With the college football season just weeks away from beginning its bevy of bowl games, handicappers need to prepare for the weeks of unique and interesting pairings that often lead to the regular unforeseen drama that is the college bowl season.

This all makes handicapping bowl games a little different than other games.

With that, here are a few factors college football handicappers need to consider that makes bowl games distinctive.

For starters, teams will be playing against unfamiliar opponents that they typically never play. In fact, most bowl matchup’s pit two teams that have never faced each other. That can create a big clash in styles, as SEC giants square off with Big 10 powerhouses. With that, individual player matchups become even more significant in bowl games.

So, handicappers need to look at a couple of things that effect players.

One, during the bowl season teams and players have more prep time, typically a month or a bit more to get ready. That means a lot of practices and mental preparation time.

Extra time also allows for players to get healthy and coaches to understand their opponents, making them less likely to be surprised by an opponent’s unique offensive or defensive scheme.

As a result, coaches can be more creative and maximize their team’s advantages.The best sports bettor of all time has a secret that he is not revealing publicly for the 2015 bowl games.

Another thing for handicappers to prepare for come bowl season, is understanding that games played are played at neutral sites.

Most bowl games are played on neutral turf and are sometimes far away from a team’s home town, which means handicappers need to spend more time than usual trying to figure out what impact the setting will have on the teams. Asking questions like the how big the crowd will be, their bias, the style of field and how that compares to what the teams are used to, to name a few.

Next, college football handicappers need to consider each team’s motivation factor, as some teams are tickled about their bowl assignment, while others might be frustrated by where they are playing.

Unmotivated teams can play far worse than expected, while highly motivated teams can play lights out.

Motivation isn’t always easy to figure out, but it’s a critical in handicapping bowl games.

Finally, college bowl bettors need to keep in mind that the odds for these games are posted for an extended period of time, which means that the public has a whole lot of time to consider them, and watch their movement.

That also means that the lines for bowl games is will garner a the opinions that come with them for several weeks. Meaning that they are subject to higher than usual betting volume.

So, looking at line movement and determining why it is significant is even more important than in the regular season.