College Football's Weary Road Favorites
Football coaches are creatures of habit. They get into weekly routines and typically aren't real happy when something comes along to change that. Lately, that has been changing due to the proliferation of weeknight football games.During the 2010 college football season there were plenty of weeks where games were played on a nightly basis. Granted, many of the televised match-ups left a bit to be desired, but for many of the players it was their one opportunity to play on ESPN or ESPN2. They weren't really interested in the fact that the majority of people watching were friends, families and sports bettors. They were on the big stage.
The 2011 college football season is offering more of the same and if the National Football League labor situation isn't settled, it wouldn't be a surprise to see more games to the middle of the week, as well as a few Sunday and Monday games.
Many college football teams have a set routine of playing on Saturday, resting on Sunday and watching film, along with a practice on Monday. Tuesday through Thursday are the main practice days and Friday is usually a light workout and/or walk-through.
When a game comes along that is played a day or two earlier than normal the team's routine is completely thrown off-balance. This holds even more true for road teams, who lose at least part of one day traveling to the game site.
As a result, road favorites with less than six days since their previous game are a terrible 3-16-2 against the spread since the start of the 2006 season. The situation doesn't pop up all that often, but it definitely is something worth keeping an eye open for in 2011.
