University of Wyoming @ UCONN 9/25/21
Followers of college football love to make predictions on how the season will play out or which teams will gain big wins in the next week of games. While many do this simply for interest, with the aim of securing bragging rights over their friends, family and fellow football fanatics, others like to build a fantasy team or make bets at the leading sportsbook offering College Football betting odds and promotions. You can stick to your favorite team and preview their next important game or browse the schedules of the big programs with the aim of predicting which school will win the championship at the end of the season.
For the majority of bettors, making predictions enhances their enjoyment of games and the season but playing for fun makes it difficult to find the time to research. The best college football predictions require hours of research, studying and comparing. Only after you have all the information at your fingertips can you make a strong pick on a match-up. You will find those who get lucky from time to time, especially when working on game-winner predictions but to really stand out from the crowd you must be willing to do the dirty work.
Properly researching a game can take up most of your day and if you are using this information simply to get one over on your friends, the chances are you’ll grow tired of the process fairly quickly. That’s why we often see the most in-depth previews coming from online gamblers or lovers of fantasy football.
In this article, we detail three key things you should consider when attempting to make college football predictions.
Form
Your first check when preparing your game predictions is to check the form of both teams involved. Are there any obvious patterns to pick out? Perhaps one team is riding high on a winning run and the other is struggling and low on confidence after an extended run of defeats. That would make it easy to go with the form side but it’s often not as simple as that and there’s more work to be done.
The more you dig and the more research you do the more chances you’ll have of making a correct call. If you are looking past the bare stats you can pick out a pattern or trend such as the scores of a team or a player who has been performing well this month and enters in high spirits. If there is an obvious winner in a match you can aim higher by predicting the winning margin or handicap.
Spend time familiarizing yourself with the record of both teams in a game but don’t stop there. Look at the form on both sides of the ball and try to find an angle that will give you a chance to make a reliable pick.
Head to head
How have two teams fared in previous meetings with each other? Does the homefield make a difference? For example, does the team playing at home take encouragement from that or do they often fold under the weight of expectations? Perhaps the stadium and crowd have been a happy hunting ground for the visitors? You’ll know that by looking at the head-to-head stats overall as well as the most recent games, such as the results and average scores of the last five meetings.
Just like above, the more research you do the smarter your picks will become. You will be surprised by just how often a match follows the trends of head-to-head matchups. This could be as simple as the winning team or it could be the first touchdown scorer.
Interviews
When researching a game you shouldn’t focus just on the numbers. Listen and watch interviews from players and coaches, especially those given after the team’s previous match or press conferences on the approach to the next game. You’ll often get a feel for the mood of the team, any injury news and how the coaches are preparing their teams for the game.
Is a coach in a fighting mood and is promising to go all-out attack? Your predictions could be on the overs in the total points.
