In Reply to: Records after bye week posted by Dr.Bruin on October 03, 2026 at 18:45:48
The best stat to answer the question: "Does a bye week help?" would be the record ATS after a bye which indicates whether you have performed above or below expectations. For all teams it's still about 51%, so on the average, there is little advantage. But that's still a slight edge for bettors.
In this case, UCLA is 23-29 ATS since 2003.
But it's a different story for ranked teams. Since 2005, ranked teams after a bye week have gone 180-152-0 (54.2%) ATS. Ranked teams at home following a bye have covered the spread 58.9% of the time since 2005. Ranked teams that lost their game right before a bye bounce back strongly, covering at a 68.8% rate (22-10-2 ATS) in their next matchup.
I would assume ranked teams have the best coaches and that is an important factor for bye weeks, so this makes sense.