College Football Wagering

Using College Football Defensive Stats to predict the point spread winner.

In another college football gambling and wagering article, we looked at college football offensive stats. In this one, we will dive into the defensive side of the ball and how it relates in college football wagering. I will pose the same question. Will factoring in defensive stats help make a better point spread selection? The short answer is perhaps. I found two nuggets of information you will want for your college football betting arsenal.

Defensive stats, in whole, can tell you very little. For instance, take Wisconsin. They had a 10-3 record in 2005. Their defense allowed a whopping 417 yards per game, but they had a winning record. Kentucky allowed just a few more yards per game, 439, yet they had a 3-8 record. It’s night and day over just a few yards. How about Ole Miss? Their defense was pretty decent. They allowed just 332 yards per game in 2005. However, they were 3-8 as well.

I thought I was on to something with the scoring. After all, yards when wagering on college football are meaningless unless someone scores. What I found was a dead end. I figured that defenses allowing 30 points per game were killing their team, so I decided to look for defenses allowing 20-23 points per game on average or better. At first, I was excited. Winning teams like Florida, Auburn, Georgia, LSU and so forth all had numbers less than 20—many under 17.

However, I was about to hit a pothole. Tennessee, 5-6 in the 2005 season, only allowed 18.64 points per game. Pittsburgh, 5-6, allowed 22 points per game. South Florida, 6-6, allowed 18 points per game. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. I found two constants among the teams I studied. First, if the defense allows around 30 points per game, or more, on average, that team is horrible. Second, if the defense allows 17 or fewer points per game, that team is almost always very good.

The word is still out on a cut and dry system for defensive stats when handicapping college football, but over the summer we will continually be looking for a simple and straight-forward method of picking college football winners using just the defensive stats category.