We’re only a little over three months away from the 2024 college football season. Through the 3+ months of the regular season, the conference championships, the bowl games, and the College Football Playoff, there are many sports betting opportunities. However, for the amateur bettor, it can become easy to follow the crowd and end up missing out on tips that would have brought a lot more money along the way. Taking the likes of Alabama and Georgia to win and cover gargantuan spreads each week because those teams are so dominant, for example, isn’t a winning strategy. If you take the favorites on the moneyline, you eat away at the value of your wagers, and if you accept those huge spreads, you’re hoping that the backups don’t give up a couple of big plays and allow that backdoor cover. There are other ways to find leverage in betting College Football Odds. Take a look at some of our top tips.
College Football Odds: Early Wagering Tips for Sharp Bettors | Remember – this isn’t the NFL
If you’re already a savvy NFL bettor, you might think that jumping to college football will automatically double or triple your winnings because of the increased number of games and props available. A lot of bettors have tried that, but when they used the same strategies in the college game, they ended up burning through a lot of cash.
Why? Because the two leagues are quite different. There’s considerably more parity among the 32 teams in the NFL than there are in the dozens and dozens of teams in college football. This means that you will see bigger point spreads and bigger moneyline differentials in college football than you will in the NFL. For NFL games, a double-digit point spread is immense. In college football, particularly in non-conference play, you will see point spreads in excess of 30 and 40 points.
Having a huge point spread doesn’t mean that you should run away from those games when you’re looking for value. Understanding that a massive underdog might like to run the triple-option and will slow the pace of the game down might give you the confidence to bet that they will stay within 44 points of a team like Ohio State or Michigan. Those aren’t always considerations that bookmakers use when they set initial lines.
Bet on the NCAA Football Odds
Another key difference is that college football has a smaller betting pool than the NFL. That means that line movement is much more significant. In the NFL, it’s rare that a line will shift more than a point between the time it opens and kickoff unless major injuries or roster moves have taken place during the week. However, in college football, the smaller pool means that it can be easier for imbalances to develop on one side of the point spread, so shifts of as many as 3-4 points are common.
When you have games dominated by athletes in their late teens and early twenties, then intangibles play a larger role. NFL players can succumb to the pressure of playoff football, but it’s not likely that the Carolina Panthers will walk onto the turf of historic Lambeau Field for a preseason game and feel intimidated by remembering the legends who have played on that field in the chronology of the league. College players, especially in their first year or two, have still spent most of their football career playing in front of a few hundred fans in high school stadiums on Friday nights. Jumping to the college ranks can mean playing in front of sold-out stadiums with tens of thousands of fans. It takes some time for players to adjust to that emotional experience. Also, most athletes have different emotional spectrums in their late teens and early twenties than they do just a few years later, so pressure plays a greater role in these games.
The bottom line – take advantage of betting lines quickly in college football when you think there is an imbalance. Bookmakers will shift those lines more significantly than they will for NFL games, and you don’t want to miss out on opportunities.
NCAA Football Kick Off Schedule
Week Zero: Saturday, Aug. 24
• Florida State vs. Georgia Tech (in Dublin, Ireland)
• Norfolk State vs. Florida A&M
• SMU at Nevada
• Montana State at New Mexico
• Delaware State at Hawaii
Week 1: Thursday, Aug. 29 to Sunday, Sept. 1
• North Carolina at Minnesota
• Clemson vs. Georgia
• Miami (FL) at Florida
• Notre Dame at Texas A&M
• Penn State at West Virginia
• Georgia State at Georgia Tech
• North Dakota State at Colorado
• South Dakota State at Oklahoma State
• LSU vs. Southern California
• North Carolina Central vs. Alabama State
Live College Football Championship Betting Odds For Today
100 DAYS UNTIL WEEK 1 🔥
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— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) May 21, 2024
Xbet NCAA Football Odds for the Game
100 DAYS UNTIL WEEK 1 🔥
Which tradition are you most looking forward to? pic.twitter.com/9zfBvh7fPs
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