How Much Money Would you Have if You Bet $100 on Every OSU Game in the 2010s?

I think we all think Oklahoma State football is underrated. It’s easy to get lost in OU’s shadow or the national picture. We decry national pundits who wave the banner for lesser squads as their dark horse of choice and tout that the team wearing orange and black coached by the man with the mullet is the actual underdog you should be backing.

And hey, now we have statistical proof. According to Action Network, OSU was the best college football team you could bet on in the 2010s. Here’s a look at every major sport.

• NFL: New England Patriots (106-70-5 ATS, +33.93 units)
• NBA: Dallas Mavericks (421-363-10 ATS, +38.15)
• MLB: Texas Rangers (863-800 ML, +37.31 units)
• NHL: Washington Capitals (488-355 ML, +43.6 units)
• College Football: Oklahoma State Cowboys (79-51 ATS, +23.10 units)
• College Basketball: Virginia Cavaliers (171-118-4 ATS, +43.13 units)

This makes sense. Those 2010-2011 teams covered so many spreads, especially that under-the-radar 2010 squad. That team was one of the sneaky best ever in OSU history. Here’s a look at their against-the-spread record by season, according to Team Rankings.

• 2010: 10-3
• 2011: 9-4
• 2012: 7-5
• 2013: 8-5
• 2014: 6-7
• 2015: 6-7
• 2016: 8-5
• 2017: 7-6
• 2018: 7-6
• 2019: 9-3-1

Those two records don’t perfectly align (Team Rankings has OSU 77-51-1), but that’s because one likely doesn’t count FCS games and they’re going from different starting lines. Overall point remains though: OSU was terrific against the spread, especially early in the decade.

Maybe the most surprising year to me is 2015. That team wasn’t supposed to be that special, but they started the season 10-0 and somehow covered only six of 13?

Also here’s a look at OSU’s best categories when it came to covering the spread.

Neutral site: 9-3
Non-con games: 28-12
Bowl games: 7-3
With rest advantage: 16-7
Away dog: 11-5
Underdog: 23-13

So to answer the question in the headline of how much money you would have made had you bet $100 on every single OSU game of the last decade, the answer is $2,310, according to the #math of multiplying $100 by the units above (which, again, are from Action Network). If you’d bet $1,000 on every single OSU game of the last decade, you would have $23,100. And if you’d somehow been able to cobble together $10K to put on every OSU game, you would have $231,000.

Like anybody needs any of that additional stress during these games.

There’s not a ton to make of it other than the public doesn’t love betting on OSU and OSU has probably been a bit underrated over the years. There are 100 reasons why a team would be great against the spread, and several of them have nothing to do with the actual team (public perception, popularity etc.). But when it comes to stuff like this as it relates to OSU, I choose to believe the ancient Chinese proverb about college football: Good teams win, great teams cover.

Via the Oklahoman