Power ratings can get a little misleading. I am putting together some numbers and comparing them but I would not call them power ratings.
What you are after has less to do with power ratings and more to do with matchups. One team against the other, coach against coach, strengths against weaknesses, home field advantages, and some times things like distance traveled and injuries. The key thing to remember is that power ratings change from week to week which means they went up or down because a team played better or worse than expected. All in all the only power rating that counts is when the season is over and then it is too late. Stick with matchups. Mostly stick with teams you know and do not listen to touts. I am beginning a study on how returning players impact a new season, especially returning players who account for TD's. I will be monitoring them all season to see if the numbers I came up with in the pre-season hold up during the real season. It may or may not hold up but I am always looking for an edge. Basically what you are saying is that you want to become more self sufficient at studying and picking teams "on your own." Learn to do that my son and you will become a man.
What you are after has less to do with power ratings and more to do with matchups. One team against the other, coach against coach, strengths against weaknesses, home field advantages, and some times things like distance traveled and injuries. The key thing to remember is that power ratings change from week to week which means they went up or down because a team played better or worse than expected. All in all the only power rating that counts is when the season is over and then it is too late. Stick with matchups. Mostly stick with teams you know and do not listen to touts. I am beginning a study on how returning players impact a new season, especially returning players who account for TD's. I will be monitoring them all season to see if the numbers I came up with in the pre-season hold up during the real season. It may or may not hold up but I am always looking for an edge. Basically what you are saying is that you want to become more self sufficient at studying and picking teams "on your own." Learn to do that my son and you will become a man.
My approach to sportsbetting over the years is probably different than most people, but i have enjoyed a decent amount of success and i don't work very hard at all. I'll fully admit that I know far less about each team than most handicappers who are true football experts, but i can still produce better records than most cappers. How is this? Because i am an expert at selling high and buying low.
I really focus on the lines that each team faces throughout the season. That is the most important thing to me because Vegas oddsmakers are really good at evaluating talent. Let me illustrate through a perfect example from last season. The game was Texas Tech +7 at Oklahoma. Now, coming into the game, Tech was on fire and it had the look of a game that could be quite competitive. I knew it would not be, and made a healthy play on the Sooners minus the points and it was an easy winner. Why did i think it would be so easy?
Well, when Oklahoma played Texas on a neutral field in mid October, the Sooners were 7-point favorites over Texas. When Texas went to Texas Tech, the Longhorns were about 6 point road favorites, so they were rated roughly ten points stronger than TTU in Las Vegas. Obviously, TTU must have been even further behind OU, possibly by as many as seventeen points!!! With the big homefield edge for OU, i thought a more accurate line would have been OU -20 over Texas Tech instead of OU -7.
Of course, this is not a foolproof method, but if you consistently buy low and sell high, you will grind out more than 60% winners and almost always will have a very good chance to cover the spread. You will also avoid many of the embarrassing losses where the team you thought was a good play gets utterly destroyed and you look like an idiot.
I really focus on the lines that each team faces throughout the season. That is the most important thing to me because Vegas oddsmakers are really good at evaluating talent. Let me illustrate through a perfect example from last season. The game was Texas Tech +7 at Oklahoma. Now, coming into the game, Tech was on fire and it had the look of a game that could be quite competitive. I knew it would not be, and made a healthy play on the Sooners minus the points and it was an easy winner. Why did i think it would be so easy?
Well, when Oklahoma played Texas on a neutral field in mid October, the Sooners were 7-point favorites over Texas. When Texas went to Texas Tech, the Longhorns were about 6 point road favorites, so they were rated roughly ten points stronger than TTU in Las Vegas. Obviously, TTU must have been even further behind OU, possibly by as many as seventeen points!!! With the big homefield edge for OU, i thought a more accurate line would have been OU -20 over Texas Tech instead of OU -7.
Of course, this is not a foolproof method, but if you consistently buy low and sell high, you will grind out more than 60% winners and almost always will have a very good chance to cover the spread. You will also avoid many of the embarrassing losses where the team you thought was a good play gets utterly destroyed and you look like an idiot.
I agree with you on that ND. A few things I look at early on is teams that do really well their 1st few times out and then go on the road (great fade material). The opposite for teams that struggle a little out of the gate but still show they have some backbone (good play on team). You will always get some solid value in these spots especially early in the season. This is when I pay close attention to public perception and go against the media and so called experts a lot more. This is not fool proof obviously but if you do your homework and figure out an angle your will pull off a good percentage of W's.
Great example was Cal when they went to Maryland last year. Every square bettor I knew was pounding Cal because they blew out a dismal Wazzu team the week before (Maryland got beat by Middle Tenn St crushing their stock). You had a home dog gettting double digits even though cal had to cross 4 time zones and play in a noon game. In all honesty, I did not bet on Cal but learned a lot from that game.
That's why when the Gamecocks came out looking like studs after beating NCST everyone figured they would go on the road and take care of business against Vandy. Problem was they were on the road and weren't going against a back up QB who throws int's all day. They were very overvalued and lost strait up. This time though I sold high and cashed in.
Oregon St vs. USC was another classic example.
Great example was Cal when they went to Maryland last year. Every square bettor I knew was pounding Cal because they blew out a dismal Wazzu team the week before (Maryland got beat by Middle Tenn St crushing their stock). You had a home dog gettting double digits even though cal had to cross 4 time zones and play in a noon game. In all honesty, I did not bet on Cal but learned a lot from that game.
That's why when the Gamecocks came out looking like studs after beating NCST everyone figured they would go on the road and take care of business against Vandy. Problem was they were on the road and weren't going against a back up QB who throws int's all day. They were very overvalued and lost strait up. This time though I sold high and cashed in.
Oregon St vs. USC was another classic example.
Good stuff tootight, this is exactly what i'm talking about. I had a real big play on Maryland in that game. I knew that line was terrible when USC was only favored by 21 at UVA earlier in the year. I knew SC had to be double digits clear of CAL no problem, and I knew that Maryland was ahead of UVA by a ways, despite losing to MTSU. Plus the time zone made it an easy no brainer on maryland. I am surprised so many lost on CAL in that game. A perfect example of why you need to be able to step back and look at the entire picture rather than getting caught up in the flavor of the moment.
ND...I don't know if you remember or not, but Maryland over CAL was one of my biggest plays of the year last season. After I made that pick on here, I thought I was going to get ridden out of the forum. Most of the posters absolutely disagreed with my asessment of that game. But like you said, from a line value perspective, this was the ONLY play on this game. Also, as you know I'm pretty big on the "running dogs" theory in certain situations. And this game fit the bill with the Terps being the run dogs... The 13 point lopsided line was a result of the 66 points that Cal laid on WSU the week before. We now know that the score wasn't all that impressive considering what everybody else did to WSU last year. Plus Maryland was just coming off a loss to a Sunbelt team. Even though they outplayed them and won everywhere but the scoreboard. You combine that with a west coast team crossing through several time zones to play a morning game out east, and you have the makings of not only a cover, but an upset. Cal looked like they were sleepwalking through the first half of the game, and found themselves down by several TD's on the scoreboard before they woke up in the second half. But the damage was already done.. You only get really good betting situations like that maybe 3 or 4 times a year. But that one was extra special for me because of the lambasting I got here. Needless to say many of those same posters never showed up in my threads again...Lesson learned I guess.
I prefer to get criticized when i make a pick. That's generally when i know it is a good one. The proof is in the pudding. You have stood the test of time. Those critics of yours probably went broke and never showed their faces again. It is a good feeling indeed.
