Looking Ahead in the Rearview Mirror

It seems a little dull, at least at this time that Florida and Alabama are clearly the two best teams in the country and not much excitement stands in their way until they play in one BSC semifinal game again this year, referred to as the SEC Championship Game brought to by Dr. Pepper. (No money changed hands for product mention; it’s just how the announcers promote the game).

On Saturday afternoon, Alabama played a version of Bear Bryant football in smothering Ole Miss 22-3 as four point favorites. The Crimson Tide was effective enough against a very good Rebels defense (the score could have easily been 40-3) and moved the ball and played outstanding defense. Quarterback Jevan Snead looks like a not ready for primetime player and coach Houston Nutt will have to do serious damage control to save this season and his signal caller.

Later, Florida’s defense so thoroughly bottle up LSU on their home turf, they looked like they could stop the recession in conceding a measly 162 yards. Offensively, coach Urban Meyer was very cautious, having Tim Tebow play, but never exposing him to a lot of big hits. If you noticed, Tebow went down in piles more readily to protect himself.

Texas dropped to No.3 in the pools, but that is no big deal since they are the top team in the other quasi-bracket as long as they keep winning.

If I were an Iowa fan, I’d be very nervous about trip to Madison this week. Granted, the Hawkeyes have had success at Camp Randall; however, they have surrendered 49 total points the last two weeks and have given 145 or more yards on the ground in half their games this season. Bettors have taken Iowa from short favorite to 2.5-point underdog quickly.

Though the line didn’t move virtually all week, Connecticut was receiving a lot of love from handicappers in forums, based on their defensive play. Pittsburgh was a seven point favorite right up until game time and had a chance early to blow them out, but a dropped pass for touchdown and an overthrow for another by QB Bob Stull left the Panthers without points. Connecticut capitalized on Pittsburgh’s mishaps and built a 21-6. At that point, the Panthers went on the prowl and ended up with a 489-305 yards advantage. After coming back to tie the score at 21-21, Pitt was moving the ball effortlessly and had first and goal at the three and gave backers hope for a well-deserved push or win. Instead, they plowed the ball three times into the middle of the line and were all too pleased to kick game winning field goal. They have a game at Rutgers this Friday and the underdog is 6-1 ATS.

UCLA held Oregon in check with the Ducks using backup quarterback Nate Costa and led 3-0 at halftime, catching 3.5-points as home underdog. Well, faster than you can University of California, Los Angeles, Oregon opened the second half with kickoff return for touchdown, a Pick Six interception and engineered a 53-yard touchdown drive off another UCLA turnover in less than four minutes, rendering Bruins betting tickets useless.

Auburn looked liked paper Tigers as Arkansas had a superior offensive game plan and was shredded by the Razorbacks for 495 yards and 28 first downs. Arkansas contained the Tigers explosive offense for over 40 minutes before they had a few big plays against them in easy 44-23 whipping.

The SEC is very top heavy this season. Mississippi State and Vanderbilt both lost in non-conference action as favorites and Kentucky gave South Carolina fits in 28-26 cover. Georgia was destroyed by Tennessee, with the much maligned Jonathan Crompton having career game with four TD passes.


Study the numbers

This has been reported here for weeks and is deserves your attention. It is imperative to find the early numbers on totals in college football and if you have access to the up to the minute figures on Saturday’s, you have to start finding these. This season in college football, totals that have moved three or moves points in either direction have been correct 79-35-1, 69.2 percent. That is money waiting to be made and the oddsmakers haven’t been able to work it fast enough either as 25-9 (73.5 percent) record proves the last two weeks. If you don’t know where to find the earliest lines, send me email doug_isllc@yahoo.com.

Did you know CFB underdogs have yet to have a losing week this season? At 20-20 ATS opening week, they are 137-109-2, 55.7 percent. The last three weeks, dogs catching 10 or more points are 41-21, 66.1 percent.

In the NFL, after a 5-11 against the spread start, home dogs have started to bark the last couple of weeks with 7-3 ATS record. This seems to happen every year of late, mostly in the first half of the season, but teams traveling three time zones are 2-6 ATS thus far.

It is being widely discussed that oddsmakers have a real issue concerning the best teams playing the worst teams. How high a number do you place on teams like St. Louis, Oakland or Tampa Bay when playing one of the better NFL teams? This is bore-out in this simple method. The last two weeks, team’s over .500 playing against teams with a record below .500 are 8-3 ATS.

Good Luck this week!