Post Season College Football
Like many men, Josh Dannan loves post season college football. But (also like most men) trying to pick the winner can set his nerves on edge. Fortunately, he has discovered some tried-and-true methods that he thinks can help you.
Know the Teams
This should go without saying, but Josh Dannan is always amazed at how many men try to pick college football winners without really knowing the teams. There are a few techniques that you can use to analyze each team’s relative strength and weakness.
- Examine the offensive strength and weakness of each team’s offense and defense. Josh Dannan recommends that you first do this before you compare teams to each other. Although not guaranteed, a team’s record in all areas—its habit of dominance or lack thereof, its records of turnovers, etc.—can indeed be an indicator of its future performance in the Bowl games.
- What is their schedule strength? Just think about it for a moment…many post season teams just manage to squeak by the qualifications to play. Make sure you know which teams are true contenders and which ones are not.
Compare the Teams
Comparing the teams against each other is challenging, but it need not be impossible. Josh Dannan has found that these methods work the best:
- Match the offensive strength against the defensive weakness of the other team. For instance, if you have a team that has a strong offense, you will want to match it with a team that has a weak offense. You can also match each team’s weakness—defensively and offensively—against each other.
- For the best in defense, however, you will want to try to match one team’s strength with the other team’s strength and one team’s weakness with the other team’s weakness.
Special Aspects
Of course, there’s more than just matching offensive and defensive strength and weaknesses of post season college football. Through his year of watching this sport, Josh Dannan has discovered some extra aspects you’ll need to analyze.
- Turnovers. What is each team’s turnover record? Looking at the margin is not good enough here. Instead, look at the national average. That way you will get the entire picture.
- Penalties. As you know, penalties can really hurt a team’s score. Therefore, be sure to check its national average for penalties.
- Injuries. How many of a team’s important players are sidelined because of injuries or other health issues?
- Team motivation to win. This item can be a bit hard to judge. But if you look at each team’s performance up to post season, you should be able to see which teams have the fire to win.
Once you analyze all the above factors, you can then have a better idea of which team to pick in the post season. Not that you will always be correct. Josh Dannan has certainly had his share of disappointments. But if you follow these guidelines, you should be right more often than you are wrong.