re: OFFICIAL Week 2 College Football Bet Thread (The Digging Dog is back edition)

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It's a terrible spot for ND, who is coming off a huge opening win against UT and travels to GA Tech next week



If this was last years ND team I would agree. ND coasted against UT. It wasn't a hard fought battle in the trenches all game long. ND had backups in at the end. GT isn't scaring anyone. We will see. I got them at -10 so I'm pretty confident

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and thats fine, everyone is different.. and have different reasons.

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Other than them being at home what could you possibly like about UVA? Honestly I'm curious

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My model has them covering 61% of the time and my most accurate prediction method over the past 4 years has them losing by 5.

Also Vanderbilt, my model has them covering 77% of the time.

My model isn't perfect but it allows me to identify trap lines. Notre Dame and Georgia are the textbook definition of trap lines this week.

Trap lines don't always lose, but the books know what they are doing. Everyone says "The books just want equal action on both sides", which is true in most cases except for trap lines, when they are purposely trying to get all of the action on one side with a bait line and hope that side loses.

Books like to gamble too.

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If this was last years ND team I would agree.

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BTW I would be careful with this line of thinking. We have no idea how good ND really is, and if there's anything different about this team vs last year's. Texas may be awful, and this win didn't really tell us a lot. Or Texas may be solid and this was just the start of a great season for ND. Go with your gut, but assumptions made when a team looks great or terrible are often what makes Vegas money.

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accnodefense

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Was going to ask people's thoughts on North Texas. Expected this to be about SMU -1, opened -1.5, now up to 5. Seems like good value but wasn't sure if there was anything to the line movement I didn't know about (e.g., injuries).

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I will gladly eat crow in this thread come Sunday if I'm wrong

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Sorry if it seems like some of us are being dicks but we have this same debate at the beginning of every season, and it's no coincidence that the regulars who've been at it for years in here have a more contrarian view, ChemE being the most disciplined example, and the new folks are always laying public chalk and washing out by weeks 4-6.

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This 100%. Betters only remember what happened last week. They beat a crappy Texas team, that most of the public will overvalue

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I remember the days when I was a reactionary bettor and it hurt me.

I would make plays based on what happened the last week. Week 3 2012 was a great example. Miami had just got killed by Kansas State the week before, and Georgia Tech had just slaughtered Virginia the week before. Week 3 had Miami at Georgia Tech.

"Easy money for Georgia Tech!" I thought, since you know, Miami had just lost by 40 and Georgia Tech had just won by 30.

Miami won outright and killed a big money line parlay I had as well as my Georgia Tech straight ticket.

Betting on college football is like Chess, you have to think 2-3 steps ahead instead of being reactive. Have to look at the big picture instead of just the last week's result. Week 2 is probably the most dangerous week when it comes to falling into the reactionary bet trap. Week 3 as well as the "reaction to the overreaction" pitfall is there as well.

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I'm more so making my play based on how bad UVA looked in their opener. They scored their only TD with 3 minutes left in the game. That tells me a lot about their offense. Like I said I will take my chances this week but I do understand that laying points every week is not a good move. I payed the price for that last yr.

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I agree 100%, Virginia looked pedestrian last week and if ND is the real deal they don't stand a chance.

I just have found that in my betting history, I have done best when I make plays that make no sense on paper. It's hard to pull the trigger on said plays, but beginning to make those plays is what caused me to start turning a profit betting on college football.

Here is the deal about Virginia. They still have an above average defense. Can stop the run. Not bad on special teams, don't turn the ball over at a high rate. Passing game isn't bad, their problem is running the ball. As bad as they were against UCLA, they still only lost by 18 and were only down a TD at halftime. Who is to say they can't improve by 6 points at home?

Completely disagree on Bowling Green. The final score vs UT told a very different story than the actual flow of game and yardage totals. Outgained by 50 yards yet you lose by 29? Add in not much turnover disparity and it seems clear that Bowling Green was on the bad side of cluster luck.

Also not sure how you can say Bowling Green is overvalued when Maryland is being bet at a 66% clip.

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"The books just want equal action on both sides", which is true in most cases except for trap lines, when they are purposely trying to get all of the action on one side with a bait line and hope that side loses.

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This is wrong and not based in reality at all. They aren't picking certain games while laughing behind the bet counter going "oh we will get them on this game so bad but we want equal action on all the others. This trap game will bankrupt them! Hahahahah"

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They take sides all the time. The "equal action" rhetoric is just regurgitated nonsense

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This is correct. Theoretically, would it be great for them if there was this mythological equal action on both sides? Yes. But it never happens. EVER. Think about the likelihood of thousands of people each betting different amounts of money on one of two sides and the exact amount of money ends up on both. It never happens. So vegas literally "needs" a side on every game. Some much more than others.

Someone said this once and now people just assume it's a fact. It's like tie goes to the runner in baseball. It was repeated by idiot moms at ballparks for years and people just assumed it was a true. It's not. It's actually the opposite.