2009 College Football: Stats are Stupendous
by Sam Martin
Full disclosure before I get into the good stuff here: writing is not my forte. Numbers and analyzing is my strong suit, so please bear that in mind when reviewing my football handicapping articles.
At any rate, let’s discuss one of the stats that my model puts strong consideration on in handicapping college football. My buddies are constantly bugging me for sports betting tips, and the first one I always remind them of is RYPA, or rushing yards per attempt. The logic here is that teams that can stop their opponents on the ground have shown a high rate of covering the point spread. Any good college football coach builds their defense to stop the run.
One of my favorite teams in college football the last few years was the good old boys from Fort Worth Texas, the TCU Horned Frogs. The Big Boss at TCU, Gary Patterson, is entering his tenth season, and one thing his teams do well is stop the run. In the last four seasons his defensive squads have been ranked in the top 10 in the country in RYPA, including first last season.
Why was TCU one of my favorite teams? It’s because they cover the pointspread! They stop the run and don’t give up a lot of points. In two of the last four seasons, TCU has allowed less than 14 points per game. If teams can’t run the football, then they aren’t sustaining long drives and will not win the field position battle.
Over the last four seasons TCU is a combined 31-17-1 ATS. By the way, that one tie was in their 21-24 loss at Wyoming in the 2007 season, but I was able to find a book napping with a 3.5-point line (always a good idea to have at least 2-3 betting outs). You don’t have to go to MIT to figure out that’s a winning percentage of 65%. You would have made some serious dough betting on these Frogs the last few years.
There’s only one other team to rank in the top 10 the last four seasons in RYPA: Penn State. While you wouldn’t have made bank following Joe Pa, you wouldn’t have been hurt either (26-22-1 ATS), however, they did go a decent 40-11 straight up.
So why has Penn State not been better at beating the number? They lay too many points most of the time. Last year, Penn State was an underdog only once all season and that was in a bowl game. In their 11 lined regular season games they had to lay two touchdowns or more 8 times.
Here are more teams I’ll be watching closely when handicapping this college football season:
It took a year for Nick Saban to get his defense in place at Alabama. In his first year in Tuscaloosa, his defense wasn’t very good, but once he got his system installed and the players to buy into it, they responded pretty well. Last year they were second in the nation in RYPA and did well at the window, going 9-5 ATS. I was all over the Tide last season when they played at Georgia. The linesmakers had the Tide as touchdown dogs, despite that great defense that had allowed only 9.25 points in their first four games. Georgia did manage to score 30 points but rushed for only 50 yards. Bama controlled the ball and the game, winning easily, 40-31.
Another team that normally has a good run defense is Boston College. Now this year, after coach Jagodzinski was kicked out, BC will be guided by their defensive coordinator Frank Spaziani. He’s been at BC forever and his defense has ranked in the top 10 three of the last four years in RYPA. They are only 25-24 ATS over the last four seasons, but they’ve been awful as road favorites posting a 5-11 ATS record. If you stay away from them when their laying points on the road, then their record improves to a profitable 20-13 ATS (61%).
Mississippi was a mild surprise last season. As we said earlier, all good coaches like to stop the run. Houston Nutt made his coaching debut in Ole Miss last season and guided the Rebels to a 9-4 straight up and 9-3 ATS record. How did they do it? Big surprise… they played defense and stopped the run. Nutt’s defense was fourth in the nation allowing only 2.7 YPRA. Nutt has 8 starters returning on defense this season, so the defense should be good again. However, will you have to pay a premium with Ole Miss this time around?
I’ll be back soon with a NFL Preseason football handicapping article. Good luck this weekend!
Get all of Sam Martin's winning sports picks at Vegas Experts.
