When it comes to betting on sports college football is near the top of the list in popularity. Starting in late August and running right through the national title game in early January, there are always a multitude of opportunities to cash-in on the games.
Just like in any other sport, you still need to employ some type of betting strategy to help insure a positive return on investment and one of the best in my book is to limit the scope of the college football teams you wager on to a single geographic region; preferably by conference. Division IA football is made up of five major conferences and five mid-majors conferences as well as a handful of teams that play as independents, so there is plenty of opportunity to pick just one.
Familiarity with a smaller number of teams helps to increase predictability in the outcome of their games. This is a simple case of betting on what you know best. If you live on the East Coast and find yourself following the 14 teams that currently make-up the ACC, they why not spend your time handicapping these teams on regular basis when it comes to betting on the games. There is a long history of great rivalries within the ACC so that means you can uncover a wealth of information on recent statistics and betting trends as insight for the games.
By limiting yourself to concentrating on just one conference during the first few weeks of the regular season when teams are playing the bulk of their nonconference schedule, you will still be ahead of the curve with your inside information of those individual teams when conference play finally does start-up. By then you will be more than ready to correctly handicap the games.
In today's sophisticated world of mobile technology and advances in how information is delivered, it is much easier to keep track of your favorite teams no matter where you live. While that may be the case, be very careful not to underestimate the value that local information still brings to the table. There are just too many D-IA schools out there for the national media outlets to properly cover, so the sports reporter covering the local team is still going to uncover things that will get missed at the national level.
Beating the Oddsmakers at their own game requires some sort of edge and often times gaining information on the local level can provide the advantage you are looking for to uncover a bad line. It may be as simple as something overlooked on an updated injury report or a more accurate weather forecast that can have an impact on the outcome of a game. Keeping your ear to the ground in your own backyard can begin to pay some major dividends down the road as opposed to just relying on the national preview reports that become a dime a dozen during the regular season.
The final betting edge that specialization in just one conference can bring to the table is a deeper understanding of current form. If you are just picking-out Top 25 matchups each week and handicapping the game based on stats and trends, it is really hard to enhance the predictability of the outcome. When you closely study just a handful of teams, you will automatically know which ones are hot and which ones are not.
College football is often times driven by raw emotion as these kids are playing for the love of the game. Rivalries run deep and the revenge factor at this level can be a huge momentum changer that may not be fully reflected in the opening betting odds for a particular game. Home teams getting points in a conference clash should always spark your interest, unless there is a huge disparity in talent between the two rivals. By sticking with just one conference you will eventually turn yourself into a subject expert on those teams, which in turn, should work in your favor to build your bankroll as the college football season progresses.