The road can be a difficult venue for any college football team. Young student athletes are forced to change their daily habits and adjust. Sometimes they succeed and other times they fail.
When you string together two or three games away from the comforts of home, bad things start to happen. Fatigue sets in and victories become harder to obtain. Traveling takes away from preparation time and, when you're dealing with young kids between the ages of 18 to 22, that opens up the door for error.
This College System of the Week preys on teams coming off extensive travel. When I first ran this search against my database, I thought that teams returning home off two or three road wars would actually be solid investments. With the ability to sleep in their own beds and practice in their own backyards, these well rested and well prepared athletes would shine. I couldn't have been more wrong. Take a look:
Play AGAINST any conference home underdog of +3.5 or more provided they return home off three (or more) road games and they're matched up against an opponent that does NOT enter off a blowout win of 10 points or more.
27 Year Record = 36-13 ATS for 73.4 percent.
Amazingly, the stress of being away for so long is hard to shake. The knee-jerk reaction would have been to take these home underdogs thinking they would be happy to be back in their own backyard. That's not the case at all. These home underdogs have experienced a great deal of trouble rising to the challenge. On Saturday, there are two home pups locked into this play against situation: Temple and Duke.
There is one parameter to this unique college football system that really makes it pop. If our road weary host is matched up against an opponent that does not check in off back-to-back straight up wins, this system explodes to a blistering 31-6 ATS for 83.7 percent in favor of the road team. There is only one visitor that fit this awesome tightener on Saturday: Northern Illinois.
Don't get caught falling into the belief that "there’s no place like home" in college football. As you can see from my analysis, this is an ideal and very profitable situation for the road team. Good luck with the Huskies on Saturday. TS.
Click here to view all of Tom Stryker's premium picks.
Social Bookmarking
