This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/cfb by /u/sebsasour on 2024-11-28 02:46:59+00:00.
With hate week upon us, you will often hear the cliche of “Throw out the records in a rivalry game”. Which basically implies that when there’s a rivalry game you should put less weight on the season up to that point when setting your expectations for a game.
Now that claim has been interrogated before, but I really wanted to focus on games where there’s a seemingly large gap between the two teams and which specific rivalries have tended to actually produce closer games than you’d expect
So I used the data from Oddshark (dates back to the late 90s I believe) and picked 25 rivalries. I took every game within those rivalries that had a double digit point spread, and charted how often those teams covered, how often they won outright, and how often they ended in one score games.
As for the rivalries, it was really just the first 25 that I could think of. I did only include rivalries that are still active and to my knowledge didn’t take any major breaks during The 21st Century (sorry Bedlam, Texas A&M/Texas, and Backyard Brawl)
| Rivalry | Games | Favorite’s Record ATS | Favorite’s Record Overall | # of 1 score games |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Game | 8 | 4-4 | 8-0 | 2 |
| Iron Bowl | 15 | 6-8-1 | 13-2 | 6 |
| Palmetto Bowl | 8 | 4-4 | 7-1 | 2 |
| Egg Bowl | 7 | 4-2-1 | 5-2 | 1 |
| USC/Notre Dame | 10 | 5-5 | 9-1 | 4 |
| Red River | 9 | 3-6 | 7-2 | 5 |
| Sunshine Showdown | 7 | 7-0 | 7-0 | 0 |
| Commonwealth Cup | 8 | 5-3 | 8-0 | 1 |
| Governor’s Cup | 11 | 5-6 | 9-2 | 5 |
| Battle for The Axe | 12 | 2-9-1 | 11-1 | 2 |
| Cocktail Party | 13 | 7-6 | 11-2 | 1 |
| Third Saturday in October | 15 | 10-5 | 14-1 | 3 |
| Stanford/Cal | 13 | 7-6 | 12-1 | 5 |
| Victory Bell | 12 | 6-6 | 11-1 | 4 |
| Oregon/Washington | 15 | 11-3-1 | 12-3 | 3 |
| Army/Navy | 11 | 4-7 | 11-0 | 2 |
| Clean Old Fashioned Hate | 11 | 6-5 | 10-1 | 4 |
| CyHawk | 11 | 4-7 | 7-4 | 3 |
| Michigan/Michigan State | 11 | 5-5-1 | 9-2 | 3 |
| Old Oaken Bucket | 14 | 9-4-1 | 14-0 | 3 |
| Northwestern/Illinois | 14 | 8-6 | 14-0 | 5 |
| FSU/Miami | 10 | 3-7 | 10-0 | 4 |
| Civil War | 16 | 9-6-1 | 15-1 | 4 |
| Apple Cup | 7 | 1-6 | 6-1 | 4 |
| Auburn/UGA | 10 | 5-5 | 7-3 | 2 |
| Total | 278 | 140-131-7 | 247-31 | 78 |
So as far as the broad data goes, the heavy favorites tend to cover slightly more often than they don’t , they win about 88% of the time and about 72% of the time these games are decided by more than one possession.
As far as how some individual rivalries stack up…
Most likely to see an outright upset
- CyHawk (36%)
- Auburn/UGA (30%)
- Egg Bowl (28%)
Slightly wild stat from The CyHawk Game is that all 4 times a double digit underdog has covered in this game, they have won outright (this is also true of Oregon/Washington). Also UGA has only been a double digit underdog to Auburn twice, and they won both.
Least likely to see an outright upset
- Tie between Old Oaken Bucket and Northwestern/Illinois (Never happened in 14 tries)
- Army/Navy (Never happened in 11 meetings)
- FSU/Miami (Never happened in 10 meetings)
Hoosiers are a 29 point favorite this underdog, while Northwestern/Illinois is only a TD spread, so they can break the tie this weekend. Also fun fact Army has never been a double digit underdog against Navy, at least recently.
Rivalries where the heavy favorite is most likely to cover
- FSU/Florida (100%)
- Oregon/Washington (78%)
- Alabama/Tennessee (67%)
Sunshine Showdown has been straight forward, if you’re a big favorite, you cover (Gators are a 2 TD favorite this weekend if you care). Oregon/Washington has tended to see big favorites cover, but as I mentioned above, when they don’t, they lose. As for the 3rd one, Vols can rest assured that the scary Alabama man is gone
Rivalries where the heavy favorite is least likely to cover
- Apple Cup (14.2%)
- Minnesota/Wisconsin (16.6%)
- FSU/Miami (30%)
Some slightly surprising ones here. Over the last decade UW has mostly owned The Apple Cup and often won in blowout fashion, it’s just those games were often expect to be close going in. From 2014-22 Washington won every game by double digits, yet every spread was in the single digits. So of course in 2023 when the game finally had a double digit spread, UW only won by a FG. Game might not always deliver but it tends to when it’s not expected to
Minnesota/Wisconsin is a slightly weird one because that may make you think the rivalry has been close when in reality there’s a lot of games in this series where The Badgers are favored by a lot, win by a lot, but just don’t quite win by enough to cover. That’s why you see such a big gap in the table between record ATS and the number of one score games
FSU/Miami has a good track record of delivering a good game when it’s supposed to be lobsided, it’s just the heavy favorite always wins in the end
Most likely to be a one score game
- Apple Cup (57%)
- Red River (55.5%)
- Louisville/Kentucky (45.4%)
As pointed out above, The Apple Cup is a bit spotty with it’s close game record, but Red River has always “felt like” the closest rivalry IMO and it’s nice to see some data back that up. It’s mainly been The Sooners who have been guilty of letting Texas keep it close despite being heavy favorites.