Help finding old spreads

Submitted by Bleedin9Blue on
Hello MGoBloggers, I'm looking for a little bit of help finding old spreads, specifically spreads for [all] bowl games after 1997 (so, all the bowl games since the BCS has been around in some form). I'm looking to do a comparison of the conferences (obviously focusing on the B10 and other "Big Six" conferences) to see if the general perception of conference rankings is correct. Hopefully by finding how many teams beat the spread I'll be able to do some sort of comparison to see how the conferences have looked these past couple of years. One of the reasons I'm doing this is because I'm wondering just how screwed the B10 actually gets (if you couldn't guess, I'm not going to be completely unbiased going into this study, but I will try to be more objective than that sentence sounds) by having 2 teams in the BCS. My thought is, instead of looking at W/Ls, look at how many teams beat the spread. If the underdog was supposed to be by 10.5 but only lost by 3, obviously they're doing better against a superior team than the team that lost by 14 in similar circumstances. Thus, if we look at W/L adjust with the spread, we can get a better idea of how good each conference is. I'm going to develop the idea further and go into more depth now, but I didn't want to spend too much time thinking about it if it's impossible to find the spreads on each game. I'd also do this with interconference games but that would add a lot more work and I don't have that much time. I've done a few Google searches [to find old odds] but haven't found anywhere with a real extensive listing. And I haven't found really anything for years before 2007. Thus, fellow MGoBloggers, help me to find old spreads for bowl games and I will write a diary to entertain and educate you in the future. Thanks.