Bowl Season-watching and betting on it.

Bowl Season is now here. This is not only great for any college football fan, but it is also great for a football better. These games give fans a chance to see teams that they may not normally get to see and also a chance to see some match ups( bc of conference, money, etc) that they would never be able to see during the regular season.

As far as the games go, there will always be teams that make certain bowls that will be discussed and teams that did not deserve it( think of the ncaa bracket when a team is a #5 seed and everyone says they should have been a 10 seed) and you will also see teams that deserve to be in a bowl game or in a certain bowl game( look at az. state this year ).

As for the gambling side of it, it is also a great time for ncaa bettors/fans. You have plenty of time to evaluate and study each game. You have, for the most part( new years day etc. get a little busy) only 1-2 games a day, so you are not betting a huge amount of games on one day. If you have been betting on the games all year and know you teams, bowl season is always the time to pad your winnings( or re-coup losses) for the ncaa year.

When it comes to capping the bowl games, you have to look a little past how you would normally cap. Most bettors, or at least the ones that really care, will all use the same things. Power ratings, injuries, home field, previous match ups, etc. Obviously, the biggest differential and the biggest decision maker is your personal feelings towards the game. When it comes to bowl games, a lot of those same principals are still in play, but you have to consider some other things. First, home field advantage is not something you can just figure out. You have to do a little more research to see how many tickets each school was allotted, how many of said tickets were sold, and how many were bought by the other school. This is all information that can be found online. There are random occurrences where a team is very, very close to their home field, but that is a rarity during bowl season.

Next, you have to pay attention to motivation. Yes, this should be looked at for every game during the regular season s far as must-win games and things like that, but in bowl games it is a whole different animal. We see this every year, you have teams(think Oklahoma) that are disappointed in either their overall season or disappointed in the crappy bowl they got sent to instead of a good bowl they were hoping for. These are still college kids and unlike the pros, emotions play a huge factor in this. You need to look at both teams playing and take a look at their season. Did they go 7-5 and they are ecstatic to even make a bowl game( think Washington, army, etc) or did they go 8-4 and they are crushed because they were thinking they should be a 10-2 game. The point is, dont just see a team you assume is way better and will win/cover. You have to think about if they have given up on the season or if this bowl will make their whole season.

Another thing to pay close attention to, at least way more then the regular season games is suspensions for either a half or the game. I bring this up because the past always repeats itself, no matter what every coach will have you believe. You have so many games in so many cities where these kids have never been. Most of these teams are there at least a week in advance and every season you see people out missing curfew, you have people out drinking etc, and every year key people get suspended from a bowl game. This is more of a problem with the bowl games in huge, fun cities such as Miami, Vegas, Austin, etc, but again, make sure you pay attention to this.

Another thing you have to pay attention to( more for overs) is certain key players that are either seniors or juniors that you know are leaving school( moore, luck, locker, etc). You see coaches wanting to show them off and help their draft status. The game plan isnt much different then it normally would be, but when it comes down to the 4th quarter and late in the game, if it is a blow out, you seem to see these coaches leave their players in and let them show off a little more for the scouts etc. They also want to show respect to these players that have led their teams for the last couple years, and they dont want them finishing their season on the bench. This is not a stead-fast thing. There are also plenty of coaches, that will take a game that is starting to get to blow-out level and they will have in all of their subs to give them the bowl game experience.

There are plenty of other variables that go into betting into bowl games, but these are just some of the things that stick out for bowl game betting as compared to your normal college football betting.

This should be a great bowl season, and I will be posting full write-ups for each game as I do some more research on them.