good advice for any newbie is to stay away from Saturday/Sunday and primetime games.
NCAA football is tough to win over the year, i tend to only play totals on college games. I stick to large favorites and small dogs for NFL.
I like to play fewer games then I did in the past. I started putting ~25-50 for the game then try to add 4 to 5 live in game bets of 25ea during the game.
I used to bet way more and often from 2003-2010, at one point I was up 30k, after that I was at another point where I lost all of it plus another 5k. I took 4th in a poker tourny for 6k then took 1.5years off. Now im just sticking to my 25/50 bets and do it for fun when I have time to watch the game.