“Maybe you had too much too fast,
Or just over played you part.
Nothin’ shakin’ on Shakedown Street.
Used to be the heart of town.
Don’t tell me this town ain’t got no heart.
You just gotta poke around.”

If you’re a ‘Deadhead’ you know exactly where we’re headed here.

Arguably the most popular cult band of all-time, the Grateful Dead was founded in the mid ‘60’s when bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were busy dominating the music scene. Described as an electric Lovin’ Spoonful with a dirtier sound, the Dead’s lead vocal was guitarist Jerry Garcia. When Garcia’s health deteriorated before his passing in 1995, Bruce Hornsby provided keyboards and vocals in the early ‘90’s.

Along with the likes of Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and Santana, the Dead was known for its Haight-Ashbury San Francisco sound. They were among 32 of the best-known musicians to perform at Woodstock. When their set was played in the rain, several band members received shocks during their performance and bass player Phil Lesh said he heard a helicopter radio transmission through his bass while playing. (It’s a good thing it was raining, otherwise the sounds he was hearing would likely have been traced to the buzz on stage.)

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Like the fans that flocked to Woodstock, college football attracts its share of groupies, too. They are generally those who look to jump and stay on the bandwagon of winning teams. It’s not so much recognizing when to jump on. It’s knowing when to get off that matters the most.

It seems that teams who enjoyed winning seasons the previous year are a frontrunners dream the next season. Like the words in the verse of the Dead’s popular ‘Shakedown Street’ above, sometimes certain teams enjoy success too much, too fast and perhaps simply played over their head. We can identify these pretenders real fast simply by fading teams in Game Two of the season when they are off a straight-up favorite loss in their season opener, provided they won seven or more games the previous year. These teams are 39-63 ATS in this role since 1980.

Better yet, these deadheads become solid ‘play against’ material when we –

PLAY AGAINST any college favorite in Game Two of the season who won 7 or more games last year if they lost Game One SU as a favorite.

That’s because teams in this role are 23-42 ATS since 1980, including 7-23 ATS when facing an opponent that is also off a loss. Better yet, by poking around and dressing them up as double-digit favorites in these ‘shakedown’ games, they slip to 3-16 ATS.

Last year one team met our criteria when Florida State laid 32 points at home against UAB just five days after stubbing their toe at Clemson as 3.5 road chalk in their lid lifter. The Seminoles went through the motions in a 34-24 win over the Blazers, not enough to overcome the huge impost.

After shaking down this perfect angle why not sit back and enjoy a pint of Cherry Garcia. After all, if you’re a Deadhead chances are you’re not going anywhere in a hurry and besides, you deserve it…