09.12.2022

Army Navy Game Preview and Pick: Don't Just Blindly Bet the Under

The last college football game of the regular season before we get into Bowl season is the historic Army-Navy game. We’ll be getting into a preview of the game before I tell you why it’s time to fade one of the most famous point total betting trends.

Game Preview

The Navy Midshipmen enter this weekend with a 4-7 record, and in their last game, they were able to walk away with a 17-14 win over UCF, who played in the AAC championship game last weekend. This Navy team plays the same style of football they always have, as they are second in time of possession on offense and fifth in the country in rushing yards per game with 245.1 yards.

Dabe Fofana leads the team in rushing with 749 yards and six touchdowns. As a team, the Midshipmen have run for 21 touchdowns on the season. The offense has been fairly consistent all season, but the Navy defense has struggled at times. The Midshipmen's defense allows an average of 25.8 points per game and an average of 6.1 yards per play.

Per usual, the one part of defense that Navy has succeeded at is stopping the run, which sets up a strength vs. strength matchup since Army is second in the country in rushing yards per game. The Black Knights’ offense averages 25.8 points per game and averages 4.9 yards per carry.

Quarterback Tyhier Tyler has been running all over defenses this season with 600 total rushing yards and 12 touchdowns. Army’s offense has rushed for 37 touchdowns this season, but similar to Navy, a big reason why the Black Knights enter this weekend with a losing record is their defense.

Army has allowed an average of 381.8 yards per game and has not had the same success stopping the run as Navy has. The Black Knight defense allowed an average of 196 rushing yards per game which is 109th in the country.

Pick for the Game

The under in Army-Navy games has hit 16 straight times, and this weekend the point total is set at 32.5. This might be a long-standing trend, but I think it’s time to go the other way and take the over. 32.5 is just too low of a number, regardless of the betting trend, not to take a chance on the over.

This total is an outlier number and is the cause of people blindly betting on the under-trend. No Army-Navy game in that 16-game span has had a point total set this low, and if all 16 of those games we played with this point total, then nine of them would’ve gone over.

Both teams want to control the time of possession and play their usual styles, but the way Army lets up rushing yards, the Navy offense should be able to drive down the field quickly and find the end zone regardless of how much they want to slow the tempo. Despite Navy being outstanding at stopping the run, quarterback Tyhier Tyler can still find success and get in the end zone once or twice. Betting trends can be helpful guides, but I think this one has saturated the market, so I’ll be fading it.