College Football 2016 Win Totals

In our opinion the best college football futures you can do are win totals. It’s fun to predict a champion and if you hit there is a fantastic chunk of change coming your way but win totals is where it’s at if you want to win some serious money. When Vegas releases their win totals for the upcoming season there are always a few soft numbers. Most of it has to do with hype or lack there of from the media towards teams. Vegas knows the public will almost certainly buy into the hype and they set their numbers accordingly. With some research you can look deeper into teams and find ones that are trending up or down based on a number of factors. One of the biggest mistakes the betting public makes is wanting to bet the “over” Vegas knows the public loves looking for Overs so they adjust accordingly. Some of the best bets to make is a team not being as good as their win total suggests. Some tips on things to look for before betting a total.

1. Player Turnover

Vegas already knows about player turnover but they sometimes don’t adjust accordingly because they know most people won’t know or care about it. They think ‘Ohio state is going to win 11 games again because they always do” or TCU scores 50 points a game every year so they will again” When looking at some of the bigger name schools really look into who they lost and how much, if any experience the players taking their place has. Which leads directly to….

2. Quarterback

It’s not a mystery this is the most important position. Looking at who the college quarterback is going to be is extremely important. We all know Deshaun Watson is back and barring injury will be incredible. But what about Alabama’s QB competition or Michigan State’s QB or Penn State’s? An experienced QB can help soften the blow of player turnover at other positions but no matter how many players are returning or 5 star recruits you have, an inexperienced young QB may take a month or so to get to where the team needs him to be.

3. Schedule

Really look deep into a teams schedule. With unbalanced schedules the norm now a team that caught a lucky break with schedule last year may have a bear of schedule this year. You have to look at the conference road games especially and look at when and where those games are to be played as well as predict how good those teams are going to be.

4. Injuries

Obviously you can’t predict which teams are going to catch a break and have no significant injuries and which team will have players dropping like flies. What you can do is look at the depth the teams have in case of injuries. Especially at the Qb position and offensive and defensive lines.

5. Defense

Everybody loves offense, especially in college football with final scores looking more and more like halftime of an NBA game. That’s exactly why defense is more important then ever. Of the top 10 defenses from 2015, 7 went over, 2 went under and 1 pushed. If you can nail down a team that is going to be near the top in total defense chances are they will beat the Vegas number.

6. Coaching

Make sure you look at coaching changes. Look for teams who have hired new coaches and what style they are bringing compared to the personnel they have in place. It could take a year or 2 for a coach to get the personnel to fit his system, Or remember that an experienced coach can turn things around quickly like Jim Harbaugh. New head coaches that were former head coaches include Mark Richt at Miami, Bronco Mendenhall at Virginia and a really interesting one in Lovie Smith taking his pro style to Illinois. Will these coaches immediately help? Also look for teams who have lost offensive and defensive coaches to head coaching jobs. Is Kirby Smart becoming the head man at Georgia going help the Bulldogs and hurt The Crimson Tide at the same time? Take coaching changes seriously.

The college football rankings aren’t released so below id the ESPN 2016 Power Index and the Vegas win total for each team.

1. Florida St. – 9.5
2. LSU – 10
3. Oklahoma – 10
4. Clemson – 10.5
5. Tennessee – 9.5
6. Alabama – 10
7. Ole Miss – 8.5
8. USC – 7.5
9. Oklahoma St. – 8.5
10. Georgia – 8.5
11. Michigan – 10
12. Louisville – 9
13. UCLA – 8.5
14. Washington – 9
15. Texas A&M – 6
16. Baylor – 9.5
17. Ohio St. – 9.5
18. Auburn – 6.5
19. Florida – 7.5
20. Notre Dame – 9.5
21. North Carolina – 8.5
22. Stanford – 8.5
23. Nebraska – 8.5
24. Texas – 6.5
25. Pittsburgh – 7
26. Miss St. – 6.5
27. Arkansas – 7.5
28. West Virginia – 6.5
29. Oregon – 8
30. TCU – 8
31. Miami – 6.5
32. Wisconsin – 7
33. Michigan St. – 7.5
34. Penn St. – 6.5
35. Iowa – 8.5
36. Boise St. – 10.5
37. Arizona – 6
38. Washington St. – 7.5
39. Utah – 7.5
40. Texas Tech – 7
41. NC State – 6
42. Houston – 9.5
43. Virginia Tech – 6.5
44. South Carolina – 5
45. BYU – 8
46. South Florida – 8.5
47. Georgia Tech – 6.5
48. Arizona – 6
49. Cal – 4
50. Vanderbilt – 5