With temperatures close to 100 degrees and the game being played at 12:30PM local time, the up tempo offenses of Oregon and Arizona State may take a little bit more time between plays. Playing under wouldn’t be the worst move in the world.
Worth noting that though Arizona State is more used to the weather, they will be wearing their dark maroon jerseys, which retain the heat.
Last week’s stellar card had 16 of the Top 26 teams in the country going at it against one another. The only game this week between Top 25 rivals is Arizona States trip to Cal.
Not only aren’t there are lot of top teams playing, there are are a lot of expected blowouts. Last week there were 9 games on the college board with lines of 20 or more. This week there are 19 such games.
Might be a good day to go fishing, take the kids to the park, or mow the lawn.
Here are a couple of headlines in Alabama newspapers today re: the Auburn/Buffalo game….
Mobile Register: “Auburn Catching Its Breath”
Huntsville Times: “Auburn’s Intensity Levels Off: Seven-TD Favorite Tigers Try To Heal Up As Buffalo Arrives”
Now Auburn isn’t a 7 TD favorite (they’re 40.5), but that hardly sounds like an Auburn team geared up to blow the doors off of Buffalo. Then again, this is a Buffalo team that scored exactly 3 points at home in regulation against Temple a few weeks ago. Auburn’s backups may be good enough to stretch out their lead to cover that spread.
Huge win for the Buckeyes last Saturday, but what kind of mindset can they possibly have here? Ohio State is in the mother of all letdown situations here. Off of their statement win over Texas, they have Penn State on deck. Those happen to be the only two teams that beat the Buckeyes last season. Focus is a significant concern here. The Buckeyes are off a win in their latest Game of the Century and simply have bigger fish to fry. Cincinnati has overachieved over the past couple of years from a wins/losses standpoint. Mark D’Antonio’s 12-13 mark as Cincy coach is impressive, particularly when you consider how young his team was last season. The Bearcats started as many as 5 true freshmen on defense at points during the season. D’Antonio is well thought of in Columbus, and why shouldn’t he be? After all, he was the defensive coordinator of the Buckeyes national championship club. Tough to see Tressel looking to aggressively punch it in if the Buckeyes are up 27 late. Cincy gave up some big plays against Pitt, an 80-yard TD pass, a 55-yard TD pass, and a 57-yard INT return for a TD. While the Bearcats propensity to give up big plays is a concern against OSU’s sizzling offense and athletic defense, the questionable focus of OSU and Coach Tressel’s lack of interest in humiliating D’Antonio make UC the side here. Take the huge points with the Bearcats.
Michigan has been a money burner the past coule of years and are now 10-17 against the spread in their last 27 games. They were only 7-5 straight up last year and their two non-covers this season means that there aren’t Wolverine fans with money in their pockets riding their charges. Notre Dame tattooed Penn State in a spotlight game last week. It figures that ND would get all the money in today’s matchup. That may have been the case in the old marketplace. But ND opened at -7 1/2 and got bet down to -4 1/2 this week. ND will doubtlessly take some money today, but the fact that this move occured shows the differences in the marketplace in recent years. Smart money has a lot of influence midweek, and it wasn’t square money that was taking the underdog in this one.
Let’s talk about betting strategy, less glamorous than handicapping, but very profitable. Good bettors finish with a better bottom line than mediocre bettors with the same information every single solitary time. Let’s talk about a concept I like to call “microjuice”.
Reduced juice sports books are great. Pinnacle at -105 in college football, Betmania at -107, offer huge edges over traditional -110 style wagering. Let’s take that reduced juice even further into “microjuice”.
When you play at more than one place with reduced juice, say at Pinnacle and Betmania, those two books will not have the same lines on most games. Getting the best of it allows you to play at “microjuice”. Let’s look at a very narrow band of the schedule and how you could have used “microjuice” at around 11AM this morning.
Game 177/178
Pinn: Ohio State +2.5 (-101)
Betm: Texas -2.5 (-107)
Effective juice: -104
Game 181/182
Pinn: Texas Tech -8 (+103)
Betm: UTEP +8 (-107)
Effective juice: -102
Game 183/184
Pinn: Oregon -3 (+104)
Betm: Fresno +3 (-107)
Effective juice: -101.5
And there are other opportunities just like this up and down the board every single gameday. Using just these two books it is not difficult to effectively be playing at -103 or so overall. That’s a 70% discount from traditional -110 juice. And remember, you’re only playing at two books, you’re not projecting line moves, taking sides, accounting for your play at 20 different books, etc. None of that.
When you factor in the bonuses at both books you can very quickly be in positive expectancy. Check out those bonuses and more information at http://www.consumerbet.com/rsb.html.
In early August it was almost impossible to envision a series of events that would have had the Red Sox getting +150 at Fenway against a Blue Jays team starting a .500 pitcher. But the impossible is now a reality. Quite possibly the worst month in the history of the Boston Red Sox. And that’s saying something.
First full day of the college football season and we’re kicking off our new blog. Welcome. Thanks for visiting. Come back often.
Let’s look at a football play for you. Over his long tenure, Ken Hatfield did a nice job at Rice but the past couple of years have been disastrous, particularly defensively. The Owls gave up an astronomical 39 points and 441 yards last season. Under new coach Todd Graham they return roughly half their defense. Now Graham has a defensive background (defensive coordinator at Tulsa, co-DC at West Virginia) and at Tulsa worked first hand with Steve Kragthorpe in that reclamation project. But Tulsa’s D has been no prize and Rice simply doesn’t have the horses to be effective defensively. The Owls must enhance their talent level. Even improving the D by a TD and 40 yards leaves them as a 400 yard D giving up over 4½ TD’s per game. Houston and 9th year (at least it seems that way) QB Kevin Kolb are poised to light up the Rice D. Kolb has started 36 straight games for Houston and if, as expected, he has a big senior year, the Cougars will improve on last season’s 28 points and 441 yards per game.
Houston’s defense is no prize, but this 27-point, 397-yard unit from last year should improve with 9 returning starters. And can Rice move the ball at all? They’re going from option to spread under 27-year old offensive coordinator Major Applewhite. No stretch to say that Applewhite was hired for the cache his name has in recruiting the state of Texas as opposed to the work he did as quarterbacks coach at Syracuse, where the QB’s combined for a mere 6 TD passes last year in the nation’s 105th ranked passing offense. Though Rice threw the ball more the past couple of years, it will take some time to turn Hatfield’s option personnel into a cohesive spread offense.
While laying points with a shaky defense should give you reason to pause, the Rice offense may pretty helpless early. Rice is unveiling some stadium improvements but really have no discernable home field edge with Houston brining plenty of fans a mere 6 miles across town. Despite concerns about the ability of favorites to stretch out leads with the new college clock rules, a comfortable 3TD+ win by the Cougars will be no surprise. Houston may be one of the better big favorite plays on the board this week.
Thanks for reading this far. Remember to visit www.FootballAnnual.com to get your 16-page football annual for free. Good luck this opening weekend, and be careful.