It's that time of year. The time of year when you realize that you're going to be spending the next two weeks looking for something, anything, to distract you from various holiday-related obligations. Cooking, cleaning, shopping, spending time with family ... it's no wonder that so many people commit suicide in December. Thankfully, the good people who run college football are happy to provide entertainment for the bored and miserable sports fan, and the good people who run offshore gambling websites are also happy to provide you with a way to enhance that entertainment. So how can you keep yourself sane this holiday season and make enough money to cover your liquor tab?
As usual, our plan at Against All Odds is to fade the conventional wisdom. This year the conventional wisdom is that the SEC is the best and deepest conference, and that the Big 12 is a close second, limited only because "they don't play defense." But, as is frequently the case, conventional wisdom is dead wrong.
Yes, the ACC is football's best top-to-bottom conference according to the Sagarin ratings, and the SEC is far closer to the oft-ridiculed Big East than it is to the ACC and the Big 12. My theory, if anyone cares, is that the misperception about the conferences is rooted in the early-season smackdown delivered by Alabama to Clemson. At the time Clemson was the ACC favorite and Alabama was universally considered to be no better than fourth, so the beating was seen as a clear display of SEC superiority. However, since then we've learned that Clemson is a middle-of-the-pack ACC team and that Alabama was a clear #2 in the SEC. We've also watched Duke (and Wake) beat Vanderbilt, Georgia Tech put up 45 in knocking off Georgia in Athens, and various other results that suggest that the SEC is not good at all, but simply top-heavy.
In addition to the ACC-SEC misperception, there's a couple other things to take note of. First, the Pac-10 is even worse than you thought. I can't imagine betting on a single Pac-10 team in a bowl game. Second, the Mountain West is head and shoulders above every single other non-BCS conference, and really not too far away from the bottom tier of BCS conferences.Finally, the Sun Belt is just awful. They're below the 1-AA Colonial, for Crissakes.
This piece is meant as general guidance for the bowl season, rather than a strict list of who to pick, but just for the fun of it, let's look at a few matchups worth considering based on these misperceptions:
Oklahoma (+3) vs. Florida, BCS Title Game. I believe this opened at Oklahoma -1.5, and the squares who eat up the Tebow love-fest have already bet it to this preposterous line. Hey Tim, you wish you could have played against those Big 12 defenses? What tough defenses did you carve up this year? The Georgia one that gave up 45 at home to a middling ACC team? The LSU one that couldn't slow down a single BCS conference team? Alabama, the team that basically handed you two touchdowns with boneheaded plays on the other side of the ball? The loss of Murray concerns me here, but not that much. Hey, you're gonna be watching anyway. As the addicts say: "might as well make it interesting."
Utah (+11) vs. Alabama, Sugar Bowl. Giddyup. Go look at those Sagarin conference ratings, keeping in mind that Utah tore through the Mountain West, and come tell me how this line makes any sense. I would bet Utah all the way down to +3 or +4 here, and I have no doubt that this will be a multi-unit play for me. The BCS computer rankings (you know, the ones not influenced by the talking heads) actually had Utah ahead of Alabama. Seriously.
Oklahoma State (-3.5) vs Oregon, Holiday Bowl. [Insert obligatory "I'm a man! I'm 40!" joke here]
Boston College (-4) vs. Vanderbilt, Music City Bowl. The "home field" thing is a little worrisome, but I just finished a pro-ACC, anti-SEC rant, so I gotta do what I gotta do.
Southern Mississippi (+4) vs. Troy, New Orleans Bowl. Just look again at how awful the Sun Belt is. And Southern Miss should at least have some fan support in New Orleans.
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2 comments:
You talk about going against conventional wisdom, but Okie St at -3.5 is gonna get tons of public love. Already is at Wagerline. Most people seem to agree that Big XII >>> Pac-10.
BC -3.5 is getting even more public love themselves. Low hanging fruit: BC played for their conference championship, Vandy is 6-6. Logical square conclusion: BC is a layup.
Absolutely. That's why that list was just an initial rundown of favorable matchups given the relative strength of the conferences. I haven't looked at the wagerline data yet, but we wouldn't ever make an "official" pick without doing so.
I'm a little surprised about Oklahoma State, though. I would have thought Oregon would get a little more public love, although now that you mention it, there really has been quite a bit of Big 12 media hype this season. The fact that the Pac-10 games are often on random Fox Sports channels and don't air until Saturday night on the east coast probably doesn't help.
Hambone started looking at some of the other bowl games with Mountain West participants last night. I think there's some real value in those. Just didn't have time to include them yesterday.
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