Cappers Buzz

Rushing analysis plays a huge part in my weekly football handicapping process. In this study, I’ve looked at all positive ypr underdogs that have a net yards per rush advantage of +1.0 or better over a negative rushing opponent. For example if Team A rushes for 4.0 ypr and allows 3.5, it is a net rushing team of +.5ypr. If it’s opponent Team B rushes for 3.0 and allows 4.0 per carry, it’s net rushing is –1.0 ypr. That would give Team A a rushing advantage of +1.5ypr. Last year, this study began on the week of 10/14-10/15 as I wanted to get a nice sample size of games to work with.  The final tally ended up 26-16-1$.  This year I am starting things 1 week earlier, and also using only NCAA Rushing statistics will involve only games played against Division 1A competition.  The one subjective part of this is that I will exclude all college teams that have played a SIGNIFICANTLY weaker schedule than today’s opponent, but last year that only amounted to 4-5 ommissions. Remember, the play- on team has to be a positive net rushing team and the play- against team has to be a negative net rushing team.  

This Week’s Rushing Dogs: ( A strong 8-2 this year, dating back to  6 CFB, week 5 NFL)

Pittsburgh (+10) +1.5 ypr over Louisville
Lions (+5) +1.7 ypr over Chicago

Note:  Tulane opened at as an underdog over Memphis, but has since swung to the favorite (-1.5).  They are +2.0ypr over Memphis, but will only be included in this study if they go off as the underdog.