MAC College Football Betting Trends

If you are looking to get a leg up on your bookmaker, bet on lesser known sports and teams.

One of the lesser known conferences in FBS college football is the Mid-American Conference. It is a goldmine for those willing to dabble in its contests.

Bookmakers have to devote most of their efforts to the games drawing the most action, leaving minor conferences with lines that are prone to inaccuracies. As an educated sports bettor, you should have dollar signs in your eyes when you read that last statement.

Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Road Favorites are Dynamite

In many cases in college football, teams struggle when they embark on a road trip. The close proximity of the campuses and the small crowds in MAC stadiums negate much of the home-field advantage present in the major conferences.

When a team is playing on the road they receive a better line. This has helped road favorites become wildly profitable in 5 of the last 6 seasons.

Year	Record ATS	Win %
2017	14-9-1	60.9%
2016	13-10-1	56.5%
2015	17-6-2	73.9%
2014	9-9-1	50%
2013	19-5-1	79.2%
2012	15-10	60%

Generating More Complex MAC Betting Trends

The above trend is brilliant and provides plenty of plays, but I wanted to add another stipulation or two to the system and see what I could find.

I looked at what happened when favored MAC teams play in consecutive road games. Since 2010, the data looks quite favorable. These are the ATS records for favored teams playing in their second or third straight road game.

Year	Record ATS
2017	4-3
2016	2-0-1
2015	3-1
2014	0-3-1
2013	2-3
2012	4-2
2011	3-2
2010	3-1
Total	21-15-2

The win percentage for this bet over the last eight seasons is a healthy 58.3%. Go ask anyone if they would be happy with that number over the course of a season. You will surely receive a resounding “Yes!”.

Even MAC Underdogs Play Well On The Road

If we look at the previous system but this time without the restriction that the team must be favored, the numbers look even better. The following chart displays the records ATS for all teams playing in their second or third consecutive road game.

Year	Record ATS
2017	7-6
2016	8-3-1
2015	9-6
2014	4-10-1
2013	6-5
2012	8-5
2011	8-6
2010	9-7
Total	59-48-2

This system gives us far more plays and is just as profitable, winning at a 55.1% clip over the past eight seasons with just one clunker year.

Applying Intuition

Why are these systems performing so well? It is because home-field advantage does not seem to carry much weight in the MAC. Perhaps the conference is seeing increased parity.

You would have to think the oddsmakers in Vegas realize that visiting teams are killing it, leading me to believe that the public is ignorantly jumping on the home team and inflating the road team’s odds.

This is sports betting gold! When the public is messing up picks, we can wisely bet against them and profit every single time. The books will not bother to fix their lines so long as they continue to make money off the ill-informed bets of the masses.

It pays to do your homework, my friends!