Early football lines season action is full of mismatches but sometimes you get those classic games that college lines football are known for. Football lines in college football begin in late August or early September and include a wide variety of non-conference games. Many gamblers will tell you that the early part of the season is the most difficult in terms of lines football action. Football lines in August and September provide challenges for handicappers.
There is obviously considerable turnover in college football lineups and rosters from year to year and a handicapper is basically “flying blind” in those first early games versus the football lines. In addition to the newness you also have many mismatches in which power teams are playing low level or weak mid-major conference teams that most likely will be “blowouts” on the field, but not necessarily against the football lines. Why are there so many mismatches in September? The power teams like to schedule non-conference weaklings in order to pad their win total for the bowls while the weaklings like the massive payouts that they get from being sacrificial lambs. This makes for a lot mismatches and for big football lines.
The trap that the masses fall into, however, is always taking the big chalk over the lesser known and respected team in lines football action. The football lines makers are fully aware of this public preference and therefore raise the football lines up higher than where they actually belong, making the power teams “overlays” that very well may win the games by big margins, while failing to cover the even bigger football lines.
While there are a lot of mismatches in college football there are also some fantastic non-conference power games in football lines. You will have teams like Ohio State and USC matching up in early season college football lines. Notre Dame also plays a number of interesting games early in the season that can be exciting in lines football action. Many of the top teams will have one early season non-conference game that attracts in interest in college football lines.