Adam Burke shares his weekly college football power ratings
We’ve reached double digits for the college football season, which is simply flying by. Week 10 has four Top 25 vs. Top 25 matchups after we only had two last week and also brings us the first installment of the College Football Playoff Rankings. People are guaranteed to overreact to those and the betting markets may reflect some of those opinions as well, so keep an eye out for that.
We’re also reaching the time of the season when a number of factors can create some market inflation. Teams that have to win to stay unbeaten or have huge games with division or conference implications may be priced a little bit higher. That’s especially true when playing against bad teams that aren’t expected to put up much of a fight.
As I discussed last week, I’m relying less on my numbers at this time and looking more at some of the intangibles of the handicap. My numbers are still serving as a guide early in the week when it comes to trying to get ahead of the market and get some line value on the games that are off, but many of my lines are very close to the market numbers and don’t cross any key or important values. Injuries are also happening and sometimes those are publicized and sometimes they are not since college football doesn’t have any standardized reporting. It can be tricky to properly value teams not knowing where they stand in terms of personnel as the absences mount.
Something else I should mention at this time of the season is that these are raw power ratings for me. I don’t adjust my spreads for the total or any potential weather. So, when you have a game like Iowa vs. Northwestern with a total that opened 29.5, the spread should be adjusted accordingly. My raw number is 10, but I would definitely adjust that down a little bit given the very low-scoring expectation (I’d still be higher than -6, though).