[h=1]Ultimate bowl betting guide[/h][h=3]A cheat sheet for ATS and SU picks, top system plays and more[/h]By ESPN Insider contributors | ESPN Insider
It's easy to get overwhelmed amid the 35 bowl games that will be played between Dec. 21 and Jan. 6. But fear not, Insider is here to help. We've asked our experienced group of gambling experts, including Chad Millman, Dave Tuley, Phil Steele, Will Harris, PJ Walsh, Geoff Kulesa and Sal Selvaggio what they're focused on during bowl season.
Below we provide:
Chad Millman's seven rules for betting bowl games
Dave Tuley's Vegas Rankings of CFB's Top 25 teams
The best system bets for this bowl season from PJ Walsh of Sports Insights
Handicappers' five best ATS bets, SU bets, O/U bets and potential upsets
Top five public teams according to Jay Kornegay of the LVH
<CENTER>[h=3]CFB Vegas Rankings[/h]</CENTER>
LAS VEGAS -- There are college football polls everywhere you turn, but here we present the NCAA Vegas Rankings as another tool for handicappers getting ready for the 2013-14 bowl season.
The teams are ranked by the composite power ratings of our panel of handicappers that includes Sal Selvaggio of madduxsports.com, Geoff Kulesa of wunderdog.com, Teddy "Covers" Sevransky of sportsmemo.com and yours truly, Dave Tuley. The ratings are meant to compare the relative strength of the teams if they were to meet on a neutral field, which is what we get in bowl games except for rare cases.<!-- begin inline 1 -->
It's not surprising that our No. 1 team is Florida State, but we did have one dissenter in the group. Sevransky still has Alabama better than FSU (and he's not alone, as several Vegas bookmakers have said they would still favor the Tide over the Seminoles if they were to meet).
"The best teams I've seen FSU beat, Clemson and Miami, are both flawed and beatable, which was especially clear after Clemson's bad loss to South Carolina," Sevransky said. "Bama stomped on an SEC slate and their lone loss came because of their kicker -- no other reason. I did not downgrade them off the brutal Auburn loss. FSU has a frosh QB getting too much media glare. Bama has a senior QB that can handle the glare."
That would have been a great matchup to see, but we can only handicap the games in front of us.
Our combined power ratings have Florida State as 8 points better than Auburn in the Jan. 6 BCS title game in Pasadena, Calif., which is just about where the market is settling after opening as low as 7 and going as high as 10.
Here are the top 35 teams in college football according to Las Vegas: <!-- begin inline 4 -->[h=4]NCAA Vegas Rankings (2013-14 Bowl Season)[/h]
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[h=3]Value plays[/h]
Boise St. plus-3 versus Oregon State (Dec. 24 Hawaii Bowl): Near the bottom of our poll, we have them dead-even, yet Oregon State is currently a 3-point favorite, offering some value on the underdog in a (theoretical) coin-flip situation.
Cincinnati plus-3 versus North Carolina (Dec. 28 Belk Bowl): At the bottom of our poll, these two teams are also rated even, yet UNC is currently favored by 3.
Oklahoma State plus-1 versus Missouri (Jan. 3 Cotton Bowl): This is by the slimmest of margins as Missouri is a 1-point favorite, but we actually have Oklahoma State rated a point higher.
Central Florida plus-16.5 versus Baylor (Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl): This is the biggest spread on the bowl board, but our ratings have it as only a 12-point difference between the teams.
Oklahoma plus-15.5 versus Alabama (Jan. 2 Sugar Bowl): We have this as only an 11-point difference, while Bama is favored by more than two touchdowns. However, Sevransky does have a warning: "Motivation, not talent is the only issue in the Sugar Bowl. Well, that and the question of whether Oklahoma is currently power-rated correctly."
That's the question in all these games. So use our ratings or make your own. And let us know in the comments section where you think we got them right and where we got them wrong.
<CENTER>[h=3]Chad Millman's Seven Bowl Bonanza Rules[/h]</CENTER>
Here's a primer that outlines the factors professional bettors consider when wagering on bowl games. Quotes are courtesy of Kenny White, the current COO of Don Best Sports.
1. How a team ended the regular season: "Were they on a run to make the bowl, or did they lose a lot?" White asks.
2. How much excitement a team will have headed into the bowl: "You're looking for a team that is thrilled to be there and looking forward to the game," White says.
A subset of No. 2 is bowl experience, but not for the reason you think: "I'm more likely to give a team a higher ranking if it hasn't been to a bowl for a while because that will generate excitement among the program and fans," White says.
3. How much time off a team has had before the bowl: "When you are not playing, it's hard to simulate game speed. It's like driving on the highway at 30 miles per hour," White says.
4. The weather on schools' respective campuses: "The SEC, Pac-12, even the ACC tend to do better in the bowls than the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East," White says. "I think the warm weather has a lot to do with that. Thirty days of practice in warm weather before a bowl game helps you get a lot more done than practicing in a bubble or outside in a cold climate."
5. Throw away any games against non-bowl competition. "What you want to do is see how a team stepped up in class," Vegas vet Bryan Leonard says.
6. Emphasize a team's road performance over its home performance.
7. Consider how the conference is doing in bowls.
<CENTER>[h=3]Picks, Picks, Picks[/h]</CENTER>
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Here are the five best ATS bets from Insider's panel of handicappers. These are the teams they have the most confidence will cover the spread.
[h=4]Best Spread Bets[/h]
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Need to know the teams you should have the most confidence picking in ESPN's Bowl Mania? Check out which teams our panel think have the best chance to win the game outright.
[h=4]Best SU Bets[/h]
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Things don't always go according to plan for teams in bowl games, which is why you need to be on the alert for upsets when making picks. Below are the teams each of our handicappers think are most likely to pull off the upset (opening line of at least 3 points).
[h=4]Biggest Potential Upsets[/h]
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Totals are becoming an increasingly popular wager. Below our panel gives their best over/under bets of bowl season.
[h=4]Best Over/Under Bets[/h]
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[h=3]PJ Walsh's Best Bowl Season System Plays[/h]
While most regular-season college football Saturdays include enough games to spread public money around, stand-alone and prime-time bowl games offer unique opportunities for recreational bettors to focus on single games, resulting in a significant increase in public money. At SportsInsights.com, we're always looking for situations in which an overwhelming amount of money hits the market, especially when the majority of bettors aren't betting for value and are instead simply looking for action on "big games."
We recommend that all bettors approach bowl games as if they were being played on a normal Saturday in October. If a specific game wouldn't be a bet for you during the college football regular season, then it shouldn't be one just because it's a bowl game. Money management and selectivity are two of the major reasons most bettors lose in the long run, so be sure to stick to your normal unit size and solid handicapping methods used throughout the entire season.
In terms of a betting system to employ, the major obstacle with bowls is a small sample size, even if you find profitable trends worth betting. As a result, I looked at systems we use in the regular season to see if they can be applied to bowls as well. In previous research done at Sports Insights, we've found that the public tends to overvalue the AP Top 25 rankings. With this in mind, I fired up our Bet Labs data analysis software and created a college football bowl system with a 62 percent ATS win rate that takes advantage of Top 25 rankings.
The table below shows the results in more detail:
<!-- begin inline 3 -->[h=4]CFB Bowl System[/h]ATS performance of unranked teams playing opponents ranked 11-25 in bowl games, since 2005.
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<!-- end inline 3 -->We understand that the 50-game sample size of our system is small, but the fact that variations of this system have also been historically profitable during the college football regular season indicates that the underlying strategy of backing unranked teams facing ranked opponents does offer solid contrarian betting value.
Eight bowl system plays
Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl: USC (-6.5) vs. No. 21 Fresno State
S.D. County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl: Utah State (+1.5) vs. No. 24 Northern Illinois
Russell Athletic Bowl: Miami FL (+3) vs. No. 18 Louisville
New Era Pinstripe Bowl: Rutgers (+15.5) vs. No. 25 Notre Dame
National University Holiday Bowl: Texas Tech (+14) vs. No. 16 Arizona State
Hyundai Sun Bowl: Virginia Tech (+7) vs. No. 17 UCLA
TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl: Nebraska (+9) vs. No. 23 Georgia
Outback Bowl: Iowa (+7) vs. No. 14 LSU
<CENTER>[h=3]Jay Kornegay's Top Public Teams[/h]</CENTER>
The five teams that have taken the most bets over the course of the season, according to Kornegay, lead bookmaker at the LVH, and his staff.
1. Baylor
2. Oregon
3. Florida State
4. Northern Illinois
5. Ohio State
It's easy to get overwhelmed amid the 35 bowl games that will be played between Dec. 21 and Jan. 6. But fear not, Insider is here to help. We've asked our experienced group of gambling experts, including Chad Millman, Dave Tuley, Phil Steele, Will Harris, PJ Walsh, Geoff Kulesa and Sal Selvaggio what they're focused on during bowl season.
Below we provide:
Chad Millman's seven rules for betting bowl games
Dave Tuley's Vegas Rankings of CFB's Top 25 teams
The best system bets for this bowl season from PJ Walsh of Sports Insights
Handicappers' five best ATS bets, SU bets, O/U bets and potential upsets
Top five public teams according to Jay Kornegay of the LVH
<CENTER>[h=3]CFB Vegas Rankings[/h]</CENTER>
LAS VEGAS -- There are college football polls everywhere you turn, but here we present the NCAA Vegas Rankings as another tool for handicappers getting ready for the 2013-14 bowl season.
The teams are ranked by the composite power ratings of our panel of handicappers that includes Sal Selvaggio of madduxsports.com, Geoff Kulesa of wunderdog.com, Teddy "Covers" Sevransky of sportsmemo.com and yours truly, Dave Tuley. The ratings are meant to compare the relative strength of the teams if they were to meet on a neutral field, which is what we get in bowl games except for rare cases.<!-- begin inline 1 -->
It's not surprising that our No. 1 team is Florida State, but we did have one dissenter in the group. Sevransky still has Alabama better than FSU (and he's not alone, as several Vegas bookmakers have said they would still favor the Tide over the Seminoles if they were to meet).
"The best teams I've seen FSU beat, Clemson and Miami, are both flawed and beatable, which was especially clear after Clemson's bad loss to South Carolina," Sevransky said. "Bama stomped on an SEC slate and their lone loss came because of their kicker -- no other reason. I did not downgrade them off the brutal Auburn loss. FSU has a frosh QB getting too much media glare. Bama has a senior QB that can handle the glare."
That would have been a great matchup to see, but we can only handicap the games in front of us.
Our combined power ratings have Florida State as 8 points better than Auburn in the Jan. 6 BCS title game in Pasadena, Calif., which is just about where the market is settling after opening as low as 7 and going as high as 10.
Here are the top 35 teams in college football according to Las Vegas: <!-- begin inline 4 -->[h=4]NCAA Vegas Rankings (2013-14 Bowl Season)[/h]
| Rank | Team | Power Rating |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida St. | 100 |
| 2 | Alabama | 99 |
| 3 | Stanford | 95.5 |
| 4 | Oregon | 93 |
| 5t | Auburn | 92 |
| 5t | Ohio St. | 92 |
| 7 | Baylor | 91.5 |
| 8t | Michigan St. | 90 |
| 8t | Oklahoma St. | 90 |
| 10t | LSU | 89.5 |
| 10t | Missouri | 89.5 |
| 10t | Wisconsin | 89.5 |
| 13t | Clemson | 89 |
| 13t | Arizona St. | 89 |
| 15t | South Carolina | 88 |
| 15t | Oklahoma | 88 |
| 17 | UCLA | 87.5 |
| 18t | Georgia | 86 |
| 18t | Texas A&M | 86 |
| 20 | USC | 85.5 |
| 21 | Washington | 85 |
| 22 | Louisville | 84.5 |
| 23t | Notre Dame | 84 |
| 23t | Mississippi | 84 |
| 25 | BYU | 83 |
| 26t | Kansas St. | 82 |
| 26t | Iowa | 82 |
| 28t | Arizona | 81 |
| 28t | Georgia Tech | 81 |
| 28t | Oregon St. | 81 |
| 31t | Virginia Tech | 80.5 |
| 31t | Miami (FL) | 80.5 |
| 33t | Central Florida | 79 |
| 33t | North Carolina | 79 |
| 33t | Cincinnati | 79 |
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[h=3]Value plays[/h]
Boise St. plus-3 versus Oregon State (Dec. 24 Hawaii Bowl): Near the bottom of our poll, we have them dead-even, yet Oregon State is currently a 3-point favorite, offering some value on the underdog in a (theoretical) coin-flip situation.
Cincinnati plus-3 versus North Carolina (Dec. 28 Belk Bowl): At the bottom of our poll, these two teams are also rated even, yet UNC is currently favored by 3.
Oklahoma State plus-1 versus Missouri (Jan. 3 Cotton Bowl): This is by the slimmest of margins as Missouri is a 1-point favorite, but we actually have Oklahoma State rated a point higher.
Central Florida plus-16.5 versus Baylor (Jan. 1 Fiesta Bowl): This is the biggest spread on the bowl board, but our ratings have it as only a 12-point difference between the teams.
Oklahoma plus-15.5 versus Alabama (Jan. 2 Sugar Bowl): We have this as only an 11-point difference, while Bama is favored by more than two touchdowns. However, Sevransky does have a warning: "Motivation, not talent is the only issue in the Sugar Bowl. Well, that and the question of whether Oklahoma is currently power-rated correctly."
That's the question in all these games. So use our ratings or make your own. And let us know in the comments section where you think we got them right and where we got them wrong.
<CENTER>[h=3]Chad Millman's Seven Bowl Bonanza Rules[/h]</CENTER>
Here's a primer that outlines the factors professional bettors consider when wagering on bowl games. Quotes are courtesy of Kenny White, the current COO of Don Best Sports.
1. How a team ended the regular season: "Were they on a run to make the bowl, or did they lose a lot?" White asks.
2. How much excitement a team will have headed into the bowl: "You're looking for a team that is thrilled to be there and looking forward to the game," White says.
A subset of No. 2 is bowl experience, but not for the reason you think: "I'm more likely to give a team a higher ranking if it hasn't been to a bowl for a while because that will generate excitement among the program and fans," White says.
3. How much time off a team has had before the bowl: "When you are not playing, it's hard to simulate game speed. It's like driving on the highway at 30 miles per hour," White says.
4. The weather on schools' respective campuses: "The SEC, Pac-12, even the ACC tend to do better in the bowls than the Big Ten, Big 12 and Big East," White says. "I think the warm weather has a lot to do with that. Thirty days of practice in warm weather before a bowl game helps you get a lot more done than practicing in a bubble or outside in a cold climate."
5. Throw away any games against non-bowl competition. "What you want to do is see how a team stepped up in class," Vegas vet Bryan Leonard says.
6. Emphasize a team's road performance over its home performance.
7. Consider how the conference is doing in bowls.
<CENTER>[h=3]Picks, Picks, Picks[/h]</CENTER>
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Here are the five best ATS bets from Insider's panel of handicappers. These are the teams they have the most confidence will cover the spread.
[h=4]Best Spread Bets[/h]
| Steele | Harris | Kulesa | Selvaggio | Tuley | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Texas +14 | Ball St. -9 | Texas +14 | CSU +4 | Cincy +3 |
| 2. | Alabama -14.5 | Tulane -1 | MTSU +6 | Fresno St. +6.5 | Nebraska +9 |
| 3. | Utah St. +1.5 | Wisc. PK | MSU +4.5 | Rutgers +15.5 | Clemson +2.5 |
| 4. | Pitt +5.5 | UL -3.5 | Tulane -1 | Texas +14 | BC +7.5 |
| 5. | UNC -3 | Oregon St. -3 | Va. Tech +7 | BC +7.5 | OK St. +1 |
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Need to know the teams you should have the most confidence picking in ESPN's Bowl Mania? Check out which teams our panel think have the best chance to win the game outright.
[h=4]Best SU Bets[/h]
| Steele | Harris | Kulesa | Selvaggio | Tuley | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Baylor | Ball St. | Notre Dame | ECU | Baylor |
| 2. | Alabama | Baylor | Baylor | Notre Dame | Notre Dame |
| 3. | Notre Dame | ECU | Ball St. | Texas A&M | Ball St. |
| 4. | Arizona St. | Notre Dame | Georgia | Georgia | Texas A&M |
| 5. | ECU | Louisville | LSU | Baylor | ECU |
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Things don't always go according to plan for teams in bowl games, which is why you need to be on the alert for upsets when making picks. Below are the teams each of our handicappers think are most likely to pull off the upset (opening line of at least 3 points).
[h=4]Biggest Potential Upsets[/h]
| Steele | Harris | Kulesa | Selvaggio | Tuley | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | Texas | Nebraska | MTSU | CSU | Nebraska |
| 2. | Nebraska | Texas | Mich. St. | Boise St. | BC |
| 3. | Ark. St. | Iowa | Va. Tech | BYU | Texas Tech |
| 4. | BC | Fresno St. | Boise St. | Cincinnati | Fresno St. |
| 5. | Pitt | Duke | Texas | UNLV | UNLV |
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Totals are becoming an increasingly popular wager. Below our panel gives their best over/under bets of bowl season.
[h=4]Best Over/Under Bets[/h]
| Steele | Harris | Kulesa | Selvaggio | Tuley | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | O 58 UW-BYU | O 65 CSU-WSU | U 50 Pitt-BGU | O 65 CSU-WSU | U 50 Pitt-BGU |
| 2. | U 47 Min.-Cuse | U 49 Iowa-LSU | U 54.5 UNLV-UNT | O 55.5 UM-KSU | U 58.5 Utah St.-NIU |
| 3. | O 67 Clem-OSU | U 54.5 UNLV-UNT | U 51 Wisc.-USC | O 60.5 UGA-Neb. | O 73.5 Duke-Texas A&M |
| 4. | O 61 Ohio-ECU | U 47 Va. Tech-UCLA | U 42.5 MSU-Stan. | O 54.5 UNLV-UNT | U 49 Iowa-LSU |
| 5. | O 55 Navy-MTSU | U 57 Miss.-Ga. Tech | O 67 UT-Oregon | U 51.5 Okla.-Bama | U 53.5 Buffalo-SDSU |
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[h=3]PJ Walsh's Best Bowl Season System Plays[/h]
While most regular-season college football Saturdays include enough games to spread public money around, stand-alone and prime-time bowl games offer unique opportunities for recreational bettors to focus on single games, resulting in a significant increase in public money. At SportsInsights.com, we're always looking for situations in which an overwhelming amount of money hits the market, especially when the majority of bettors aren't betting for value and are instead simply looking for action on "big games."
We recommend that all bettors approach bowl games as if they were being played on a normal Saturday in October. If a specific game wouldn't be a bet for you during the college football regular season, then it shouldn't be one just because it's a bowl game. Money management and selectivity are two of the major reasons most bettors lose in the long run, so be sure to stick to your normal unit size and solid handicapping methods used throughout the entire season.
In terms of a betting system to employ, the major obstacle with bowls is a small sample size, even if you find profitable trends worth betting. As a result, I looked at systems we use in the regular season to see if they can be applied to bowls as well. In previous research done at Sports Insights, we've found that the public tends to overvalue the AP Top 25 rankings. With this in mind, I fired up our Bet Labs data analysis software and created a college football bowl system with a 62 percent ATS win rate that takes advantage of Top 25 rankings.
The table below shows the results in more detail:
<!-- begin inline 3 -->[h=4]CFB Bowl System[/h]ATS performance of unranked teams playing opponents ranked 11-25 in bowl games, since 2005.
| ATS Record | Units Won | ROI |
|---|---|---|
| * Closing lines from Pinnacle were used to determine records. ** Units Won is the amount of money a betting system won or lost after factoring in juice.In the example above, a $100 bettor would have won $1,024 ($100 x 10.24 units) following the system. *** To calculate ROI, the return of an investment (or in this case, the profit earned from the sports betting system) is divided by the cost of the investment. | ||
| 31-19 (62%) | +10.24 | +20.5% |
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<!-- end inline 3 -->We understand that the 50-game sample size of our system is small, but the fact that variations of this system have also been historically profitable during the college football regular season indicates that the underlying strategy of backing unranked teams facing ranked opponents does offer solid contrarian betting value.
Eight bowl system plays
Royal Purple Las Vegas Bowl: USC (-6.5) vs. No. 21 Fresno State
S.D. County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl: Utah State (+1.5) vs. No. 24 Northern Illinois
Russell Athletic Bowl: Miami FL (+3) vs. No. 18 Louisville
New Era Pinstripe Bowl: Rutgers (+15.5) vs. No. 25 Notre Dame
National University Holiday Bowl: Texas Tech (+14) vs. No. 16 Arizona State
Hyundai Sun Bowl: Virginia Tech (+7) vs. No. 17 UCLA
TaxSlayer.com Gator Bowl: Nebraska (+9) vs. No. 23 Georgia
Outback Bowl: Iowa (+7) vs. No. 14 LSU
<CENTER>[h=3]Jay Kornegay's Top Public Teams[/h]</CENTER>
The five teams that have taken the most bets over the course of the season, according to Kornegay, lead bookmaker at the LVH, and his staff.
1. Baylor
2. Oregon
3. Florida State
4. Northern Illinois
5. Ohio State
