The NFL is only weeks away, but for most football fans, the upcoming NCAA season is the Holy Grail. Sure, quarterbacks and coaches may be stacking Benjamins like they are pro athletes, and it’s not fully kosher, but who can deny these guys and their family’s money? They do the work, so they deserve to be paid.
For now, the division still maintains its grassroots nature, which is why TV audiences continue to grow year on year. The brand of football is different, yet that shouldn’t prevent you from enjoying the duration of the campaign. Here is a selection of tips to help you do just that.
Upcoming NCAA Season
Choose the Fourth Team
If you’re worried about three college sides dominating the NCAA program, you should recognize that Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio State are the biggest outfits in the league. As previous results have highlighted, these schools have the biggest budgets, which means they have the best players, coaches, and facilities.
Their stranglehold on college football isn’t going to disappear suddenly. To negate this, we recommend picking the fourth team to follow throughout the season as the rest of the division is quite evenly matched, and the level of competition should ensure more unpredictability.
You can use this strategy to place wagers, too, since the most popular bets today include futures bets. Remember that almost any team result can be placed as a futures bet, from the winner of the Big Ten to the winner of the National Championship minus Alabama, Clemson, and Ohio.
Predict the Next NFL Draft Picks
Another smart way to keep the division interesting until the end of the season is to consider individual players. The men who are in college this year could quite easily end up playing for a franchise in 2022. That happened for the likes of Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields at the last NFL Draft.
Don’t fret about the big teams monopolizing the Draft, either, because it didn’t happen in 2021. For example, Zach Wilson and Trey Lance of BYU and North Dakota State were selected second and third, respectively. 60% of the first ten picks weren’t from the Big Three, meaning there’s a lot more scope among the players.
After all, a couple of guys always catch fire and hit the headlines out of nowhere. A tip is to keep tabs on the safeties because The Stack defense is probably going to be essential this term.
Watch out for Aggressive Play-Calling
College football isn’t exactly defensive. Still, a handful of teams will gladly not take the bull by the horns and hope the other side slips up. It’s one way of winning games, but it isn’t good to watch because something inside football fans dies a little. What you want is aggressive play-calling that takes courage and gives football teams the best of winning. Incidentally, it’s also exciting to watch.
An interesting story this year is going to be the fate of Steve Sarkisian, the new head coach of Texas. 2020 was an incredible year for Sark as far as calling plays were concerned, and Texans will hope he can bring the same level of success to The Lone Star State. If he can, the college may finally be part of the national picture after 13 long years in the wilderness.
The key is to make the fixtures as exciting as possible. To do that, you’ll need to make sure there’s a high level of uncertainty in every game you watch.
