Not sure if this will be helpful to anyone, but since I have it, I figured I might as well post it. Over the past two years I’ve been tracking games with lines of 20 or greater (Home Fav -20, Road Dog +20, Home Dog +20, and Road Fav -20). It’s only two years of info, so I’m not gonna do much with it, and 2004 was a great year for the Home Favs so it may be skewed. Regardless, here are some of the breakdowns over the two-year period:

Home Fav (-20):

Overall: 122-93 (2004: 63-36, 2003: 59-57)

Conference Games: 57-50 (31-21, 26-29)

Non-Conference Games: 65-43 (32-15, 33-28)

BCS vs. Non-BCS: 54-33 (28-10, 26-23)

ACC/SEC Home Fav (-20) vs. Non-BCS: 21-8 (13-2, 8-6)

Non-Conf Home Fav (-20) vs. C-USA/MAC: 23-8 (13-2, 10-6)

Pac-10 Home Fav (-20) vs. Pac-10: 8-3 (4-2, 4-1) (However, USC accounts for 5-0)

Non-Conf Home Fav (-20) vs. Sun Belt: 23-15 (10-5, 13-10)

Non-Conf Home Fav (-20) vs. MAC: 15-6 (9-2, 6-4)

Non-Conf Home Fav (-20) vs. C-USA: 8-2 (4-0, 4-2)

Big 10 Home Fav (-20) vs. Non-Conf: 10-9 (4-3, 6-6)

Big 12 Home Fav (-20) vs. Non-Conf: 11-11 (4-6, 7-5)

Road Favs (-20) only covered 42% of the time over the past two seasons.

Overall: 26-36 (13-21, 13-15)

Or another way, Home Dogs (+20) covered 58% of the time over the past two seasons.

Overall: 36-26 (21-13, 15-13)

Conference Games: 29-19 (17-9, 12-10)

Non-Conference Games: 7-7

I’m only gonna play a couple of the situations, the majority of which will be early in the season.

ACC/SEC Home Fav (-20) vs. Non-BCS

Non-Conf Home Fav (-20) vs. MAC

ACC Dog (+20) Home OR Away vs. Fav: 9-3 (5-2, 4-1)

It would be nice for these scenarios to hit at 73% (45-17) like they have over the past two seasons combined (or even better, the 82% in 2004), however I’m not banking on it. I’m not gonna rely on something like this to win a bunch of money, but I do think (hope) that it should at least be positive, and therefore cover some of my mis-steps along the way this season. I plan on playing just one unit on each. Would have played against C-USA too, but too many changes in the league.

One early line that caught my eye was NCSU (+5.5) vs. Va. Tech. I was thinking this line would be VT –1 or –2, 5.5 seems like a lot of points in what I would expect to be a low scoring game with it being the first game of the season and two of the better defenses around. Plus, Vick will be playing for the first time since 2003 (assuming he doesn’t hop on any more HS chicks before the 4th) and I believe making his first start. Tough spot on the road and against that D. Tech should be ready though as they lost to NCSU in Blacksburg LY and this is probably their toughest game of the season (a loss before even getting to Labor Day would be devastating). Problem is numbers don’t support NCSU as VT is 10-2 ATS last 12 years in their first road game of the season and Hokies were 4-1 ATS on the road LY, although 0-5 in 2003. NCSU 5-14 ATS last 19 home games vs. ACC. Overall at home last two years, 0-5 and 2-4 ATS. I’m too stubborn though, 5.5 just seems like too many points (plus consider VT rushed 43 times for 36 yards LY….aided by 9 NCSU sacks….and that NCSU led the ACC in outgaining their opponents by 100 ypg, and 7 offensive starters are returning). We’ll see. I’ve still got three weeks to decide.