Obviously to be a good handicapper or any kind of handicapper you have to have a good set of power ratings that you can rely on when it comes to spotting edges in the line. If you don't have them or at the very least have access to them, you are wasting your time and money. It is key that one knows, especially when the lines come out where the edge is and which way the handicapper thinks the line will move and make sure they get the best possible number. Sharp sports betting is about one thing. GETTING THE BEST NUMBER. The worst thing one can do is bet into a bad line. Sometimes on game day lines change by the time you get my picks. I can assure you that I do the very best that I can to anticipate those line moves in order for us to have the best possible chance of winning. I will give you my best example of this. In the Sugar Bowl, I played the Gators on the come out line of -10. It never got lower than that so I got the best possible number, and I knew it was never going down either. The line eventually went up to 13. On game day I gave out the Gators as my pick to you even though I knew the line was already bet up. But it still had tons of value and that is why I gave it out to you. If you remember though I stated that the only reason I was not making that game my highest rated game ever was because on game day I did not really know how high the line would actually go. I stated that if it did go to 14 or above you would really have to make a choice based on your own comfort levels. Well we all know the outcome of that massacre so we did the right thing. That brings us to this game tonight, the BCS National Championship.
There is a reason that I gave you the aforementioned background information because we are going to use it in this game. We have produced a profit for you here throughout the football season over the past year. One of the main reasons is that in case you haven't noticed we have used some very strict money management during the campaign. I put a lot of thought into how I want to weight these games. Certainly there are games that I feel we have a bigger edge than others and that's why we wager and take advantage of that edge. I could easily blow out the ratings with the end of the college season but i would never do that unless I thought we had that big of an edge. We have one but it is not gigantic so we will not bet gigantic. Hopefully you understand this. No one game is more important than any other game.
Ok here we go. I mentioned above the power ratings. Here is where we have our edge, and where we can weed out all the hype. Believe me, by the time this game kicks off, your head will be spinning with all the hype. We have to weed all of that out, and we will do that. Over the course of the college season we saw Florida ranked # 1 the entire year up until the SEC Championship game. Who was number two all season long? Don't know do you? You weren't paying attention? Let me give you a hint. It wasn't Alabama. We AREN"T talking about rankings here, we are talking about RATINGS. It wasn't Alabama by a mile folks. It was Texas, by a wide margin. we have our edge now. Why? Because of perception!! The perception of the public who will come out of the woodwork to bet this game. What did they see? They saw Alabama come out and punch the Gators right in the mouth and totally dethrone Tim Tebow and the National Champion Gators in the SEC Championship game. They ran the ball up and down the field on the Gators, largely on the back of the Heisman Trophy winning Mark Ingram. Heisman Jinx?? I wish it were that simple. The Gators could have totally altered the beginning of that game and perhaps the entire game if Jeff Demps had call the pass in the flat on the Gator's first series. He had the entire sidline up the field open to him and most likely an early back breaking TD. He dropped it and the rest is history. The Bama D knew they weren't getting beat deep with the passing game so they left eveything in front of them and make Tebow work harder and harder. There were several occasions however that the Gators simply failed to make a play here or there that was available to them. We know the rest. what I am getting at is a game is never as bad or good as it looked. It was ONE game. What about them needing two blocked kicks to beat TENN or having to go the length of the field for a last minute win over Auburn. Believe me Bama came a helluva lot closer to losing games than either Texas or Florida
Same goes for the Texas-Nebraska Big Twelve Championship game. What did we see? We saw a one man wrecking crew in Suh (no I'm not spelling his first name) for Nebraska. Does Bama have a boy named Suh? Nope. they have a Cody though, but he can't track down McCoy or beat the Texas line like Suh did. So we have eliminated a main game changer. Alabama is very good defensively, But they are not in my opinion as dangerous as Nebraska's. McCoy will have more weapons offensively available to him than the Gators did. They have a run game and they have a good corp of fast WR's. This keeps them two dimensional and a threat to Bama.
Now we have looked at the "perceptions" of each game and they are KEY in handicapping this one. The perception was Bama, Bama, Bama to the upside by beating the Gators. That was a 1 year goal by Bama after getting beat the year before. It was Texas to the negative perception for a narrow victory over a team many thought they would dominate. Now lets go to the all important RATINGS. The rankings we know. Texas stayed at number two but Bama jumped from 3 to 1. No problem yet but here is where we find it. All year long I have had access to the ratings of how Vegas perceives the public to be rating these teams and they have based their spreads many times off of those perceived power ratings of how they think the public will bet. Well, remember how I told you in the beginning how Texas was the #2 rated team and Bama was 3 and I might add by a WIDE margin? Well talk about perception, after those two games all of a sudden Bama was rated #1 and Texas was dropped to #3 with the Gators in the middle!!! Whoa!!!! Are you kidding me? Get this though, Vegas made it a 7 point swing. They added 7 to Bama and subtracted 7 from Texas!!! Holy Crap! What does this all add up to? They are basing this line ALL off the perception of those last two games. No ratings move that muvh off of a single game EVER, unless there is only one game left, and that;s what we have. The wrong team is favored here in my best educated guess!! We can make a case for both teams here but based off the movement of those ratings, Vegas is setting people up for the kill for those that take Bama. We're not taking Bama, we are taking Texas and the points. The line has yo yoed from the opener of Bama -3.5 up to Bama - 6, but it has since worked it's way all the way back to the opener at the time of this post of Bama 3.5. That means there is support for both sides but the % of spread bets still show a wide margin in favor of Bama. I believe that on game day the line will creep back up as the public starts to bet this game after listening to all the HYPE. Keep an eye out and try to wait out the best number on TX if you see it creeping up because our ratings have eliminated the HYPE.
It's been a great college football season!!!. Thanks for putting your faith in me to help you through. We will still be around for basketball, baseball and one of my favorites is returning this spring ARENA FOOTBALL!!!! We also still have the NFL playoffs and the Super Bowl to go as well. Thanks and lets get this big one.
Big Dog Duemig BCS - 1/7
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