Here are the current college football games articles and how to tips
from Maddux Sports.
It’s not at all uncommon to see a college football coach fired before his team’s season has ended. As the pressure and intensity increases in the sport it’s only going to happen more often. When it does happen the public tends to react in a predictable and consistent way - they overreact and expect the very worst. There are several reasons why that isn’t always the correct reaction to a coaching change. One of the biggest reasons is that there are more than one cause of a midseason change. Basically, there are two main reasons a coach can be fi ...
College football fans are fickle. It only takes a couple of wins to start the season for people to start to get impressed by a team, and it only takes one loss for a team to get forgotten about. Before you get too excited about a team after they have opened their season with two wins you need to really evaluate what they have done. If you let yourself get carried away by the hype after a couple of wins then you can find yourself making bets with lousy value. Here are six questions you can ask to evaluate whether a team that starts 2-0 is legiti ...
One of the many things that makes college football both unique and so very interesting to handicap is the mass turnover each year caused by graduation and early departure for the NFL. The best team in the country one year can be forced into a massive rebuilding project the next year if things work against them. You just don’t get change like that in other major sports. ...
Rivalry games are one of the biggest factors that make college football the great sport that it is. The intensity and emotion that can be felt when two bitter rivals meet in an annual, hate-filled event is almost unmatched in sports. For handicappers these games are particularly compelling. the biggest rivalry games - Texas-Oklahoma, Michigan-Ohio state, Auburn-Alabama, Utah-BYU, USC-UCLA, Oregon-Oregon State and so on - are nationally televised events that are heavily covered in the media. The more popular a game is the more interesting it is ...
College football doesn’t get a lot of attention from the general public until the first games are set to kick off. Before that, though, there are weeks of summer practice, and for bettors who are willing to pay attention and do a little bit of homework there is a big edge to be gained from paying some attention to what is going on in these practices. Thanks to the marvels of the internet it is very easy to follow these practices and get good information as well. Local papers provide good information in football-crazy markets, and fan forums and ...
Rivalry games are the best part of football - especially the season ending rivalries steeped in tradition and hatred. Sometimes, though, those rivalry games lose a lot of their luster because both teams come into them struggling. If the teams aren’t playing well then the game doesn’t have the same national attention and intensity it normally would. That can have a big impact on the game from a betting perspective. Here are six factors to consider when major rivals limp into their rivalry game: ...
College football can be a very unforgiving sport for teams. The season is so short and the postseason opportunities so limited that one high profile loss can entirely derail a season and spell an end to the hopes and ambitions of a team. If that loss comes early in the season then it can be particularly deflating because it can feel like the team has nothing left to play for. For handicappers one of the biggest challenges after a crushing loss like this is trying to figure out how the team is going to rebound. Are they going to be able to focus ...
Nine weeks into the 2011 college football season Stanford was 9-0, quarterback Andrew Luck was running away with the Heisman race, and the team looked like they had a real shot at playing for the national championship. There was really only one thing standing in their way - a home game against Oregon. The Ducks had lost their opening game of the season but were still among the best teams in the country. The game essentially decided the Pac-12 champions, so it was broadcast at night on national television and enjoyed a high profile and a whole l ...
The media loves to talk about the potential of a good college football team looking past a weak opponent towards a stronger opponent in their next game. They’ll often suggest that a team in this circumstance could lack focus and intensity and could be vulnerable to an upset or a less impressive win than they otherwise might get. It sounds like a decent theory, and sometimes it is even true. The trick for bettors is to know when a team could really be at risk of overlooking an opponent, and when it isn’t a big issue. Here are six factors to cons ...
It seems like we are in the era of the scandal in college football. The list of teams that haven’t been under investigation at some point in the last decade is much shorter than those that have. Recruiting violations, players receiving benefits, contact with agents, improper training - the list of possibilities is long and varied. Since scandals have become so prevalent - and increasingly widespread - handicappers need to be particularly aware of what the impact is going to be on the team involved, and what the public will perceive that impact ...
Most college football teams from major conferences don’t exactly challenge themselves in the first week of the season. There is no exhibition season, so teams will schedule an outmatched opponent to work out the kinks and get a reasonably safe taste of game action. That occasionally backfires, but most often it turns out about as you would expect. A few times each year, though, teams decide to start their season with a big bang - we’ll see two ranked teams meet each other in a game that can start the season on a high note for one team and put t ...
When people set out to handicap college football games there are predictable factors that they look at - the quality of the offenses and defenses, the matchups, the head coaches, and so on. Those are obviously significant and relevant. They are also what most people will be doing. One of the ways you can get an edge in your handicapping is by considering factors that most other people aren’t. There are countless underrated factors in college football handicapping that you could look towards to find that edge. Here are five for you to consider: ...
By the time we get about halfway through the college football season it’s about time to start taking unbeaten teams seriously. When a team wins six or seven games in a row they have started to show that they are serious, and that they have some potential to make some real noise down the stretch. For bettors unbeaten teams can be a bit of a headache. The public will pay more and more attention to a team the more games they win in a row, and that means that they will draw more betting volume, and likely face inflated spreads. When you consider be ...
College football teams take a huge risk if they schedule a big game against another top level team to start the season - namely, they could lose. A loss early in the season puts them in a huge hole with the whole season still in front of them. For handicappers dealing with the losers of these season opening big games can be a real headache. Sometimes a team can feel no real ill effects from the loss - they just move on to the next game like nothing ever happened. Other times, though, an early loss can send a team right off the rails - at least ...
Thanks to schools like USC and Ohio State we know a lot more about the impact of major violations on top level college football programs than we used to, and more than we probably ever wished we knew. Because NCAA sanctions at high level programs get so much media attention they are obviously going to have an impact on how the teams are perceived and how people bet on them . Successful bettors, then, need to be able to assess the real impact of the sanctions, how those impacts compare to the likely public perceptions, and whether value is creat ...
National signing day in college football is becoming a bigger and bigger media spectacle every year. For those who aren’t obsessed with the sport, national signing day, which falls early in February each year, is the first day that recruits for the next season can sign a letter of intent and officially accept their scholarship to a school. Up to that point their commitment - if they have made one - is only verbal and non-binding. Coaches work furiously to secure their players, and to steal players away from other schools, and they can’t rest un ...
I love the summer for the weather and all the fun things to do, but there is a big part of me that just wants it to end. The summer is what stands between me and the glorious return of the college football season, so at times it just seems endless. If you are like me then you probably try to make time pass by devouring all of the information you can dig about your teams and the major conferences. That’s a good thing for bettors to be doing with their time, but when they do so there are some serious and potentially costly mistakes that they can ...
There is a big gap between the last game of the regular season and the bowl game for a lot of teams. Teams that don’t play in a conference championship game could be off for well over a month if they play in a post-New Year bowl game. There are lots of practices to be held in that time, and typically some time off for the team as well. Astute bettors can learn a lot about teams - and can spot a whole lot of opportunities - by paying close attention to how teams are acting during this time. Here are five things to keep an eye on in the pursuit o ...
College football is typically a game played in the bright sun of the afternoon. That’s how it is supposed to be, and tradition is such a big part of the sport. Every week, though, there are a couple of night games. Just a small fraction of games are night games, and in some leagues games played after dark are a real rarity. For the most part betting these games is just like betting any other - the rules are still the same and so on. there are some ways, though, in which these games can be different, and those difference can create an edge for s ...
There are few things more satisfying for college football bettors - and potentially profitable - than spotting a big upset and cashing a winning ticket on the underdog. If you aren’t careful, though, then chasing underdogs who don’t turn out is a quick way to go broke. You need to be very cautious when betting on big underdogs to be sure that they actually have a real chance of pulling off the upset. Here’s a look at six ways to help spot a heavy favorite that could be vulnerable and an underdog that could come out on top: ...
When you are betting on college football one of the big challenges is that there are no preseason games. Training camps often aren’t particularly open to the public or media, either. It can be very challenging, then, to have an accurate sense of what a team is capable of before the regular season starts. It only makes sense, then, that bettors have to assess and adjust their opinions right after teams have played their first games. While that is an important step it can be very easy to make mistakes while doing so while you aren’t careful. If y ...
By the time we get to the halfway point or so of the college football season the number of unbeaten teams has typically dwindled down to a handful or two. Most of those teams - unless they play in lesser conferences and have played very weak schedules - have realistic BCS ambitions that intensify with every win. Sometimes two of those unbeaten teams will play each other. That’s when we get fireworks. One team is going to get a defining win for their season, while the hopes and dreams of the other team will take a major hit. These games are obvi ...
For hardcore college football fans national signing day is like Christmas in early February. A potentially cruel Christmas if your favorite school doesn’t land the high profile prospects you crave. Or a truly fantastic Christmas if your teams reloads with blue chip talent. For bettors national signing day is an important day to keep an eye on, too - though it can easily be overvalued by bettors if they allow themselves to get swept up in the hype and excitement. Here are six factors for bettors to consider when looking at the significance of ev ...
I’m a big believer in the importance of paying attention to fall practices to get ready for the college football season. The betting public generally isn’t paying a lot of attention to what goes on before the games start, so if you are on top of what is happening - who is playing, who is underperforming, which team are ready and which aren’t, and so on - you can have a nice early edge on the early games in the season. While there is a lot that can be learned from the practices, there is also a lot that you can see that can be misleading or dece ...
Sometimes in college football it can seem like parity has a conference in a stranglehold. Strong teams win or lose from week to week as if games are determined by the flip of a coin, and everything handicappers think they know gets thrown out the window at the end of every game. It can be very frustrating for bettors because the landscape is always changing. In order to give yourself the best chance of success when things seem unclear and as if any team can win at any time here are five factors to consider. Understanding one of these factors is ...
Making money over the long term betting on college football - or any sport, really - isn’t really that difficult conceptually. All you need to do is find situations where there is value in lines and then bet to take advantage of that value. If you do that consistently over the long term then you will come out ahead. That’s easier said than done, of course, but there are some places where it is easier to find value than others. One such place in college football is a team that has been surprisingly but quietly strong in non-conference play. If t ...
An unfortunate reality of college football is that the time when teams are preparing for their bowl games is also the time when teams are making coaching changes and looking ahead to their next season and beyond. That means that there are several teams that go into their bowl game with uncertainty or change in their coaching situation. It could be that they have fired their coach. In that case they may have the lame duck coach around for the bowl game, or they may have an interim in place. In rare cases the newly hired coach will be in charge f ...
If you are a college football fan then you can surely think of cases where David has killed Goliath - where a heavy, heavy favorite has fallen in a very unlikely and unexpected way to an underdog that didn’t seem to have any chance of winning the game. The media understandably loves situations like these, and the games typically get a whole lot of coverage - especially if the team that was upset had national championship aspirations that were derailed by the loss. One of the big challenges for bettors is to figure out how the team that shocked ...
There is no preseason in college football, so it can be hard for bettors to get a sense of how ready teams are before they play their first regular season game. Fall practice It also doesn’t help that the media and fans are so excited for the season to start that they can’t help but be excited about any team that looks like they could be good. The trick for bettors who want to be successful is to be able to avoid that excitement and hype when a team ultimately isn’t worthy of it. Here are five potential warning signs that a team might not be qu ...
Suspensions are a fact of life in college football, and it seems like they are more and more common these days. It seems like there is a new violation reported every day, media scrutiny is at an all-time high, and the pressure to clean up the sport has never been more intense. It’s very common to see a player suspended by the school, the league, or the NCAA for a game or more, and this can often happen on short notice. Star players aren’t spared in these suspensions, and they may even be more vulnerable because they face more temptation to do w ...
I love college football fall practices because they are a clear sign that the brilliant college football season is just around the corner. From a betting perspective the best part of fall practices is that the general public isn’t paying a lot of attention. That means if you do your homework and pay attention to what is going on you can gain a nice edge over the betting public - especially early in the season when the public will be making picks based more on names and reputations than what teams have shown themselves capable of on the field. H ...
Season win totals are a very interesting and increasingly popular way to bet on college football. The downside to the bets is that your money is tied up for the entire season. That complication can be very much worthwhile, though, if the value is there - and you can find some serious value in win totals. Unfortunately, it is also pretty easy to make some costly mistakes that can lock your money into a low value proposition if you aren’t careful. Here are five of the biggest mistakes to avoid when you are thinking about the season win total bets ...
For years the major conferences in college football were relatively stable, but now it seems we can’t go a single year without significant changes to the alignment of at least one conference and often more. Every time the conferences are tweaked or shaken up handicappers have to come to terms with the new reality. Sometimes those changes are not significant, but other times they very much are. Here are five factors to consider when attempting to determine the impact of a conference change from a betting perspective: ...
One of the challenging things that football bettors - and especially college football bettors because it is so common - have to deal with is very large spreads in games. In college football it’s not uncommon to see spreads of four touchdowns or more in a game. When you see a game like that it is very clear who is likely to win, and in most cases you are fairly certain that the favorite could win by more than the spread if they wanted to. The trick is trying to figure out if they really will want to. In some cases teams won’t quit until the fina ...
Before the college football season starts each year there is lots of value to be found in betting conference winner futures. You can bet on which team is going to win each of the major conferences - and typically several of the minor conferences as well - and you can quite often get a very nice price by picking the eventual winner. When you are searching for value in college football conference winner futures here are five things to keep in mind. ...
Betting on season win totals in college football is an increasingly popular and attractive option. It used to be that season win totals seemed like a gimmick bet, but increasingly they are looked at as a place to find real value by serious bettors. You have to tie your money up for the whole season, but you don't mind doing that if the risk is relatively low and the potential return on investment is attractive. When you are looking to make season win total bets there are some mistakes you will definitely want to avoid, and some things you will ...
The third week of the college football season taught us a lot about the power of an early week off and what it can mean for teams. We'll look at the specifics in a second, but let's look at it generally first. Most teams schedule a week off at some point during the season. Through quirks of scheduling some teams find that break coming after they have only played one game. Later in the season the benefits of a break are obvious. First, they allow players an extra week to get healthy and ready too play at a high level again. ...
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Teams off Bye Weeks We are in the dying days of the college football season - most teams have just one or two games left. At this time of year it can be very profitable to be able to spot teams that have packed it in - those that just don't care anymore. Those teams are likely to be underdogs, and often serious underdogs, but often times they play badly enough that they easily lose by far more than the spread facing them - especially if they are playing a good team. Here are six ways to spot a team that could be on the verge of quitting. ...
As a general rule people aren't nearly patient enough when it comes to the impact of recruiting in college football. Fans hear about the big names that their team has signed, and they expect the results to show up on the field right away. It's rarely as quick or as easy as that, and anyone who has been a fan of a team for a while has as many stories of spectacular recruiting failures as they do of big wins. ...
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