Welcome to the first two weeks of the schedule - the most wonderful time of the year to bet college football.
"It's a real craps-shoot these first two weeks," said Pete Korner, oddsmaker and owner of the Sports Club. "It's all opinion, yours against ours with no statistics to bear one or the other out. We’re going to be (and are) off on a few games"
Without any current stats to plug into their fancy computer programs, oddsmakers are forced to throw out September lines based on information from the same preseason publications we all read: Phil Steele, The Sporting News, David Payne articles on Covers.com, etc.
It won’t last long, but right now, we know just as much as the people setting the line.
That makes books sweat, especially knowing what happens at the beginning of every college football season.
“The sharp bettors come out betting heavy during the start of the season,” betED.com sportsbook manager Randy Scott said. “Most books know it’s coming and usually put their guard up early.”
To combat this rush on early lines, books often lower limits, move lines rapidly without action and even restrict certain types of bets early in the season.
"Sportsbooks try their best to get through this period with as little damage as possible," Scott added.
How to take advantage
Covers Expert Larry Ness says the preseason polls could hold the secret to early success.
Ness points out that more than half (13) of last year’s preseason top 25 ended up unranked.
“Not only that, but six of those 13 teams ended up with losing records,” Ness added. “Obviously, oddsmakers aren’t just looking at polls. But that doesn’t mean they don’t have an influence on them. If a team’s ranked 13th in the preseason poll, you don’t expect them to finish 5-7 for the season.”
Like oddsmakers, the members of the media and coaches who vote in the polls have no concrete information to decide where to rank teams in the preseason. They check out the number and talent of the returning starters, just like we all do. But after that, they’re stuck with a program’s reputation and results from last year.
That’s why a team like Michigan, which had obvious question marks entering last season, winds up ranked in the preseason polls.
Francis Doyle, a betting analyst for Sportsinteraction.com, says this type of undeserved hype for big-name programs can torment oddsmakers and be a gold mine for bettors.
For example, even if oddsmakers realized Michigan was going to struggle last year, Doyle says they couldn’t afford to throw out a number that might get hammered by the Wolverines’ huge fan base.
Ranked teams that won’t finish that way
Over the last four years, approximately 40 percent of teams that were ranked in the preseason polls did not finish the season ranked.
Here are the eight teams in this year’s preseason polls that won’t be there in the end:
No. 9 Oklahoma State
No. 13 Georgia
No. 14 Boise State
No. 15 Georgia Tech
No. 16 Oregon
No. 18 Florida State
No. 19 Utah
No. 20 Brigham Young
No. 21 North Carolina
Although the Florida Gators are the clear-cut favorites to repeat in 2009, they might be jinxed already. They might have taken the kiss of death at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas before any of the games even begin.
Why, you ask? Well, because every member of our panel for the college football forecast at the 2009 VegasInsider.com Handicapping Seminar predicted UF to win its third national title in four seasons.
Bruce Marshall, Jason Johnson, Sid Rosenberg, Marc Lawrence, James Manos, Paul Prestridge (of Bullseye Sports) and I each took the Gators to prevail in Pasadena. However, who would fall to UF varied among the panelists.
Marshall liked Penn St. to make the BCS Championship Game because of a “soft non-conference schedule and playing Ohio St. at home,” but he didn’t feel the Nittany Lions would be deserving of that invitation. On that note, Marshall called for the Gators to thump PSU by a 48-6 count.
James Manos went with Va. Tech to run the table in a “balanced” ACC, although he clarified that his Hokies’ prediction tends to mirror the Bills-49ers Super Bowl forecast Chris Berman has seemingly been calling for since ESPN’s inception.
Marc Lawrence likes one of two sleeper teams, either Oklahoma St. or Ga. Tech, to make it to the BCS Championship Game. He went with Florida but with a little more reservation than most.
Lawrence said, “It’s hard not to like Florida with all of its returning starters, but I’ll say this: They have never gone undefeated in school history. If there’s a game they’ll lose, it would perhaps be at LSU.”
Prestridge is real high on Texas to win the Big 12 and thinks the Longhorns can “give Florida a great game.” Nevertheless, he stuck with UF to win it all. Like Prestridge, Johnson and I have the Gators beating the ‘Horns.
Lawrence thinks the Big Ten is going to be “up” and “wide open” this year with Ohio St. and Penn St. at the top. Like Marshall, Lawrence noted PSU’s edge in terms of its soft non-conference schedule compared to the Buckeyes hosting USC in Week 2.
Lawrence said this about the Bucks, “Jim Tressel is going to open up the offense finally and all I can say is thank God. Tressel is conservative as the vest he wears, but he is going to the ‘Pistol’ offense like Nevada’s this year. Just like Colin Kaepernick for Nevada, Tressel is going to keep the ball in Terrelle Pryor’s hands and let him make plays. If that offense jells early, watch out for Ohio St.”
Lawrence liked Illinois as a sleeper, but called for Minnesota to go “backwards as it switches to a pass-oriented offense.” On an earlier panel, Tim Trushel of the SportsMemo was also bullish on Illinois and liked Auburn’s win total to go ‘over’ seven. Trushel defended the hiring of Gene Chizik, who he lauded for coaching “unbeaten defenses as defensive coordinator at Texas and at Auburn in ’04.”
Rotunda disagreed with Trushel on Auburn. "I just don't see it with Auburn," Rotunda said. "I like that team 'under' and don't like the Chizik hire. They don't have a quarterback, either, going with the kid from last year (Chris Todd) whose not a good passer."
My opinion on Auburn falls between Trushel's and Rotunda's. I see this team going 7-5 thanks to an excellent defense and the Tigers will hook up their bitter rivals by knocking off Ole Miss in an upset that paves the way for the Tide to get to Atlanta.
Manos, who is based out of Reno and is a WAC expert, called the league the “Boise State Conference the last few years.” Manos said, “The conference as a whole is soft and has a weak underbelly. Fresno St. has gone soft under Pat Hill in recent years. If there’s a team that can challenge Boise this year, it could be La. Tech because it catches the Broncos in a difficult travel spot.”
Manos continued, “The travel in the WAC is brutal, covering the distance from Hawaii all the way to Ruston, LA. When Boise goes to La. Tech this year, it’ll be a third road game in four weeks with the Broncos playing at Hawaii two weeks before. They better come to play in Ruston because the Bulldogs can give them trouble at home.”
Manos was concerned that Nevada’s Pistol offense might hit a speed bump in 2009. “Chris Ault has been speaking at a lot of coaching seminars and handing out some portions of his playbooks to other coaches. And I think defensive coaches are going to be ready to make adjustments now that they’ve had a lot of time to watch film on this offensive approach.”
**B.E.’s Bonus Nuggets**
--The big college football news on Thursday was USC naming true freshman Matt Barkley as its starting QB. Earlier this week, Tennessee got good news when freshman RB Bryce Brown was ruled to be eligible after his status appeared unclear for a week. Brown and Barkley are considered by most to be the best freshmen in the nation. Now let's clean out the notebook with other thoughts and comments from handicappers at the seminar...
--Lawrence on Northwestern: “I like Pat Fitzgerald as a coach but Northwestern could be in some trouble this year. This program lost 23 seniors from a nine-win team and those kind of losses can sometimes leave a team with a cupboard-is-bare complex.”
--Marshall thinks Washington is going to be better than expected, noting that "that team doesn't go winless if Jake Locker doesn't get hurt. After that, things just went stale for Ty (Willingham) and I think (Steve) Sarkisian is going to be a little bit of an upgrade." Marshall also thinks Oregon St. is once again underrated. He also feels UCLA is overvalued in Week 1 against San Diego St. and he has "big concerns about Rick Neuheisel."
--Marshall on Dennis Erickson at Arizona St.: "I'm not sure if he has the fire anymore." On Oregon and Cal: "I'm not as high on these teams to challenge USC this year. Like Steve Spurrier at South Carolina, Jeff Tedford has had QB problems the last few years."
--Rotunda liked USF and WVU’s win totals to go ‘over’ in his Big East comments. He thinks Jarrett Brown is a “beast” and will be a more-than-adequate replacement for Pat White at QB.
--Manos raved about the hire of Brady Hoke at San Diego St. He liked the coaching staff assembled by Hoke and thinks the Aztecs are in a good spot at home when they host BYU on Oct. 17. The Cougars will be in a look-ahead situation with TCU on deck with the conference title possibly on the line. They also will be playing a second road game in as many weeks. "BYU as a road favorite with TCU up next is a brutal spot," Manos said. "And San Diego St. has an open date the previous week, so we should get some line value with the Aztecs."
--I called for Troy to beat Arkansas outright and predicted Steve Kragthorpe to taste a pink slip after Louisville loses to Cincinnati to fall to 2-5. After the Cardinals went 41-9 under Bobby Petrino, they are an abysmal 11-13 under Kragthorpe. When U of L loses to the Bearcats, Kragthorpe will be canned and eventually replaced by Phillip Fulmer.
Before the Big XII, there was the Big 8 Conference. The old ways of the league was run, run and then run some more. That ground gameplan continued to work when Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor and Texas A&M entered the conference in 1996.
Things, however, are always destined to change. This was apparent in 2008 with five of the Big XII’s programs ranking in the Top 20 nationally in scoring offense. Four of those five squads achieved those scoring numbers by ranking no worse than seventh in the country in passing offense.
While the means of finding the end zone has changed in the league, the power still remains south of the Missouri Compromise. The last five conference champions have come out of the Big XII South.
Some betting shops are thinking it will be more of the same in 2009 as the Longhorns (+140) and Sooners (+150) are heavily favored to win the Big XII.
Nobody should be surprised that those are the teams expected to win the league this year. They wound up tied for the division championship along with Texas Tech. However, Oklahoma got to play in the championship game thanks to having a higher BCS ranking than the other two teams. That didn’t sit too well with Texas since they beat the Sooners 45-35 on a neutral field last season. Of course, the ‘Horns couldn’t really bitch about anything after they needed a last minute touchdown to beat Ohio State in the Fiesta Bowl.
Our stable of experts are unanimously believes that the Longhorns will make that trip to Cowboys Stadium in early December.
“Texas returns nine starters on offense, including Heisman candidate Colt McCoy. The Horns leave the state of Texas once the first six weeks, before consecutive road games at Missouri and Oklahoma State,” says Kevin Rogers.
Chris David has one date circled on his calendar that will help validate the season for Texas. “You’re not going out on a limb when you say the Big 12 comes down to Oct. 17, when the Sooners and Longhorns meet in the Red River Shootout. Since the conference has gone to a championship format, the two schools have represented the South Division 11 out of 13 times. And, OU (6-1) and Texas (2-2) have grabbed the hardware eight times. The Longhorns have won three of four in this series, and I feel Mack Brown’s club can do it again in 2009 with McCoy and a very solid defense. The only hesitation for me backing Texas is a big letdown on tap after the battle with OU. The ‘Horns will play a pair of road games against Missouri and Oklahoma State, which will be make or break for the conference and perhaps the national title too.”
Brian Edwards is already looking at what would be a fantastic battle of signal callers. I think Colt McCoy and Tim Tebow are destined to square off in Pasadena for all the marbles in the final college game for both players, two of the best QBs to ever lace 'em up in college football history. With the exception of Brian Orakpo and Quan Cosby, this team returns nearly intact. And of course, they have the motivation (if not bitterness) over how they were hosed out of the BCS Championship Game last year. The 'Horns are clearly the premier team in the Big 12 in 2009.”
Two years ago, Kansas just missed out on a trip to the conference title game, yet wound up winning the Orange Bowl. There is reason to believe that the Jayhawks can win the Big XII North.
“I certainly have questions about the Kansas defense, but its offense will keep it in every game it plays. Looking at the schedule, there's a very real chance the Jayhawks could be 6-0 going into an Oct. 24 home game against Oklahoma. Todd Reesing, who has an incredible 68/23 touchdown-interception ratio during his brilliant career, is poised for another monster campaign, especially with his three favorite targets returning.”
I don’t think there are nearly as many questions about the Jayhawks’ defense…especially in the trenches, where they return three starters from last season. That will help out the linebacking corp, which is brand new this year. Don’t be surprised if this unit is a strongpoint for this team by the time they face Oklahoma on Oct. 24.
Chris David believes that the Cyclones are ready to have a solid run in Paul Rhoads’ first year as head coach. “It’s hard to find a sleeper in the Big 12 because I feel the entire conference will be down as a whole this year, opposed to 2008 when ranked teams squared off every weekend and the winner was the first one to 50. One team that should improve is Iowa State. They started 2-0 before dropping 10 in a row. The defense was a joke and might still need a lot of work yet I don’t believe the scoreboards will be lit up this season unless you’re playing Texas or Oklahoma, both of whom the Cyclones miss. Iowa State’s offense isn’t on the same level as those schools but they do have 10 starters back, led by quarterback Austen Arnaud. Improving to 6-6, maybe 7-5 would be a major surprise for many just not me.”
The Aggies have caught Kevin Rogers’ eye for a team that could make some noise this year. ” Mike Sherman enters his second season with the Aggies, as Texas A&M returns ten starters offensively. Jerrod Johnson tossed 21 touchdowns last season, and is pretty mobile under center. The Aggies travel to Oklahoma in November, but host Texas on Thanksgiving. The schedule toughens up in mid-October, as Texas A&M plays four of five road games, with the lone home game against Iowa State. There are plenty of good betting opportunities to back the Aggies this season.”
Oklahoma State is one of the teams that is getting a lot of hype before even taking the field. Brian Edwards, however, isn’t totally sold on Mike Gundy’s team just yet. “I'm not necessarily real down on Oklahoma St., but I do think we'll see some early-season spots where the Cowboys are overvalued. They are getting a lot of pre-season ink based on the return of some exceptional skill players, but the defense is mediocre at best and both lines are suspect.”
Texas Tech had a fantastic run in 2008, but Chris David believes that they’re ready to return to Earth this season. “The Red Raiders had a great year last season, posting a 7-1 conference mark but that could very well come back to 4-4 or 3-5 this year. Losing Harrell and Crabtree will be difficult for any program to bounce back and the schedule is tough, especially the road trips this year. Even though Texas Tech only leaves Lubbock five times, it’s fair to say that they’ll be an underdog in all five, most likely double-digit pups against Texas and Oklahoma State too. As much as I admire Leach’s brash attitude, a lower tier bowl game appears to be in the future for his squad.”
The Red Raiders will no doubt have a tough go of it this season, but I think it will be that way for the beginning only. Mike Leach has a penchant for finding guys that can run his system quickly. And I believe he has that quarterback in Taylor Potts. Unfortunately, there will be growing pains with the wide receivers; Detron Lewis is the only returning starter from last year.
College Football 8/30
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