The College Football Blog: 2009 Betting Lines Season Review

The Bowls: Vs. Spread (16-18); Straight Up (18-16); Moneyline Upsets (4-3)
Season: Vs. Spread (74-114-5); Moneyline Upsets (18-32)

Bowl Season Review: Whoa, things were looking pretty bad there for a while. I mean my performance picking games has been nothing short of ghastly this season and it looked like I would end the season most fittingly by turning in an embarrassing record in the bowl season. Not that my final record in the bowls is anything to brag about but through New Year’s Day it appeared I was headed for a much worse final tally. I was not able to go .500 ATS in the bowls but I feel worse about only going 2 games over .500 picking winners. Last year I was 18-15-1 ATS during the bowl season (.545); this year I was 16-18 (.453). I was also better picking winners during last year’s bowl season, going 19-15 (.559); this year I was just 18-16 (.529). At least I improved on my moneyline upset picks in the bowls this year, going 4-3 after a 3-3 record in last year’s bowls.

But for most of this year’s bowl season I was all wrong. It started off with an 0-2 ATS on the first night of the bowl season but I was actually 3-3 ATS going into the second Saturday of the bowl season. Then things turned ugly. Over the next 4 days I went 1-6 ATS for a 4-9 record up to that point. During the 30th and New Year’s Eve I managed to go 3-4 ATS but that gave me just a 7-13 record through the first 20 bowls. Things went downhill again on New Year’s Day, as I went just 1-4 ATS for an 8-17 record through 25 bowl games. I lost the early game on the 2nd to drop to 8-18. At that point I had lost 15 of the last 20 games ATS. But the 2nd was actually the day that I started to turn it around. I won the rest of the games on the 2nd to finish with a 4-1 record ATS on the day. Through 30 bowls I was 12-18 ATS. 4 stand alone games remained and I happened to beat the spread in all 4. After losing the early game on the 2nd I went 8-0 ATS the rest of the way to finish with a 16-18 record, much better than I could have hoped for when I was 8-18.

But as bad as things got for me ATS during the bowl season, I looked even worse picking winners for a while. To begin with, picking winners should be much easier than picking ATS, and that made it all the more painful. I lost the first bowl game of the season and that was a bad omen. Heading into the 2nd Saturday of the bowl season I was 1-5 straight up, having lost 4 straight. The streak eventually got to 6 before USC won the night game on the 2nd Saturday to snap my losing skid. Still, from that Saturday through the following Tuesday I went just 2-5 straight up and that made me 3-10 picking winners to that point. You’d think that nothing could surprise me after the season I’ve had but I was shocked by how badly I was doing simply picking the winners of bowl games. Gradually things got better. Slowly but surely I started to see more hits than misses. I went 4-3 on the 30th and New Year’s Eve but that made my record just 7-13 picking winners through the first 20 bowls. Then I went 3-2 on New Year’s Day but I had dug a deep hole and through 25 bowl games I was 10-15 straight up. On the 2nd, however, I went 5-0 on winners to get back to .500 for the first time since I was 1-1 after the first night of the bowl season. I lost the next game but won the next and then when Central Michigan staged a 4th quarter comeback and hung on to beat Troy in overtime the night before the National Championship Game I got over .500 for the first time during the bowl season. Alabama’s win last night meant that I would at least finish the bowl season with a winning record straight up. I was 9-1 straight up in the final 10 bowl games. I was just 5-13 through the first 18 games but I went 13-3 the rest of the way to finish 18-16.

Even in picking moneyline upsets I was awful early before getting hot down the stretch. I lost my first 3 but then won my last 4 to finish 4-3 for the bowl season picking upsets.

Season Review: And I thought I had had a bad season last year. I was a regular wise guy last year compared to this season. Last year I went 91-110-2 ATS (.453). That’s not great but it’s way better than 74-114-5 (.394). To not even be right 40% of the time is pretty embarrassing. And I have no idea how I went 21-22 (.488) on moneyline upsets last year. I was only 1 game under .500 picking upsets last season but this year I was 14 games under .500, going 18-32 (.360) picking upset winners.

I have to admit that I did not think I could possibly do as badly as I did this year. I did 16 betting lines segments this year (12 weeks picking 10 games; 1 week picking 25; 1 week picking 13; 1 week picking 1 game; and the 34 game bowl season edition) and I had winning record in just 2 of those. My best record ATS in any week was 6-3-1. My only other week above .500 I went just 5-4-1. I went 5-5 in 4 segments and then there was the Army-Navy week when I went 0-0-1. In the other 9 editions of betting lines I had a losing record.

Things started quietly, as I went 5-5 in each of the first 2 weeks. But then I posted back to back 3-7 weeks to fall 8 games under .500 after just 40 picks. Finally I had my first winning week in week 5, going 6-3-1, but I went 3-7 again the next week. Over the next few weeks I was pretty mediocre, going 5-4-1, 5-5, and 5-5. I didn’t know it then but I should have been excited about being mediocre. Really the peak of my season was in weeks 5 through 9 when I posted only 1 losing record out of 5 segments and had a combined record of 24-24-2. The wheels fell off in week 10. Actually, the wheels fell off while the car was going around a winding road on a high mountain and the car fell off the cliff, flipped about 80 times as it tumbled down the side of the mountain, and finally exploded when it reached the bottom. In week 10 I did the unthinkable, failing to win a single game against the spread. Only a push saved me from going 0-10, though 0-9-1 isn’t much better. To my absolute amazement, I very nearly finished the job the following week, going 1-9 ATS. It’s difficult to recover after going 0-19-1 over a 2 week stretch. I posted another 3-7 record the next week. In my final three 10 game segments I had a jaw dropping 3-26-1 record against the spread. That’s a .103 winning percentage over 30 games! I was unable to make up any ground in my two special weeks, going 9-15-1 in 25 games during rivalry week and 5-8 in 13 games during championship week. Then the betting gods mocked me in the Army-Navy week as I pushed in that week’s only game. Finally, in the bowl season I went 16-18 ATS to finish the year with an absolutely pitiful season record of 74-114-5 ATS.

As far as moneyline upsets, that car was totally burned out before the other car lost its wheels. During the early part of the season I was doing about as well picking moneyline upsets as I had last year. I went 1-1 on upsets in each of the first 4 betting line segments of 2009. Things started to slip after that, as I went 1-2 in each of the next two editions. In weeks 7-9, while I posted 3 consecutive non-losing records against the spread, I went 0-3, 1-3, and 0-3 on upsets for a combined record of 1-9 during the 3 week stretch. And that was just the beginning. During week 10 when I was winless ATS, I also missed on my lone upset pick of that week. The fact that I followed up a 0-9-1 week ATS with a 1-9 week ATS is astounding. When you add in that I also went 0-5 on moneyline upsets that second week it just starts to get silly. From week 7 through week 11 I went 1-15 picking upset winners. For some reason things were much better from there on out. After going 2-3 in week 12, posting a losing record on moneyline upsets for an 8th straight week, I went 2-2 during rivalry week and then 3-1 during championship week. My 3-1 record on upsets in championship week was my first winning week of the season and it came in my 14th segment. There were no upset picks in Army-Navy week. Finally, I went 4-3 picking upsets in the bowl season to finish with a dreadful mark of 18-32 for the season.