Returning Players From Last Season

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This is a FWIW post.

I want to point out things I consider early in the season for College Football games. Some of the teams are just now starting this week as everyone knows.
Whats important in capping games this early in the season? Returning starters are most critical to know about because if you cap scientifically, your numbers are never true until teams have played 3-4 games against level-matched competition.

One simple example would be capping Alabama, against a non-conference opponent that is like Austin Peay for example. There is actually no line that you could trust in reality if the line was Bama -40 or Minus 50 or more.
If Alabama won 66-0 you still have no true factors to consider for playing one side or the other.

Im suggesting that to win early you need to know what kind of team is returning from last year. Mostly the starters on BOTH sides of the ball.
Of course everyone wants to know about returning QB's and WR's etc, but thats only half the game. The more important (IMO) part is the defense. Defensive teams with a lot of returning starters are key to playing against any team that is less talented than the teams that this defense played last season. Especially if last years team allowed low average points in each game. Its hard to gauge any team that gave up 36 points a game based on returning starters. In these situations you must stay away from that game if you have a severe "unknown" about that defense.

For example -If Alabama has only 6 returning starters on defense, thats huge when laying points to nobody's like Austin Peay. My thoughts are, that they need to do a lot of substituting against a team they can beat easily to find out who they have in the replacements. Live game action is far different from team practices.

If you cap games and do not know who is back from last year, then you are likely going to view the matchup off of last years expectation and production. Unless the teams involved are both returning 11 starters on each side of the ball, youre truly not getting a fair estimate of the team you play on or against, in todays game against the point spread.

This is one reason I post that trends are no good for gamblers. They usually never apply to the teams involved because of player changes, new coaches etc.
Point spreads are far more misleading when you don't know what created the posted number on any game. That makes capping that much harder, when you don't even consider returning starters and what the impact is on both sides of the ball.
Finally, in the first 4-5 games you will learn those changes on the statistics that are re-established by the current team on this season rosters.
When you have some comparison from last seasons numbers and player improvement, or regression, from this year - then you have an advantage.

Thats my take. For what its worth (FWIW).
 

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