dont know if it will make much of a difference, what do you think

BC is in the ACC which includes a lot of teams and would more than keep you busy capping. You are likely to get info locally that would not only include BC, but would include the entire ACC conference.

Yes, you can find info on every team on the internet if you have the right sources (ESPN Insider has site lines which are local news feeds and articles on all the teams, but you have to have a subscription to get this service.) Still, If you would spend most of your time capping the ACC conference, you would have a better chance at doing well.

I cap all the conferences myself. But, I spend most of my time on the Big 12 because it is the conference I hear and see more about as I follow my Oklahoma Sooners. The same should go for you with BC and the ACC.

[ronjon619]

Road Favs is where you should spend your time.

[Flying Dutchman]

Road Favs is where you should spend your time.