ATS Report: Opening Weekend NCAA
By TED SEVRANSKY
The opening weekend of college football showed some dramatic disparities from conference to conference, giving us a real idea of the under and over valued conferences for the upcoming campaign. This strategy has worked well during bowl season, when it’s crucial to identify under and over valued conferences in the early bowls, giving us a big edge for the later bowl games.
Let’s start with the successful ATS conferences. I threw out all conference games for the purposes of this report, concentrating exclusively on the non-conference matchups:
The SEC did great. Ole Miss, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama, Auburn and Kentucky all won and covered. Tennessee and Mississippi State both lost outright as favorites. As a conference, the SEC went 7-2 ATS on the opening weekend.
The PAC-10 also enjoyed a banner weekend. UCLA, USC, Cal and Arizona took care of business, while only Washington State came up short. The PAC-10 went 4-1 ATS on the opening weekend.
The Big 12 cashed tickets for their backers. Nebraska, Oklahoma State, Missouri, Texas, Kansas State and Colorado were ATS winners, while Texas A+M, Baylor and Kansas failed to cash. The Big 12 went 6-3 ATS on the opening weekend.
The MAC was the fourth conference worth betting on. Temple, Buffalo, Ohio U, Akron, Northern Illinois and Bowling Green cashed tickets for their supporters. Miami-Ohio, Kent and Western Michigan all came up short. The MAC, like the Big 12, went 6-3 ATS on the opening weekend.
Coming into the season, the SEC, Big 12 and PAC-10 were widely regarded as the three best conferences in the country, in that order. And handicappers, as a group, were very high on the MAC this year, with the cyclical nature of this conference indicating that this would be an ‘up’ year for this particular ‘mid-major’ conference. All four conferences paid out like a broken slot machine this past weekend, combining to go 23-9 ATS.
Of course, there is another side to this story. The Big 10, ACC and Big East were all expected to be down a notch or two this year, the weaker half of the major conferences. The Week 1 results certainly showed that the preseason assessments were right on the money.
It was a disastrous weekend for the Big East. Syracuse, Pittsburgh, Rutgers and Louisville all lost SU and ATS; with three of those four losses coming as favorites. No Big East team covered a spread this past weekend, 0-4 as a conference.
The Big 10 wasn’t much better. Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois and Michigan State all went down to ATS defeat, while only Northwestern managed to cover a spread (and that deserves an asterisk, against the worst major conference team in the country, Syracuse). I’m not counting the Western Kentucky-Indiana game for this report, the only ‘middle’ on sides for the weekend, as Western covered the opening number (+21) but did not cover the closing number (+17) in their 18 point loss to the Hoosiers. As a whole, the Big 10 went 1-5 ATS.
The ACC suffered a number of high profile defeats. Virginia Tech went down, as did Virginia, Clemson and NC State, all in rather ugly fashion. Only BC and Wake Forest managed to cash tickets for the ACC, leaving the conference with a 2-4 mark.
And let’s not forget the Sun Belt when we’re talking about weaker conferences. The Sun Belt has been the ultimate bottom feeder conference since it’s creation a decade ago, and the opening week’s results showed that the gap between the Sun Belt and the better conferences has not been eradicated in the slightest. Louisiana-Monroe, Louisiana-Lafayette, Florida Atlantic and North Texas all got crushed SU and ATS this past weekend. Florida International only lost by 30 and 36’ point underdogs, while Arkansas State won outright at Texas A+M. I’m grading the Sun Belt with a 2-4 mark for the opening weekend.
The four bet against conferences listed above went a combined 5-17 ATS.
Conference USA went 2-2. The Mountain West went 1-3. The WAC went 3-2. And the only independent to play a lined game was Army, who lost badly to Temple. I don’t think we’ve seen enough out of any of these conferences to draw significant judgments just yet.
It’s worth noting that of the 41 games played this past weekend, 32 were decided by double digit margins. Only nine games were decided by less than ten points. That probably explains much of the success by the favorites on the opening weekend of college football – chalk cashed at a 60% clip, 24-16 against the number.
There weren’t many fourth quarter comebacks on the opening weekend. Wyoming rallied from six points down to beat Ohio U by one. Minnesota blew a double digit lead, but managed to score the winning touchdown with less than 30 seconds to go against Northern Illinois. East Carolina rallied from two scores down in the fourth quarter to beat Virginia Tech. That’s it for successful fourth quarter comebacks! Oregon State, Michigan State, Tennessee and Texas A+M all came up short in their fourth quarter comeback attempts.