Inside the Stats - Week 13
By Marc Lawrence
VegasInsider.com
With the Alabama Tide high and rolling atop the playoff committee poll, and the final full week of college football games on tap this week, it’s crunch time for many tams looking to earn the best bowl bid possible.
Until the final results are in, let’s review teams and their season-to-date performances from a statistical perspective while also analyzing last week’s football games.
Remember, all results are ATS (Against The Spread) in games played this season through Monday, November 24th, unless noted otherwise.
OIL AND VINEGAR
Each week on the football card each we isolate favorites that have been out-gained in each of their last three games.
We affectionately refer to them as ‘leaking oil’ favorites for reasons that are self-explanatory. Here are this week’s potential Pennzoil favorites.
College Football: Texas San Antonio and Utah.
NFL: St. Louis
PUTTIN’ ON THE STATS
Keeping up with our look at teams who have either dominated, or been dominated, In The Stats (ITS) this season, let’s turn to the teams that still quality on ‘Puttin’ On The Stats’ list.
What we are looking to do from this point of the season out is to ‘Play On’ any team as a dog if they’ve won all – or all but one – of their games in total yards ITS (In The Stats) season-to-date. Conversely, we will look to ‘Play Against’ any favorite that has lost all – or all but one – of their games in total yards ITS.
As we head toward Thanksgiving, and with the list shortening by the week, here’s this year’s current list.
ALERT: ‘Play On’ (as dog) and ‘Play Against’ (as favorite) teams to fatten up on for the balance of the 2014 season:
Play On Dogs: Baylor, Boise State, East Carolina, Georgia Tech, *Marshall, Mississippi State, *Ohio State, TCU and Western Michigan.
Play Against Favorites: Connecticut, Eastern Michigan, Florida International, Kent State, *SMU, Vanderbilt and Wake Forest.
Important: an *asterisk indicates the team is either 100% or 0% ITS this season. Once a favorite loses the stats a second time, or a dog wins the stats for the second time during the season, they are immediately eliminated from the list.
This week we find Georgia Tech in the ‘Play On’ dog list, with no teams appearing on the ‘Play Against’ favorite list.
LOOKING INSIDE THE STATS
These are the teams who won phony games ‘inside-out’ ITS (In The Stats) but were out-gained by 100 or more yards in their last game. This week includes:
College Football: Arizona State
NFL: Chicago Bears
On the flip side, these are the teams playing this week who lost phony games ‘inside-out’ ITS (In The Stats) but out-gained their opponent by 100 or more yards in their last game:
College Football: Washington State
NFL: Tampa Bay Buccaneers
TRENDING THIS WEEK
The Washington Redskins are 11-0 ATS in their seventh away game of the season.
Arizona Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians is 7-0 SU and ATS in non-division games in his NFL career when his team is off a SU loss.
The New Orleans Saints are 5-0 SU and ATS in their last five games after playing on Monday night.
The New England Patriots are 4-0 SU and ATS as underdogs this season.
The Denver Broncos are 0-7 ATS in Sunday night games against an opponent off a SU and ATS loss.
The Miami Dolphins are 0-5 SU and ATS in their last five Monday Night games.
STAT OF THE WEEK
Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh is 29-0 SU and 21-8 ATS as a non-division favorite, including 5-0 SU and ATS versus AFC West opponents.