The Three Handicapping Techniques of Football
When it comes to football handicapping, there are three essential factors that go into making a selection. They are trends, statistics and situations.Some people may refer to fundamental handicapping or technical handicapping, but it's far easier to simply call them trend-based handicapping, statistical handicapping and situational handicapping.
There is no correct or incorrect method of handicapping. It's essentially a matter of personal preference and many people will incoprporate several methods into their handicapping.
We'll now look at each of the three methods and how they are used.
Trend-Based Handicapping
Trend based handicapping it's just what it suggests, relying on trends to come up with your selections. Trends should not be confused with systems, which fall into the situational handicapping category.The easiest way to classify trend-based handicapping is to remember that trends are based on one particular team and how that team fares in different spots.
Examples would be Team A has covered the last four games as a home favorite against a conference opponent, Team B has covered eight of the last nine games against Team C, Team D is 6-1 as a double-digit underdog or Team E is 1-6 when playing on artifical turf.
Some handicappers will place a lot of importance on trends, while it's the least of the three methods as far as I'm concerned. But again, it's a matter of preference.
Statistical Handicapping
Statistical handicappers are number crunchers, who make their selections solely based on statistics. There are countless statistics available for football bettors to consider, ranging from the traditional stats, such as points for or points against, to the stats that are more geared for sports bettors, such as yards per point, average yards per pass attempt and points per 100 yards.Statistical handicapping does take a lot of the guess work out of handicapping and leaves little to no room for personal input.
For many years I would classify myself as primarily a statistical handicapper, but am now leaning towards calling myself a situational handicapper, which leads us to situational handicapping.
Situational Handicapping
Situational handicapping is`a bit like system handicapping in that we're concentrating how all teams have fared in a particular situation. Examples of this would be our college football ranked underdogs, preseason home underdogs, etc. The difference between situational handicapping and trend handicapping is that here, we're interested in how the league performs in certain situations, while trend-based handicapping is interested in only one team.Situational handicapping also leaves some of the personal bias out, as you will find yourself on teams that are in a situation where the entire league has performed well. With trend-based handicapping, it's up to the bettor to decide if the fact that a team is 4-1 against another team is enough of a factor to place a bet.
Handicapping isn't a stagnant activity. The game changes and handicappers must be willing to change, as well. Those who don't will usually find themselves broke in the long run.
Don't hesitate to incorporate other handicapping factors into your current technique of selecting games. Bettors need every advantage they can get.
