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MAC Football: Betting Trends and Picks for Nov. 10th & 11th

by Matt Shanahan (mshanahan) Last Updated 2020-11-10 16:02:49

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It’s Tuesday which can only mean one thing — it’s time for some MACtion. Let’s see how each of our betting angles performed and what the trends look like after the first week of MAC football.

MAC Football Betting Trends

1. Head Coach Advantage, 2-0 (100%)
2. All the Overs, 4-2 (67%)
T3. Home Teams, 3-3 (50%)
T3. Underdogs, 3-3 (50%)
5. Fade the Public, 0-1 (0%)
6. QB Experience, 0-3 (0%)
7. Buying Low on Fumbles, 0-0 (0%)
8. Fading Interceptions, 0-0 (0%)

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Head Coaching Advantage

The best system through one week of MACtion is to bet on the teams with head coaches who have significantly better records than the opposing coach (winning percentage 10% or higher than opposing coach). It went 2-0 last week, the only undefeated method. Here are the games featuring significant head coaching advantages in Week 2:

Overs

Overs were 4-2 in the first week of the MAC which made for a delightful Wednesday night. I am hopeful they can keep this rolling and let the overs stay profitable, but it’s important to note that the weather was perfect for all these games last week. I’ll continue to track this in general, but I’ll also be tracking how it does in varying conditions.

Note: It looks like the weather should be nice in all three games on Tuesday, so if you’re using this strategy tonight is the night to do it.

Home Teams and Underdogs

I was hoping to see these two picks favor one side or the other, but after one week home teams and underdogs are both 3-3.

Note: Another thing worth looking at when considering home field advantage is the road team’s travel time. Some of these teams are pretty close to each other, so there may not be much of an edge when playing at home, especially with stadiums operating with limited capacity. Here are the commutes for this week:

Fading the Public

The only game featuring more than 60% of the bets on one side last week was Buffalo vs. Northern Illinois. Buffalo covered the 14.5 point spread thanks to scoop-and-score touchdowns on back to back possessions in the third quarter. Northern Illinois actually had more total yardage than Buffalo (397 vs. 357) in this game but those two flukish plays led to a 19 point loss. Despite being 0-1, fading the public seems like it was probably the “right” play last week because this game was a lot closer than the score suggests.

Quarterback Experience

The strategy of picking the team with the more experienced quarterback went 0-3 last week. Based on the awful start and the potential for starting quarterbacks to change from game to game, I’m throwing this strategy in the garbage. Good Riddance.

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 use a very simple metric that we can call “Fumble Luck”, calculated as fumbles recovered minus fumbles lost. Teams with higher “Fumble Luck” have been luckier and vice versa. For example: Northern Illinois recovered one fumble and lost three last week, so their Fumble Luck is a -3, making them the least lucky team in the MAC through one week.

Here are the teams with worse fumble luck than their opponents in Week 2 of MACtion:

The huge discrepancy in the Buffalo NIU game from last week is showing up here significantly, so I believe there is inherent value in betting on NIU and against Buffalo this week.

Betting Against the Team with More Interceptions Thrown

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. 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. Throwing interceptions also might be indicative of having a bad offensive line.

Here are the picks if you choose to fade the teams with more interceptions thrown:

The difference in each of these matchups is only one interception so it’s tough to say they’re significant, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on moving forward.

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MAC College Football Betting Picks

It’s pretty tough to draw any conclusions from a one week sample size, but I think there are some clear value picks this week. The fact that Buffalo not only recovered 4 fumbles against Northern Illinois but also ran two of them back for touchdowns means that they were incredibly lucky to win that game by 19 points. If you just look at the score, you’ll believe that Buffalo dominated the football game but in reality it was a fairly even contest. As a result, I think the general public will be too high on Buffalo and too low on NIU this week.

The one other team that stands out this week is Toledo. They have a slight head coaching advantage, a small edge in fumble luck, and they’ll only have to travel two and a half hours to Western Michigan for this game. On top of that, the early betting action is favoring Western Michigan as a 2-point favorite. I think the Rockets are a nice value pick on Wednesday night.

The Picks:

Good luck and remember to bet responsibly.

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.