College Football Handicapping Articles

Doc’s Sports 2011 Penn State Nittany Lions Football Betting Preview
by Doc - 8/22/2011

Coach Joe Paterno is returning for his 47th year, and that means he started just one year after I graduated high school! Does that ever put things into perspective. The Lions have 14 starters back and should once again field a very talented team. A September home game against Alabama will certainly test their talent, as Alabama beat Penn State, 24-3, last year in a game that Alabama could have won by 40 if they desired. Penn State will have a much better chance in this game and I look for it to go down to the wire.

College Football Predictions: Overrated Teams
by T.O. Whenham - 8/22/2011

I don’t know about you, but I am dying for the college football season to start. I can’t wait. We won’t really know how good teams are and what we can really expect until we have seen teams play a few games, but that shouldn’t stop us from speculating. When I look at the first of the preseason polls there are five teams that stand out as being obviously, and in most cases significantly, overrated. Here’s a look:

Five Betting Tips for Handicapping SEC Football
by Taylor Jordan - Strike Point Sports - 8/19/2011

The SEC takes the mantle as the toughest, deepest conference in the nation and represents the last five BCS National Champions. But from a gambling standpoint it might be the toughest cookie to crack for bettors. Because there is so much talent the disparity from the best team to the eighth-best team is as slim as any league in the nation. With all of these closely-grouped schools to sort through someone not well versed in how to bet college football could very easily get lost in the woods of the Deep South.

Doc’s Sports 2011 Purdue Boilermakers Football Betting Preview
by Doc - 8/18/2011

This is the third year under Coach Danny Hope, and as I see it, this will be his best Purdue squad by a wide margin. The Boilermakers return 16 starters, and I expect this experience to pay dividends. Last year Purdue was hit hard by injuries, including losing their top three quarterbacks early in the season. Freshman QB Rob Henry was forced into action and he did play better as the season progressed, but as a team they finished last in the Big Ten in passing statistics. Look for a major improvement in 2011, especially at the quarterback position, and expect a bowl bid come December.

Five Betting Tips For Handicapping Big Ten Football
by Taylor Jordan - Strike Point Sports - 8/18/2011

For as much criticism as the Big Ten seems to have received for their play in big games in recent years, the league is still a proven commodity. It has grit and its own personal swagger. But more than anything it has tradition – just don’t cite the newly and pretentiously coined ‘Legends’ and ‘Leaders’ division names as proof of that.

Five Betting Tips for Handicapping Pac-12 Football
by Taylor Jordan - Strike Point Sports - 8/18/2011

You can thank the money-hungry power suits for this new mishmash conference, where location means nothing for a league and greenbacks overrule logic. For Colorado and Utah, the dollar bills shipped into a mix of Pacific Coast universities and resulted in the North and South divisions the league now boasts. But while those odd divisions create a new look for this league, having a league championship game will end up being the biggest thing to come out of this realignment.

College Football Predictions: the Impact of True Freshmen
by T.O. Whenham - 8/18/2011

With fall practices underway we are getting a better sense of which true freshmen in college football are fitting in well and are going to get a chance to contribute from the start, and which ones are likely to take a while to find their place. Here are my college football predictions for six guys who have a chance to be a big factor for their teams -- and therefore for bettors -- right out of the gate:

Doc’s Sports 2011 Illinois Fighting Illini Football Betting Preview
by Doc - 8/18/2011

As the 2010 season came winding down for Illinois, few football experts felt Coach Ron Zook would be around for the 2011 season. There’s no question that the Illini’s bowl victory over Baylor, 38-14, kept Zook on the sidelines. That big win could also give this team a boast for the upcoming season. The talent is certainly there. But the question still remains can Coach Zook and his staff make a move up the Big Ten ladder? Few experts would believe that he could, but I feel that this is going to be the year of the Illini.

NCAA Football Odds: Fallout from Miami Hurricanes Scandal
by Alan Matthews - 8/18/2011

By now you know the name Nevin Shapiro. He is in federal prison on a 20-year sentence for fraud charges for his part in a $930 million Ponzi scheme. He is also the guy who may deliver the death penalty to the University of Miami football program even though the NCAA has basically said it was unlikely to ever take that drastic action again after pulling the plug on the SMU program in the mid-1980s.

Doc’s Sports 2011 Wisconsin Badgers Football Betting Preview
by Doc - 8/16/2011

The Badgers will enter this season as the defending Big Ten Champions, and on paper they look to be in great shape to defend their title. Through spring practice and most of the summer the big question surrounding this team was who would be the quarterback? Two-year starter Scott Tolzein now plays for the San Diego Chargers and he had an effective and underappreciated career at Wisconsin. The Badger quarterbacks who played in the Spring Game did not look very promising, and this was going to be a major concern until the arrival of Russell Wilson from NC State in July.

2011 Florida State Seminoles Predictions and College Football Futures Odds
by Alan Matthews - 8/16/2011

You may not find a more chic pick for a program set to join – or in this case rejoin – the elite of college football than with Florida State. With all due respect to the legendary Bobby Bowden, it appears the best thing FSU officials did was to gently push Bowden aside following the 2009 season. Last year, under Jimbo Fisher, the Noles won 10 games for the first time since the 2003 season. They played in only their second ACC title game, pretty well getting thumped by Virginia Tech, but then solidly beat SEC East champion South Carolina in the Chick-fil-A-Bowl.

2011 Miami Hurricanes Football Predictions and ACC Futures Odds
by Alan Matthews - 8/16/2011

Despite being in the most fertile recruiting area in the country, the University of Miami somehow hasn’t been in a BCS bowl since beating Florida State in the Orange Bowl after the 2003 season and hasn’t even won its division in the ACC since arriving in that conference in 2004. Last season the Hurricanes were the preseason ACC favorites thanks largely to having the nation’s top-ranked recruiting class in 2008 under Randy Shannon.

2011 MAC Football Predictions and Futures Odds
by Darin Zank - 8/16/2011

The 13-team Mid-American Conference may provide nonconference fodder for some of the bigger boys around college football, but it has also been the home recently to some pretty good league races and crazy conference championship games. A great example is last year when the previously downtrodden Miami Redhawks, who went went 1-7 in the MAC the previous season, rebounded to go 7-1 and win the East Division, then, as 18-point underdogs, they scored a touchdown with 30 seconds left to upset Northern Illinois in the MAC Championship Game.

Doc’s Weekly Big Ten Predictions Report: Season Preview
by Doc - 8/16/2011

The Big Ten has a new look in 2011 with the addition of the Nebraska Cornhuskers into the Conference. This was a big addition to the Big Ten, as Nebraska has a huge national following and this will tune more people into the Big Ten Network. It will also allow the 12 teams to be divided equally into two six-team divisions and the two winners will be able to battle one another in Indianapolis for the Big Ten Championship and a berth in the BCS.

2011 Big Ten Football Predictions and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 8/12/2011

It’s the dawn of a new day in the Big Ten. The new 12-team conference will welcome in a new, division-based structure and will have the conference’s inaugural championship game to look forward to. However, given the disastrous offseason at Ohio State and the continued rebuilding at Michigan there is a power vacuum at the top of the Big Ten that we haven’t seen in ages.

College Football Handicapping: Studs and Duds Against the Spread
by T.O. Whenham - 8/12/2011

College football is just around the corner, and I for one can’t wait. As we get close to the season I can’t help but look back at what happened last year to see what it can teach us about the coming season and help with our college football handicapping. One good place to look is at performance against the spread. Can the best ATS teams last year continue to shine this year? Are the teams that were the cruelest to bettors last year going to continue to burn money this year? Here’s a look at the best and worst of last year:

2011 Pac-12 Football Predictions and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 8/10/2011

Maybe now the Left Coast will get some love. The Pac-10 is no more, choosing instead to swell its ranks to 12 teams, institute a new divisional system, and implement a championship game that should keep this conference in the news well into December. It is a pretty heady time in the Pac-12. And with new promise and potential comes new expectations.

2011 South Florida Bulls Football Predictions and Big East Futures Odds
by Alan Matthews - 8/10/2011

The South Florida football program is a bit maddening. For the past handful of years, the Bulls have always been considered a Big East contender, but something always seems to get in their way – usually themselves. This is one of those programs that wins a game or two each year that it probably shouldn’t (at Miami last year, FSU the year before) and loses one it shouldn’t (Syracuse at home last year). Thus, USF usually ends up in some second-tier bowl because its fans don’t travel well. It will probably be more of the same this year as the Big East media picked USF to finish third in the conference.

2011 SEC Football Predictions and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 8/8/2011

It’s rare to ever describe a college football conference as a dynasty. But after five straight BCS National Championships (and six of eight titles) the SEC has established itself as a monolith on the NCAA football landscape. This year the SEC will again attempt to impose its will on the rest of the country.

2011 ACC Football Predictions and Futures Odds
by Robert Ferringo - 8/8/2011

Where have all the quarterbacks gone in the ACC? Last season the likes of Christian Ponder, Ty Taylor and Russell Wilson led a group of ACC signal callers that rivaled any conference in the country. But thanks to graduation and defection the ACC is now staring one of the most inexperienced crops of quarterbacks in the nation.