Back in the late 1970s when I first began handicapping I relied on T and A -- Trends and Angles -- as this was way before the internet age and cable TV era and such information was not just not readily available it was pretty much stuff you had to track on your own. Bookmaking and betting was a much less sophisticated discipline than it is is today and as such uncovering "patterns" provided huge edges because the handicapping techniques popularized at the time dealt largely with power ratings and the such. Trends and Angles handicapping is really nothing more than tracking the difference between "perception" (how is a team expected to perform) and "reality" (how that team actually performs).
With the advent first of cable tv and 24 hour programming (think ESPN) in the early 1980s and then the arrival of the internet in the mid to late 1990s and then the explosion of social media in the mid to late 2000s the betting/handicapping landscape has changed dramatically with the explosion of not just an increase in information but the virtually instantaneous dissemination of that information.
As I have stated many times on radio shows and in my writings the edges years ago was in having information that (a) other people did not have or (b) getting that information before it was available to others. Nowadays everyone has access to the same information and practically the same time so the edges are now in using that information in ways that others are not using that information.
Towards that end I have developed many measures that I do not publish and which I have not seen published by others. I still pay attention to Trends and Angles but do so from a perspective that realizes that such information is widely available, widely publicized and as such has an impact on the behavior of the betting public.
I still am a numbers guy first and foremost but over the past 20 years or so have incorporated "situational" handicapping as a greater part of my handicapping process.
2015 was a successful season, both in Colleges and the NFL, and largely resulted from the relationships and correlations I have discovered in doing my research. I am never satisfied with what I know and thus I continue to learn and do research literally on a daily basis as thoughts pop into my head that appear to have merit on the surface and appear to make logical sense (but which often turns out not to be the case but is not learned until I do the research).
I have a data base of NFL Pointspread Information that dates back to 1969 and team boxscore data that dates back to 1988 which provides thousands of games that I can research. Of course the game has changed over the years and factors that pointed to success in 1993 do not necessarily do the same in 2016 and there is an age old debate as to how much data is sufficient, too much or too little.
In 2016 I plan on continuing to build upon the factors used in 2015, tweaking where necessary but also not looking to discard what has proven successful.
I have once again entered the Westgate Supercontest for a twenty sixth consecutive season, having cashed on multiple occasions. I fell just a bit short in 2015, probably needing just one more week. The key will be in getting off to a strong start in September and into the middle of November when the indicators I rely upon become meaningful and significant.
Let's hope we all have a great season as sports handicapping continues to evolve as both an art and a science. The key to success comes in finding the proper balance between the two.