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PrintLast year, a man named “Swisherland” stopped smoking his Swisher Sweets long enough to bring up an interesting trend in Thursday night college football games on ESPN.
He asked us to look up how home teams did in these nationally televised games because, as he put it, “you will see a major trend in which the home team not only wins the game outright but covers the majority of the time.”
Swisherland was right.
Over a five-year and 78-game sample, home teams on Thursday Night Football were 49-29 ATS, covering 62.8 percent of the time. Home favorites were 27-17 ATS (.613), while home underdogs were a whopping 22-12 (.647), with 18 outright wins.
Home teams hit a bit of a lull at the end of the 2011 season, losing six straight against the spread and finishing 5-9 ATS on the year. But in 2012, they’re at it again through the first half of the year, posting a 5-2 ATS mark.
So here’s the new updated numbers.
THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL, 2006 TO 2012 (99 GAMES)
Home Teams: 59-40 ATS (.596)
Home Favorites: 33-23 ATS (.589)
Home Underdogs: 26-17 ATS (.605)
Now, all of this is not to say that you should go unload all of your betting account on Colorado at home against Arizona State tonight. But it’s still worth keeping in mind, especially with such a monumentally high spread.
