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By Bradley Owen
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Tuesday, December 6, 2005
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Dogs Who Bite During The Bowls
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There are many ways to approach the Bowl season as there
are in avoiding the pitfalls that lay in wait. But the ultimate
goal is to show a profit when the seasons finale is all done and
dusted and the curtain falls on another season of College football
after the Rose Bowl.
As the ’title’ of this article states, my area is
identifying underdogs that have the best opportunity of causing
the upset, but more importantly, getting the cover.
Let’s face it, no one likes to be labelled with the underdog
tag in a Championship Game and so I always feel that the coaches
make a point of this to their players as extra motavation and
incentive never harmed anyone.
So lets crack on and see if we can’t unlock a winner or
two this Bowl Season. First off, I can tell you that there has
been 459 bowl games played since 1980. The underdog during this
span has won the money 237 times, lost it 212 times, leaving ten
pushed games. That’s a 52.8% right off the bat with little
or no thought required and a very small profit not worth
mentioning. However, that simple rule gives a solid starting
point as I go in search of finding a solid money maker.
Taking that simple rule, I decided to look at just those underdogs
who were off a SU and ATS loss in their last game. Those dogs were
64-51 ATS for a solid but un-spectacular 55.6% mark. The angle’s
moving in the right direction but it’s no where near where
I want it. This initial parameter makes sense as the underdog performed
poorly last time out and will want to bounce back with a greater
effort.
There are seven teams locked in that first tightener in the 2005 Bowls;
UTEP, BYU, Central Florida, Missouri, South Florida, Iowa St and
Alabama.
If we ask for our "play on" dog to come in to their Bowl
game off not one straight up loss, but TWO, our angles jumps into
life for a 25-14 ATS and 64.1% record. This parameter goes in heightening
the resolve of our underdog to perform well.
>From the original seven qualifies under the first step, we have
reduced the field to just three; UTEP, South Florida and Alabama.
Next up, we don’t want our underdogs playing any real
powerhouse’s, so by stipulating that their foes (Toledo, NC State
and Texas Tech) must have a less than .900 winning percentage. This
eliminated four losers and two winners, bringing the system to 23-10
ATS and a 69.7% win mark.
By requesting our underdog to have also failed to cover in their
second game back, which we already established as a SU loss, we now
have an underdog that has lost both straight up and against the
spread in their last two games. This eliminates another four winners
and three losers from the set as the angle zips to 19-7 ATS for 73.1%
winners. It’s now starting to put some serious money in the
wallet.
This year only two teams have survived to this stage, UTEP and
South Florida. It could be argued that Alabama also failed to cover
two games back, but my closing line and Stardust’s has it as
a push.
This would normally be as far as I would go trying to get a Power
System (anything above 70%), but for the purpose of this exercise
I’ll move on and see if we can do better.
By examing the margin of the spread loss these underdogs suffered
in their most recent game, it was clear that those dogs who lost
by eight or more points to the spread, the system rocketed to 88.2%
with a 15-2 ATS record.
UTEP lost to SMU 40-27 as a 7 point chalk, so losing to the spread
by 20 points. South Florida only just scrapped in, losing 28-13 to
West Virginia as a TD dog, resulting in a spread loss of 8 points.
Smack on the cut-off point.
So moving forward both UTEP and South Florida are qualifiers this
year under all the sets.
I can tell you there is one other tightener that gets this system
to 100% and that is, if our "play on" underdog is of +3
or more then this system sky rockets to 11-0 ATS.
So what we have is, PLAY ON any bowl underdog of +3 or more that
is off back to back SU and ATS losses, lost to the spread by at
least eight points in their last game, and is playing an opponent
with a less than .900 WL%. 24 year ATS record = 11-0 for 100%.
And this year we get two qualifiers, UTEP on 21st December and
South Florida on 31st December.
Best of luck this Bowl Season and a Merry Christmas and Happy New
Year to all clients past and present at Who2beton.
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