2005 Texas A&M Aggies Handicapping Review

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

With a horrible 6-18 mark against the odds in 2002-2003 combined, and with Dennis Franchione entering his second season as head coach of the Texas A&M Aggies, 2004 looked to be ripe for a sports handicapping market correction. Franchione, after all, was known for producing quick turnarounds at every school he had been at and Texas A&M is a school with a winning college football tradition, so it stood to figure that the Aggies would get back into the black quickly, for sports bettors astute enough to include them on their lists of football picks.

The 2004 season opener, however, did not inspire confidence as Texas A&M was pounded 21-41 at Utah as 8.5-point dogs on ESPN’s Thursday Night feature game. About the only positive from this game is that it greatly increased the Aggies’ sports handicapping value, which was about to be exploited by the sharper sports betting bloggers who did not write off Texas A&M after the Utah debacle. That being said, there were many online sports betting blog posts that suggested that the Aggies were going to suffer another losing season and that Franchione might prove to be in over his head at College Station. If nothing else this serves as a graphic illustration of the general sports betting public’s fickle nature and why so many sports handicapping market corrections that take place are so violent in nature.

Texas A&M came home to face Wyoming, Clemson, and Big 12 Champion Kansas State in successive games in which the level of difficulty was expected to increase. As expected, the Aggies clobbered Wyoming 31-0 as 12.5-point chalks. In their next game, however, against what was perceived to be a strong Clemson team, Texas A&M showed their first true signs of being truly resurgent with a 27-6 win as 1-point home dogs. The Aggies erased any potential lingering doubts in their next game, a 42-30 win over Kansas State as 5-point chalks for their third straight payoff against the odds. Now, the same sports betting bloggers that wrote the Aggies off after Utah were proclaiming their value and vowed to include them on their lists of football picks the rest of the way in 2004.

The Aggies did win and cover their next two games to make it five-consecutive against the odds. This set up yet another sports handicapping market correction as Texas A&M dropped four of their final six games against the sports betting line, finishing in the black at 7-5.