College Football Turnovers and the Point Spread
One of the things we've discussed in these pages before is how football is different than other sports due to the limited number of games each team plays. College basketball teams will typically play 30 games during the regular season while an NCAA football team will have 11 or 12.While one or two poor games will have a moderate impact on the stats of a college basketball team, but they will play havoc with a college football team's statistics. Therefore, it takes added importance for college football handicappers to look at more than the final score to see how the game was actually played on the field.
One of the first proponents of looking how a game actually transpired was Jim Barnes and Barnes placed a great deal of importance to turnovers and looking at the yardage gained to try and determine what the final score should have been, not necessarily what the scoreboard read.
So using my Stat Attack For College Football 2011 program I looked into what happens the week after a team has a large turnover differential and found some interesting results.
Teams With Negative Turnover Differentials
It's important to remember that we're referring to turnover differential (net turnover margin) and not the number of turnovers a team has.Teams that a turnover differential of -5 one week came back to post a 43-30-1 (58.9%) record against the spread the following week. If the team was favored the winning percentage was a bit higher, as those teams were 24-16-1 against the number, which is 60%.
Teams with a turnover differential of -6 came back to post a 13-9-1 mark against the number, with favorites going 7-4. And teams with turnover differentials of -7 were 5-0 against the spread and 3-0 when a favorite.
There were two teams with turnover differentials of -8 and they went 1-1 against the spread and both teams were underdogs.
Teams With Positive Turnover Differentials
If teams which were on the short end of the turnover situation came back to post solid numbers against the spread the following week, it would make sense that the recipient of those turnovers would be sub-par the following week.But betting doesn't always make sense and teams which were on the receiving end of the turnover situation turned out to be decent bets as well.
Teams which had a turnover differential of +5 were 81-59-6 (57.8%) the following week and 45-30-1 when the favorite, which is 60%.
Teams with a turnover differential of +6 were 24-19-3 (55.8%) and 10-7-1 (58.8%) the following week and teams with a turnover differential of +7 or +8 were a combined 10-3 and 4-2 when the favorite.
Added up, all teams with a turnover differential of +5 or greater were 115-81-7 (58.7%) against the spread the following week and favorites were 59-39-2 or 60.2% against the number.
The statistics were based on the past five years, so it is a pretty solid sample size and not something that is a one-year anomaly. It's definitely something to keep an eye on in the 2011 season.
