An overtime game takes on added significance for college teams, which may mean a highly determined effort or a big letdown in their next game. Overtime with its short history relative to college football, overall, has seen some strong patterns emerge and we examine one of those here.

The situation we isolated for this week looks at certain home favorites who are coming off an overtime loss as a favorite in their last game. These Saturday home favorites have struggled the following week as outlined in our system.

SYSTEM: Play AGAINST a Saturday conference home favorite off a favorite OT SU loss vs. an opponent not off a game as a conference home favorite of more than 2 points. Playing against these conference home favorites has produced a record of 15-0 ATS covering the spread by 15.3 points per game since 1998.

Our system was last active with two dates during the 2008 college football season. The first active date was September 27 with East Carolina installed as a 10.5-point favorite versus Houston. East Carolina was the active team in our system and they lost straight up 41 to 24 against the Houston Cougars. On October 11 of the same season, Fresno State was a 32.5-point favorite versus Idaho and they won the game straight up but fell well short of covering the spread winning 45 to 32.

Texas A&M enters this week’s contest against Kansas off a four overtime loss to Kansas State. The Aggies blew a double-digit lead settling for a field goal with the ball on the KSU one-yard line and this ultimately sealed their fate. Kansas State followed that up by scoring ten unanswered points to tie the game. In the fourth overtime, Aggies head coach Sherman once again passed on an opportunity for a touchdown on the three-yard line kicking a field goal instead of going for it on fourth down. Kansas State then scored the game winning touchdown to end the game.

Kansas enters this week’s game off an overtime loss of their own. We note that after a heart-breaking overtime loss as a big underdog, conference road underdogs have been even more determined to get a win. Kansas is active in a system that tells us to Play ON a conference road underdog of 5 or more points with less than 13 days rest off an OT SU loss as an underdog of more than 4 points vs. an opponent not off a SU win of 13 or more points. These road underdogs are 14-1 ATS covering by an average of 13.1 points per game since 1998.

With all the system parameters met, this week’s Cajun Sports NCAA Football System of the Week qualifies Texas A&M as our Play AGAINST team this week. Texas A&M is not our favorite, play the Kansas Jayhawks to cover the spread on Saturday.