Behind The Betting Lines Sept 28 2003
September 28 2003
By Wilson King
Football Sports Betting – Inside the football betting lines
For the first time this football season, our handle was down from last week going into the early college football games. This result was especially surprising considering that Peter and Paul Parlay racked up big numbers last Sunday on the NFL and continued to ride MLB favorites during the week. In evaluating the situation, I was able to deduce that: a) Ashton Kutcher’s deal with the Devil is up and the public knows they can’t be too far behind OR b) with no marquee matchups on the board, the public was going to bide their time until the late afternoon games.
Despite the fact that the early college action did not feature any of the sexy picks that give Lee Corso purpose, the public waded into the betting pool, but they treaded lightly. The fact they were proceeding cautiously did not dissuade everyone from engaging in their favorite past time of betting the favorite. While a few Big Ten games drew the majority of interest, the action was spread evenly among favorites across the board.
While most folks have been shying away from the Clarett-less Buckeyes this year, Johnny Action liked The Ohio State University giving 20.5 to the visiting Wildcats of Northwestern. To further affirm his need to pick prohibitive favorites at home, Joe Public took Michigan favored by almost five touchdowns against Indiana. While neither the Wildcats nor the Hoosiers made their alumni proud, both teams covered, giving us two decent wins to start the day.The rest of the early action was put on favorites, and when Kentucky covered at home and Michigan State beat the 9th ranked Iowa Hawkeyes outright, we started to forget about the lumps we took last weekend.
As the late afternoon games rolled around, the nationally televised Alabama game drew much attention. Everyone looked for the nationally-ranked Razorbacks to provide a big payday by covering a 2.5 point spread on the road. The scene that unfolded as the game went on would have made Paul “Bear” Bryant deficate in the woods. With the game tied at the half, Alabama opened up the second half with a touchdown and scored twenty-one unanswered points. However, the Crimson Tide let the lead slip away before failing to cover in overtime and costing us our biggest game of the day.
On the bright side, the day’s other dogs didn’t let us down, and we were able negate the losses we took on the Alabama game with shear volume. Washington State, Cal and Wisconsin all covered, leaving Pittsburgh as our only spoiler. Which goes to prove my theory, “Pittsburgh sucks.”
The day ended on a bit of sour note as Mississippi State failed to cover the two touchdowns they were getting at home, which meant we were losers on a big game for the second time today. However, overall it was a good day. We managed to make back the losses we suffered last week and looked good going into Sunday.