NFL

Here’s your game plan for securing NCAA football riches

College football mirrors life, providing more questions than answers.

Handicapping can turn coin flips into calculus, but it really is nothing more than a constant stream of 50/50 situations, with little hints to which way we can nudge the percentages. There is no fool-proof plan. If there was, this story would contain a dateline from an over-water bungalow in Bora Bora.

The best way to have a big season is the simplest way — start hot. Yes, much easier written than done, but Week 1 of the college football season provides the best opportunities a bettor will see all season.

The first week has bookmakers playing a massive guessing game disguised as knowledge, where the lines are as random as they will be all year. It is an opportunity to take advantage of perceptions and misconceptions, an opportunity to target certain games to which Vegas can’t properly assign point values, since the quality of so many teams is based on assumed development and the impact of kids who never have played meaningful football at this level.
It only will get tougher as the season goes on and teams begin to reveal their true abilities, so here are a few tips to help start the season. Just remember, with every rule comes exceptions:

Go against the grain

Trusting your gut is the easiest way to keep your sanity, but it also may be the easiest way to lose. In betting, the one element more constant than any is the public is wrong more often than it is right. There is a reason you don’t see bookies begging for change on the street. With that in mind, ignore your instincts and watch where spreads shift from their opening lines. Excluding major injuries, if a line moves a point or more in favor of one team, take the other team. The more it moves, the more confident you should be. It’s that simple.

Underdogs are undervalued

The favorites are everyone’s favorite. A large majority of the time, people end up backing the better team. Why? It’s human nature. It is much easier to envision a ranked team winning by 10 points than it is to picture a bottom-feeder barely covering a 27-point spread. It also allows a person to blame a good team for losing rather than having to blame themselves for picking an inferior opponent. Underdogs are great value because of several factors, including motivation, the unquantifiable value of playing at home and the favored team stepping on the brakes late in games. Also, in college football, spreads are set laughably high every week, not because Vegas believes a team will win by 50 points, but because Vegas is attempting to get equal action on both sides. Remember, that is all spreads are intended to accomplish. Many spreads need to be set high enough to encourage betting on the underdogs, but still it doesn’t take place as much as it should.

Pay attention to the little guys

Forget the power five and start following a small conference. There is no question Vegas knows intimate details about the SEC, Pac-12, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC, but their insight into smaller schools is not on the same level. Since the large majority of action comes from the biggest games and biggest conferences, bookmakers devote more people and more resources to those teams. The little guys don’t require as much attention because they don’t bring in as much business, but for you, a win’s a win.