Over/unders (totals)

[cloverleaf]

Far more gamers bet point spreads over totals even though totals are easier to beat than playing the point spread. Doubt me? Why do you think the limits on wagering on totals is lower than that of the point spread? Books simply don't spend the time on over/under lines as they do on point spreads. Also, stats seem to hold more true when capping totals.

Listed below are the best and worst over/under teams for 2014.

Over: Ohio State 11-2.....Tulsa 10-2.....Oklahoma 9-3.....Georgia 9-3.....Boise State 9-4.....Florida 8-3
Western Ky 8-3.....Kentucky 8-4.....UMass 8-4.....Michigan State 8-4.....North Texas 8-4.....TCU 8-4.....SMU 8-4

Under: San Diego St 1-11.....Syracuse 2-10.....Stanford 2-9.....Ole Miss 2-9.....Washington 3-9.....W. Virginia 3-9
Duke 3-8.....Arizona 4-9.....All 4-8..... C. Mich, Clemson, Nevada, Texas, UTSA, UCLA, Utah, Houston, Kansas, Mia, Fl
South Florida

*Teams of Note: FSU was 0-7 home.....Ohio State 8-0 home.....Georgia 6-2 home.....Maryland 5-1 home.....
Memphis 5-1 home.....LSU 2-5 home.....Missouri 1-6 home, 5-1 road.....Nevada 1-5 home.....Hawaii 1-5 road
Wisconsin 6-2 home

To each their own...but strong totals players usually make a nice profit betting just over/unders.

 

[TyBounce]

I hate having an under and then the game goes to overtime , i cant count the number of times ive been bitten by that. ....But for some reason i play more unders than overs , its not by design it just happens to work that way.

Obviously the world doesn't revolve around gambling , but if college was to make 1 rule change i wish they would go to the nfl overtime rule. ....These 17-21 points scored in ot is ridiculous.

...But it is what it is , and i still prefer college to the nfl.

 

[BigdaddyQH]

That is the major problem with taking the under. You have a 7-7 game that goes into OT and ends up 34-31. College Football still ranks far behind the NFL. In 2014, College Football was the 3rd most popular sport, checking in at 11%. The NFL was #1 at 35%. That is a huge difference. That is why the colleges are trying to get more scoring into their games by having crazy OT rules and stopping the clock after every first down. The plan is not working very well. The increase in televised games and minor bowl games just makes matters worse, not better. Too much of a good thing.

 

[GoSooners]

I hate having an under and then the game goes to overtime , i cant count the number of times ive been bitten by that. ....But for some reason i play more unders than overs , its not by design it just happens to work that way.

Obviously the world doesn't revolve around gambling , but if college was to make 1 rule change i wish they would go to the nfl overtime rule. ....These 17-21 points scored in ot is ridiculous.

...But it is what it is , and i still prefer college to the nfl.

I know the OT part is a chance we take when picking the unders. But you really can't let yourself worry about that or let it play a part making your handicapping. I always look at the overall picture. I haven't look at last year's stats, but I believe there were more under games in 2013 than overs. Don't hold me to this because I'm not a statistician by any means. But it all pretty much evens out in the end. We all know there are certain games and teams out there every where Vegas can't set the totals high enough. But we basically know who those teams are and either leave them alone or play the overs and be done with it. I'm more interested in the "other" teams that offer some value with the under.

 

[TyBounce]

I know the OT part is a chance we take when picking the unders. But you really can't let yourself worry about that or let it play a part making your handicapping. I always look at the overall picture. I haven't look at last year's stats, but I believe there were more under games in 2013 than overs. Don't hold me to this because I'm not a statistician by any means. But it all pretty much evens out in the end. We all know there are certain games and teams out there every where Vegas can't set the totals high enough. But we basically know who those teams are and either leave them alone or play the overs and be done with it. I'm more interested in the "other" teams that offer some value with the under.

I agree 100% , you cant let it effect your capping. 4 or 5 years ago i decided to only bet unders if the game spread was double digits so i could avoid ot , and it caused me to not bet a lot of winners lol . You cant let it bother you it is what it is.

 

[cloverleaf]

GS, I believe you are right about more unders in 2013 than overs if memory serves me correct.

During 2014, there were 49 teams with a better over record and 62 with a better under record.

The past two years playing Under was the better money play.

 

[CFBLore]

This is speculation but I would assume there are larger bets towards the overs and more bets (but smaller $) towards the under. I'm sure the mindset is a lot of fans that aren't in the know betting the over for their favorite team where the sharps bet a lot more unders. If you aggregated all 128 win/loss, I wonder how much over .500 it is (partially impacted by FCS game).

 

[cloverleaf]

Disagree CFB my friend. Most novice gamblers bet the Over in both college and pro football. Public loves offense and points, not much consideration given to teams who can play defense.

If the majority of public bettors favor OVER.....what does that tell YOU as an RX gaming man?

Just a thought for the forum......................

 

[rivercitybirdie]

we've all had the unpleasant experience of having an easy UNDER winner and then (yikes!) the game goes to OT. goodbye UNDER

but isn't this priced into the O/U total or its accompanying mini-moneyline (sorry don't know the expression for combining a total or pointspread with a skewed payout)?

if it's not priced in, then think about going OVER on some low pointspread games.

i do think O/U has some great potential from a number of possible points of view. i think the market is quite cognizent of returning starters/QB/etc. for pointspreads. you can debate whether they adjust enough but they certainly adjust the point spread or early season power rating..... but i am not sure they do it for O/U as much. 3 returning O starters vs. 9 returning D starters must mean something.

i also wonder generically if there's some autocorrelation (negative or positive) year to year in O/U teams.

 

[rolltide]

L3 years here are the 67%+ over/under outliers

OVERS:

36	10-26-0 (-6.68, 27.8%)	16.1	23-11-0 (3.06, 67.6%)	57.1	6-30-0 (-22.78, 16.7%)	EMCH
41	23-17-1 (4.46, 57.5%)	-15.9	28-13-0 (7.62, 68.3%)	57.6	38-3-0 (20.34, 92.7%)	OHST

UNDERS:

36	14-22-0 (-6.04, 38.9%)	4.5	10-25-0 (-4.59, 28.6%)	49.3	9-27-0 (-10.53, 25.0%)	SFL
36	16-20-0 (-2.08, 44.4%)	8.1	10-23-1 (-3.57, 30.3%)	48.7	12-24-0 (-10.22, 33.3%)	WAKE
38	15-20-3 (-3.17, 42.9%)	-4.1	12-25-0 (-3.27, 32.4%)	55.6	22-16-0 (0.97, 57.9%)	OHU
41	21-18-2 (2.62, 53.8%)	-9.0	13-27-0 (-4.47, 32.5%)	51.2	31-10-0 (11.59, 75.6%)	STAN

 

[rivercitybirdie]

rolltide, thanks....

i used teamrankings.com and just looked through the list of O/U teams for the past 4 years...... these are the teams that caught my eye.

OVER: baylor (wow), indiana, marshall (lost cato at QB now)....

UNDER: ohio, south florida, VT (the most UNDER... i thought they were UNDER for years but that had sort of reversed???)

two teams i think of as UNDER: ND (40% -2 points), stanford (40%, -2 points).... forgot to look up rutgers but they may be semi-ancient history on UNDER.

forgot OHS on the UNDER.... baylor at 71% for 4 seasons. in a league of their own on as they are 7 points above OVER per game.

elevator analysis, but here goes: 10 teams over 60%, 13 teams under 40% past 4Y (excluded app state as OVER as not full betting slate over that period)

 

[rivercitybirdie]

did one random U/O recent year. best and worst teams and how they did the next season:

OVERS skewed UNDER the next season. seemed to be good for coming up with 5-7 O/U teams the next year. not very powerful statistically as one OVER outlier killed the tendancy towards moderate UNDER the next season.

UNDER was very interesting (and i tested more teams)...... it identified tons of teams with extreme O/U performance the next season.... out of 11 teams total, it came up with a 1-10, 10-3 and 9-2 O/U teams the next season. it seems that the median team was an UNDER the next year, but the two positive outliers vs. one negative outliers would bring the average close to 50/50....

just the basic numbers... big O teams were 47% O next season. big U teams were 43% O the next season