These College Football teams have the best record when they’re the underdog in Vegas 💰(MN: 24-35)

[BleedGopher]

Go Gophers!!

 

[gopherphil]

Not shabby but we need to improve on that.

 

[Drake University Gopher]

Just the more infuriating that we couldn’t put it all together once in my lifetime. Bowling Greens of the world have obviously been the worst more recently. Iowa (finally getting over the Wisconsin hump recently) being Fleck’s kryptonite certainly hasn’t helped either. Maybe this difficult schedule is the key to OUR year!

 

[fmlizard]

Interesting that Minnesota has the 2nd most games on that list as an underdog (behind Duke) and also the 2nd most wins as an underdog.

 

[Cayman]

Just the more infuriating that we couldn’t put it all together once in my lifetime. Bowling Greens of the world have obviously been the worst more recently. Iowa (finally getting over the Wisconsin hump recently) being Fleck’s kryptonite certainly hasn’t helped either. Maybe this difficult schedule is the key to OUR year!

Bowling Green is Fleck's sole non-conference loss through 6 seasons (though no non-conference games were played in 2020), unless we're putting 2021 Illinois in the same category of loss. We were favored by 30 against Bowling Green and 14 against Illinois that year if I recall correctly. And last year I think was the first time since before Fleck was hired that we were favored against Iowa, and even that was only by 1.5. I couldn't even tell you the last time we were favored against Wisconsin, probably would be when Mason was coaching.

We've had some ugly wins in the non-conference: 3rd and 30 or whatever late against Georgia Southern, trailing South Dakota State in the 4th quarter, tight games against Fresno State, 10-7 against Kent State, beating San Jose State while going 1-7 passing. The New Mexico State loss was over a decade ago now.

We were slight favorites, a touchdown or less, against Purdue and Illinois last year. I think we were double digit favorites against Purdue a week after they beat Florida Atlantic by 2. But AOC and Mo were both questionable going into the game, and AOC played and Mo didn't. And Illinois' quarterback and 3 or 4 other starters were questionable, but all of them played, and a ~7 point line in favor of Minnesota went down to 4 or so just before game time.

And I'm sure if we had more disgusting losses to G5 teams, we wouldn't forget about it, because no matter how successful the rest of the season was, someone or other would be bringing it up on the message board. All. Season. Long.

 

[Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0]

Interesting that Minnesota has the 2nd most games on that list as an underdog (behind Duke) and also the 2nd most wins as an underdog.

Caught my eye too. Vegas, like a lot of other "experts", underestimate the Gophers more often than not!

 

[RememberMurray]

Caught my eye too. Vegas, like a lot of other "experts", underestimate the Gophers more often than not!

Yes... and that spells opportunity for Gopher Holers and others who closely follow the program.

I don't bet on sports, but this really intrigues me.

 

[RememberMurray]

Hey, Bleed: thank you for this thread. This is exactly the kind of thing I would never have known if I didn't read Gopher Hole. As a Gopher football fan(atic), I really appreciate this. Well done.

 

[RememberMurray]

Not shabby but we need to improve on that.

Uh, yeah... tenth best is the nation is "not shabby".

 

[hello-world]

Interesting that Minnesota has the 2nd most games on that list as an underdog (behind Duke) and also the 2nd most wins as an underdog.

Minnesota has been fun to bet for the last few years. There have been quite a few games where they were _heavy_ dogs and should not have been. And a few times when the line seemed dead on and they blew their opponent out of the water.

 

[hello-world]

Not shabby but we need to improve on that.

Winning 40% of the games you're expected to lose is a difficult thing to do. Especially for Minnesota because some of those losses are games where they clearly had no chance (e.g. any game against OSU, PSU with Athan last year etc.)

 

[Gophers7NatTitlesBadgers0]

The team will be dogs in 5 or 6 games this season. I say bettors should smash the over on the win total all day long based on this information assuming they don't pull a couple Bowling Green type stinkers!

 

[fmlizard]

Caught my eye too. Vegas, like a lot of other "experts", underestimate the Gophers more often than not!

This also pours some cold water on the idea that the Gophers play an easier schedule.

The Gophers are underdogs in about half of their games (roughly 59 of 120 over the past decade) so statistically the team is right where it ought to be schedule-wise.