The college football season is over and the Clemson Tigers have been crowned National Champions. Before we close the book on College Football betting 2018 we\u2019re going to take a look at the \u2018national championship\u2019 that matters\u2014the top moneymakers against the pointspread. No matter the sport it\u2019s important to understand team valuation. More specifically, it\u2019s essential to know which teams are \u2018profitable\u2019 and which teams are \u2018money losers\u2019. This information has some intrinsic value but is most useful in isolating teams that are overvalued and undervalued relative to the pointspread. In this article we\u2019ll look at the most profitable college football betting teams through the end of the 2018 season. We\u2019ll follow this up tomorrow with a look at the biggest money losers in college football this year.<\/p>\n
COLLEGE FOOTBALL MONEYMAKERS<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Here\u2019s a valuable lesson\u2014none of the top teams in college football were anywhere near the top of the table in terms of betting profits. Clemson, Alabama, Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame went a combined 66-5 straight up during the 2018 season. The top five college football teams were a not so impressive 35-33-3 against the pointspread for a net loss of -1.7 units. Clemson made the most money for financial backers going 9-6 against the college football pointspread good for +2.4 units of profit. Alabama finished 8-7 for +0.3 units of profit. The rest of the top five all lost money for bettors. <\/p>\n The moral of the story? There are several. It\u2019s no secret that these teams are among the college football elite which is why every recreational player from South Bend to Tuscaloosa lined up to bet on them every week. Public love translates to \u2018shaded\u2019 lines meaning that on balance they were overvalued by definition. A good team shows up every week expected not only to win but to dominate. That\u2019s tough to do week after week and particularly when your opponent can \u2018make their season\u2019 with a victory.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t to say that you can\u2019t bet good teams in the right situations. What you can\u2019t do, however, is to back the college football elite week after week and expect to finish in the black. The opposite is also true. You can\u2019t reflexively bet against the doormats of college football. There were five teams at the FBS level that finished 1-11 this season: Rutgers, San Jose, State, UTEP, Central Michigan and Connecticut. These teams went a combined 5-55 straight up but a combined 27-33 ATS. Two of the five teams turned a profit for their \u2018financial backers\u2019. Were it not for the poor performance of Connecticut (3-9 ATS for a -6.9 unit loss) the remaining four teams would have gone 24-24 against the spread.<\/p>\n So what were the top money making teams in college football this year? You\u2019ll find out below. Unlike our mid season reports we won\u2019t go into too much depth on each team since there are no more betting opportunities until this Fall and by then the dynamic could have changed completely. As luck (?) would have it there are three teams tied for the \u2018most profitable\u2019 crown:<\/p>\n UTAH STATE (+6.7 UNITS) <\/strong><\/p>\n Nothing much was expected out of Utah State heading into the 2018 season. The Aggies had finished 6-7 in 2017 and 3-9 in 2016. Instead, they surprised everybody going 11-2 SU and 10-3 ATS. The public is slow to notice changes in the WAC balance of power and never realized how good Utah State was. The team will be worth watching in 2019 despite a coaching change. Texas Tech hired former Aggies head coach Matt Wells in early December. A couple of weeks later, Utah State hired Gary Anderson who will return for his second stint as Aggies\u2019 head coach. He\u2019s bringing the University of Utah\u2019s linebackers coach Justin Ena up to Logan to serve as defensive coordinator.<\/p>\n FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL (+6.7 UNITS)<\/strong><\/p>\n The Golden Panthers of Florida International tied for second in the East Division of Conference USA but tied for first in the hearts of sports bettors. 9-4 straight up, 10-3-0 against the spread. Unlike the Utah State Aggies, this wasn\u2019t an unexpected turnaround for a moribund program. FIU finished 8-5 SU in 2017 so they overachieved slightly based on the expectations from the previous year. Once again, however, it\u2019s a case of the \u2018public\u2019 ignoring what is going on in the lower tier conferences.<\/p>\n WASHINGTON STATE (+6.7 UNITS)<\/strong><\/p>\n You can\u2019t make the \u2018low profile conference\u2019 argument here for the Pac-12 Washington State Cougars. The Cougars may have overachieved slightly in 2018 but they\u2019ve been pretty decent in recent years going 8-5 overall and 7-2 in conference in 2016 followed by a 2017 performance of 9-4 overall and 6-3 in conference. 2018 saw them go 11-2 SU and 10-3 ATS.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The college football season is over and the Clemson Tigers have been crowned National Champions. Before we close the book…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":4983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4982","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaaf"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4982"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4984,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4982\/revisions\/4984"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}