The Best Bowl Dogs

The bowl season is under way – perhaps the most exciting part of the college football season. And, as always, in sports betting, it's time to search out the best percentages and then play the go-with teams in the go-with situations.

With the growing number of post-season bowls (and, thus, bowl teams), the number of dogs covering the spread in recent years has increased. In the past three seasons, underdogs have gone 12-9, 16-7, and 17-7 vs. the spread in the 1998, '99, and '00 bowl campaigns, respectively, for a combined three-year mark of 45-23 (very good in sports betting). These are nice numbers, so let's look a little closer at the overall bowl picture for some "whys" and "wherefores."

It looks as if the increased number of "minor" bowls in recent years could be a continuing boon to sharp handicappers. Just five years ago, there were only 17 post-season bowls. This season there are 25 (all-star bowls excluded). Why a boon? Because underdogs tend to do much better overall vs. the spread in pre-New Year's Day bowls than in the marquee bowls on/after New Year's Day.

There are reasons for this. Mostly, they have to do with the declining quality of the teams now included in the post-season as a result of the recently added bowls in places such as Detroit, Boise, Houston, Nashville, and elsewhere. This season, there is a second bowl in New Orleans, and the Tangerine Bowl has been reborn in Orlando.

The Bowl Championship Series has focused primary attention on its big payday bowls of the Sugar, Orange, Fiesta, and – this season – the Rose. Most of the best teams will end up in the BCS bowls. As you go down the line, the quality of the teams playing decreases, their number of losses sustained in the regular season increases, and the number of "flaws" they possess increases. Those flaws include such things as weak defenses, unbalanced offenses, young QBs, or teams depleted by key injuries during the season.

It should be no surprise, then, that "flawed favorites" in minor bowls have a difficult time putting away their opponents. Moreover, there's usually a psychological component working in the minor bowls, where the teams are often quite evenly matched. The players on the underdog team tend to prepare with a little more focus and gusto, eager to prove the so-called "experts" wrong. And players on the favored team have a tendency to enjoy the fruits of the bowl pageantry a little more, getting caught up in the thinking, "We're favored, so we're recognized as the better team, so we should win the game." That can be a dangerous line of thinking in violent collision sports such as football.

Here are some of the minor bowls that have been especially dominated by underdog pointspread results in recent years:

Underdogs in the Independence Bowl in Shreveport (Dec. 27) have gone 9-4 vs. the spread the last 13 years. Many of the favorites appearing in this bowl in recent years have been disappointed in ending up there after previously having bigger bowls in mind.

Underdogs in the Sun Bowl in El Paso (Dec. 31) have gone 9-1-2 in the last 12 years. The Sun Bowl in recent years has usually featured either Big Ten teams with vulnerable defenses or Pac-10 teams not thrilled that the result of their season has caused them to end up in El Paso.

Underdogs in the Peach Bowl in Atlanta (Dec. 31) have gone 8-1 vs. the spread the last nine years. Because this game is in the heart of football-rabid ACC and SEC country, both participants usually get solid regional fan support, unlike many still-struggling minor bowls. The trailing team rarely gives up, with this bowl featuring a number of comeback wins and close finishes.

Favorites tend to do much better in the bowls on/after New Year's Day, so a solid handicap of matchups has proven most effective. In the "big" bowls with high national rankings (and possibly the national championship) usually at stake, a superior team will tend to "pour it on" a flawed, trailing team if it has the ability to do so.

Overall in the bowl picture, you want to be careful whenever a team is favored by seven or more points. It is in those games that the psychological factor ("nobody is giving us any respect") previously mentioned is most prevalent.

Since 1974, underdogs of seven or more points are 78-53 vs. the spread (59.5 percent) in bowl games.

Since 1974, underdogs of 14 or more points are 15-7 vs. the spread.

So, when you're considering a wager on a bowl game this year, always look at the fundamentals first, but be sure to give the underdogs in the minor bowls proper respect. And if you think the biggest underdogs don't have much of a chance, you better think again.

Chuck Sippl is the senior editor of The Gold Sheet, the "bible" for sports bettors since 1957. To get more handicapping advice, forecasts, angles, power ratings, and emerging-player information, subscribe to The Gold Sheet or pick one up at your local newsstand. If you haven't seen The Gold Sheet and would like to review a complimentary copy, call (800) 798-GOLD (4653) and say you read about it in Card Player. You can check the web at www.goldsheet.com.