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MAC Preview and College Football Betting Systems for Wednesday

by Matt Shanahan (mshanahan) Last Updated 2024-09-26 18:56:57

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Tuesdays and Wednesdays in the fall can be downright miserable. The NFL has us covered on Mondays and Thursdays, and the weekend is always packed with action, but those two days in the middle of the week can really be a struggle at times. Things are especially bad this season with the NBA and NHL pushing back their usual start dates. In 2020, there is only one thing that can fill this void: MACtion.

MAC football is back, baby. For the next three weeks, Tuesdays and Wednesdays will feature six games between the twelve teams in this beautiful and underrated college football conference. Tonight’s slate is jam-packed with every team kicking off their 2020 football season. Get ready for some gross, sloppy, borderline offensive mid-week football — but hey, who cares? It’s still college football.

Alexa, play Mark Morrison (I had to look up who sang ‘Return of the Mack’ — what a song).

Betting MAC College Football

Developing a profitable system for betting MAC Football can be challenging, but I’m determined to figure it out this year. I have eight different potential methods for betting the MAC, and I’ll be tracking each of them over the next few weeks.

Fading the Public

This is always the first place I look when it comes to betting in general. Fading the public is a pretty common betting strategy, but it doesn’t always work. I’ll be looking at the games with more than 60% of the public on a side, and tracking how often the opposite side covers the spread. Here are the picks that meet this criteria tonight:

For more betting information like this, be sure to check out ScoresAndOdds.

Quarterback Experience

I get a much better feeling in my stomach when I’m watching a college football game and I picked the team with the more experienced quarterback. So the basic concept here is that in games featuring quarterbacks of varying experience levels, I’ll take the guy with more time under center. Here are the games that should fit tonight if these QBs start as expected:

Not all of these quarterback battles are finalized, so we will assess how the more experienced guys did after this week.

Head Coaching Advantage

It is not easy to definitively say which coach is “better” per se, so we will just look for guys with a significant edge in their career records and see how they perform against the spread. There are only two games with significant head coaching edges tonight:

Buying Low on Fumbles

I generally see fumbles as an unlucky event in football. Sure, the players have control over whether or not they fumble, but generally speaking teams that fumble more often will have played better than the final score says. So, the basic theory here is that teams with more fumbles have more betting value. We’ll start testing this theory next week when we have this week’s results.

Fading Interceptions

While fumbles are usually somewhat fluky occurrences, interceptions are not. They are a sign of a bad football team. Quarterbacks who aren’t smart with the football will throw more interceptions, that’s just a basic fact. If you don’t believe me, look at Carson Wentz. So the theory here is that guys who throw picks will continue to throw picks, and winning the turnover battle is crucial when trying to cover the spread. This can also be a product of bad offensive lines. We’ll see who chucks the ball to the wrong team the most this week and bet against them next week.

Other College Football Betting Systems

Home Teams: to Fade or Not to Fade?

This is a simple concept. The team that doesn’t have to travel and gets to play on their home field should have at least some advantage. Oddsmakers will account for this, but tracking this will help us figure out if they are getting it right. But in a weird season with limited fans, we might find that oddsmakers are over-accounting for home-field advantage. Let’s keep our eye on that tonight

Betting all the Underdogs

In a conference that has been known to feature some pretty sloppy football, maybe the point spreads should be lower than what oddsmakers believe. It’s worth tracking how the underdogs perform over the next few weeks to see if this could be a profitable strategy.

Betting all the Overs

This one is definitely a longshot for a conference that doesn’t feature much offense. But imagine how much fun Tuesdays and Wednesdays would be if you could just bet all the overs and be profitable? It’s worth tracking it.

Note: It seems a lot more likely that betting all the unders would be the better strategy, but nobody wants to watch a game and root for the under.

MAC Wednesday Betting Conclusion

Tonight, I’m leaning towards fading the public. Remember, however, that there’s not necessarily a one-size-fits-all approach, but the systems and possible betting trends above are at least worth keeping our eye one. It’s also worth noting that a team like NIU has A LOT of true freshmen active tonight. They’re playing against one of the best running backs in the nation in Buffalo’s Jaret Patterson, not to mention a defensive line that led the conference in sacks last season. The spread opened Buffalo -11 and is already up to -14.5 at some online sportsbooks, so I’m steering clear of this game in particular. Tread carefully tonight, use all the tools and betting info at your disposal, such as our college football odds comparison tool. Hopefully we’ll have a better feel for things next week after recapping these results.

Good luck!

Image Credit: Imagn

About the Author

mshanahan
Matt Shanahan (mshanahan)

Matt Shanahan is an engineer by trade and firmly believes in data-driven analytics. He grew up in Pennsylvania and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh. His betting strategy is to develop theories, create models to test those theories, and then collect data to see what works and what doesn’t.