South Florida Bulls Handicapping Review

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

The South Florida Bulls were a favorite “sleeper’ of many in the sports handicapping community prior to 2004. In fact, in the three seasons prior to ’04, the Bulls lost just eight out of twenty-six games against the odds. Playing in their final Conference USA season before jumping to the Big East for 2005, South Florida was starting to gain the attention of more and more sports bettors, which caused less and less value against the odds.

After a 21-7 home win over Tennessee Tech that was not on the board, USF traveled to South Carolina where they were installed as 13-point dogs by the sports betting odds makers. This was a situation in which many online sports betting blogs were touting USF as a “live” dog against the Gamecocks, who struggled historically as double-digit home favorites. But this time Carolina had little trouble disposing of USF with a 34-3 win and cover.

Many sports bettors overreacted after this game and left USF off of their list of football picks in the Bulls’ very next game at TCU, where they were 10.5-point dogs against a Horned Frog team that was noticeably a notch below previous editions at Ft. Worth. This time the Bulls had the value, but few takers, and they won 45-44 in overtime.

South Florida’s win at TCU would be, unfortunately, the high point of their season. In their next game as 5.5-point home dogs to traditional CUSA power Southern Miss, USF lost 20-27 burning the pockets of those sports bettors who figured that the TCU game would serve as a springboard for USF.

The loss to Southern Miss was the start of a three game losing streak both straight up and against the sports betting line for USF, who stood at 2-4 straight up and 1-4 against the line when they traveled to Alabama Birmingham, where they won 45-20 as 18.5-point dogs. The Bulls beat east Carolina next 45-17 as 13-point home chalks to even their record at 4-4 heading into the stretch run, but they lost their final three games both straight up and against the odds. The Bulls offered a valuable sports handicapping lesson on value depletion in 2004, as their heady numbers against the odds from the three previous seasons were bound to even out, which is exactly what happened.