College Football Betting

25/01/08

College QBs: NFL is betting against spread

Andrea Adelson | From the Press Box
January 22, 2008

The spread offense is taking over the college football world, everybody!

That is actually very, very bad news.

Because the stars of those offenses will probably never play a down in the NFL as a quarterback. Yes, that means you, Tim Tebow.

Before you start firing off your e-mails accusing me of hating Tebow, look at the four starting quarterbacks in the conference championship games this weekend.

Brett Favre: drop-back passer.

Eli Manning: drop-back passer.

Tom Brady: drop-back passer.

Philip Rivers: drop-back passer.

Notice a trend here?

The spread has been around in different incarnations for some time but is gaining in popularity once again. It features multiple receivers and a mobile quarterback who is a dual threat to run or pass in order to stretch the field.

This is all fine in college. You can bully people with your superior size and speed, make people miss with your smarts and slashes. You beat your chest because you are an athlete, not a quarterback, the best of the best of the best.

That gets you nothing in the pros but an assigned number at the scouting combine and a chance to try out as a receiver or running back.

Just ask Chris Steuber, an NFL draft analyst for scout.com.

"A guy like Tim Tebow is going to be creating things whether it's with his arms or his legs," Steuber said. "That's what college football is: you try to be a jack-of-all-trades. But in the NFL, he may be a guy who can be a running back at some point."

No, I did not bribe Steuber to say this just to make my point. I asked about the viability of spread quarterbacks like Tebow, Dennis Dixon of Oregon and Pat White of West Virginia.

"You have to look at their ability to pass," Steuber said. "Dennis Dixon is probably the best passer of those three. Pat White is a great athlete, great speed, great elusiveness. He projects as a wide receiver."

Now, I am not saying that a successful spread quarterback will never be a successful NFL quarterback. But playing in that system clearly puts one at a disadvantage.

We have two more years to debate whether Tebow can survive in the NFL as a product of the spread offense. Obviously there is no arguing with his statistics or his Heisman Trophy this past season. But there is more than just living in the present when it comes to athletes.

Players look to their futures beyond the college game, and many choose schools that can give them the best shot at the NFL. It is safe to say going to a school with the spread offense could give you a great chance at playing in the NFL -- but not as a quarterback.

That Michigan quarterback pipeline to the pros will probably end with Chad Henne because new Coach Rich Rodriguez will install the spread, and that means an athlete will be behind center. Rodriguez did the same at West Virginia, with White and Rasheed Marshall.

Marshall was also fantastic at running the spread. But he ended up playing receiver for a few years in the NFL before going to the Arena Football League. Brad Smith, who ran a version of the spread at Missouri, is a receiver for the Jets.

The top quarterbacks on the board for this year's draft are all classic pro-style quarterbacks, guys like Matt Ryan and Brian Brohm.

But still, the emphasis on recruiting mobile quarterbacks who can run and spread the ball around is at an all-time high in college football. Everyone wants their own cuddly Tebow to show off.

So Terrelle Pryor, take note. Pryor is the top recruit in the nation, a 6-foot-6, 230-pound wrecking ball of a quarterback from Pennsylvania who runs the spread to perfection. He is deciding among UF, Michigan, Penn State, Ohio State, West Virginia and Oregon. Four of those schools run the spread.

Stay away from those schools, Terrelle, and go to a place where you can use your athleticism in different ways.

Your NFL career depends on it.

Andrea Adelson can be reached at aadelson@orlandosentinel.com.

30/12/07

Boston, Gators dominate 2007

Jim Litke

Associated Press

Dec. 30, 2007 12:00 AM

2007 was a lousy year in sports unless you were a fan of the pro teams from Boston, the semipro ones from the University of Florida or the real-student athletes from Appalachian State.

It wasn't so much about breaking records, even as Barry Bonds took down the most venerated mark of them all while thousands of flashbulbs popped in AT&T Park and baseball fans everywhere winced.

It was about breaking the rules and even the law. Just about every accomplishment worth celebrating was shoved off the front page soon enough by something scandalous.

It started with Mark McGwire shut out of the Hall of Fame and ended with the Mitchell Report that put an exclamation point on the confusing, conflicted era owned by Bonds, McGwire, Roger Clemens and a host of disgraced players.

If all you want to remember about 2007 is a headline - and nobody would blame you - here it is: "Gotcha!"

That tabloid standard would have been perfect on Aug. 16, after disgraced NBA ref Tim Donaghy pleaded guilty to gambling charges. And it would have worked just as well on Aug. 28, after Michael Vick pleaded guilty to running a dogfighting ring and killing some of the losers . . . or on Sept. 10, after the New England Patriots got caught spying on the Jets defensive coaches in the NFL season opener ... or Sept. 21, after Floyd Landis was formally stripped of his yellow jersey and 2006 Tour de France victory . . . or Dec. 13, after Marion Jones was formally stripped of her five Olympic medals.

There was so much cheatin', lyin' an' denyin' goin' on before the Daytona 500 in mid-February that even NASCAR czar Brian France felt compelled to put his foot down, smacking five teams with the toughest penalties the sport has seen just days ahead of the race.

A tragic start

The year started and ended with tragedy, and sometimes the innocent paid the price.

Just two hours into the new year, 24-year-old Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams was killed in a drive-by shooting not far from a Denver nightclub where he quarreled with friends. Last month, Washington safety Sean Taylor was gunned down in the bedroom of his home in Miami.

At the other end of the spectrum, 88-year-old Grambling football coach Eddie Robinson, his legacy already secured, lost his nearly decadelong battle with Alzheimer's disease in April. Four months later, 49ers coach Bill Walsh died at age 75, his influence and wisdom celebrated by disciples who gathered at a memorial service from every corner of the NFL and college football.

In late January, a much quieter but equally sad story came to a bitter end when struggling 2006 Kentucky Derby winner Barbaro was euthanized.

A few worth cheering

Even so, fans found a few things worth loving.

Appalachian State won one for the little guys and set the tone for the wildest college football season in a long time by toppling mighty Michigan on the opening weekend, then beating Delaware - someone its own size - to win an unprecedented third consecutive Football Championship Subdivision (formerly Division I-AA) championship.

Anybody who believed that faith and hard work could be more than their own reward had reason to smile when long-suffering Colts coach Tony Dungy and quarterback Peyton Manning finally wrapped their hands around a Super Bowl trophy that for so long seemed their due.

Men's tennis belonged again to Swiss machine Roger Federer. He won his fifth consecutive Wimbledon title and his fourth consecutive U.S. Open.

Proving the kids can play, Sidney Crosby won the NHL's Hart Trophy as MVP at the tender age of 19 and Morgan Pressel won the Kraft Nabisco to become LPGA's youngest major champion at the even more tender age of 18.

Glory hogs

Tiger Woods lost some sleep due to the birth of a daughter, and some uncharacteristic hiccups down the stretch cost him the Masters and U.S. Open, where he failed to catch lesser-knowns Zach Johnson and Angel Cabrera, respectively. But that was about all Woods lost.

He clawed his way back to the top in time for the PGA Championship, the season's final major and Woods' 13th major victory, and won seven times in all.

Fans in Boston and Gainesville, Fla., enjoyed similarly dominating seasons.

The Red Sox steamrolled the Colorado Rockies to sweep the World Series and made the Yankees so nervous that they fired Joe Torre and rehired Alex Rodriguez. The New England Patriots look like a Super Bowl lock after knocking out all comers entering Saturday night's regular-season finale. And adding Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen make the Celtics look versatile enough to plow through the NBA's Eastern Conference, yet swift enough to steal the crown from defending champion San Antonio or anybody else out of the West.

Florida's Gators, meanwhile, are in need of a larger trophy case. They pulled off an unprecedented calendar sweep of the college football and basketball titles, both at the expense of Ohio State.

Policing the ranks

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had less pleasurable matters to tend to - namely suspensions for Adam "Pacman" Jones, Chris Henry, Tank Johnson and Vick for violating a personal-conduct policy he helped draw up.

His NBA counterpart, David Stern, spent the previous few seasons mandating how the league's players should behave and even dress, then discovered he might have been lecturing the wrong group of employees. Donaghy was snared by an FBI investigation then charged with betting on games, including some he worked, and providing inside information to others to help them win bets.

"My reaction was I can't believe it's happening to us," Stern said.

The same sentiment bugged baseball Commissioner Bud Selig all summer. As Bonds relentlessly ran down Hank Aaron's home-run mark, Selig was asked repeatedly whether he planned to be on hand for No. 756.

So naturally, Bonds hit the big one without Selig in attendance, then declared: "This record is not tainted at all. At all. Period."

Three months later, he was indicted on charges of lying to a federal grand jury about steroids use.

17/12/07

Holiday Sports Wish List

December 17, 2007

I'm wishing that the A's stay in Oakland and that we get a minor league team somewhere within the area code.

And when we get that team, that it has promotions for adult fun too, dizzy bat races, beer batters, and skills contests that people suck at, not just mascots falling short while outrunning a tyke.

And that mascots become a more low-profile part of the game-going experience.

And that the nostalgics who want organ music take note that not even stores in the Mall have organ music, which wasn't as original or witty as you recall.

But that everyone who recalls pro football broadcasts that featured Punt-Pass-and-Kick competitions on national TV raise a Marathon Bar and a cold Cactus Cooler to their memory.

And that the best throwback of all would be the Giants scheduling a regular season series, mid-week in July against the Dodgers in Candlestick.

And that the crowds who crowd the racetrack during the summer fair season bring that same enthusiasm, insane betting strategy, and Daisy Duke denim to Golden Gate Fields any old time they want.

And that I spend all but two minutes of the 25 minutes between races picking a winner rather than armchair market the sport of Kings so that it earns its rightful place back on the local nightly news.

And that the locals didn't absolutely roll for the fact that ESPN has a SportsCenter show every hour from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. and figure well, since they're covering all the sports anyway, we'll just give our sports guy about 100 seconds to not even show us any highlights from our own team's game, because of course ESPN does it - which they don't, because they spend ten minutes of their hour talking about Alex Rodriguez.

And that we come up with way better nicknames than A-Rod (A-Fraud was pretty good).

And that local sports in the newspaper stop shrinking and that Ray Ratto jumps his lazy groove of the curmudgeon who is too good for the games he has to endure and watch a game with an open mind and report it with same. And that fellow columnist Scott Ostler didn't feel like he just moved here from LA, and needed to step lightly for the first ten years of reportage. Take off your shoes, Scott, make yourself at home!

And that college football 2007 be preserved in amber starting from day one (January 1st!) so that we could watch it again.

And that when college football goes to double or multiple overtimes that the team's scoring get just one point or something (a letter?) so that we don't get wacked-out finals like 74-72 blowing the hell out of all the statistics and devaluing the real 50-47 game.

And that the Warriors take a bow for a true spontaneous sports moment circa April-May of 07.

And that when the A's offer $2 day, they offer more than about 20 seats for the general public who stand there fuming when they realize that all the two-buck seats have been sold out since February.

And that they'll make it back big time in Coliseum Dogs and foam fingers (Mmm, foam fingers…).

And that all the Bay Area college teams played one another in some kick-ass kind of pre season tournament in the Kaiser Auditorium or the like, so that St. Mary's, USF, and Cal build up a real thing.

And that the women's games were played in-between.

And that we could get Miguel Tejada back, steroids or not.

And that track and field came back in high school, college, and on the tube.

And that I can enjoy the A's while they last. - Kibby Kleiman

09/12/07

Football Fever: Betting, whining, parading

Posted on Dec 8, 2007 9:36:13 AM

A trio of pigskin pieces:

* Congratulations to Boone, who's now heading to the state championships after beating Apopka last night in a close one. And Congrats to Apopka for making it that far. Lastly, congratulations to Orlando City Councilman Phil Diamond, who also beat Apopka Mayor John Land in a bet they had on the game. Diamond said he won an "Apopka tree." (??) Land woulda earned a private tour of Leu Gardens. Trees, garden tours ... seems like an awful lot of foilage and greenery for football.

* Last week, our sports buddy Mike Bianchi was whining that "there were still 20,000 seats available for the Boston College-Virginia Tech ACC Championship Game in Jacksonville." I'm confused. Back when Mikey was grasping for excuses to dump $200 million in the Cirtus Bowl, I thought the ACC championship one of those crown jewels that would easily fill any stadium.

* On the other hand, we just saw a solid -- in fact, record -- sellout for the Capital One game at the Citrus Bowl. And that battle between Florida and Michigan should be a fun one. I'm stoked -- not just about the game, but also about judging the parade again this year. That orange-grapefruit-and-tangerine-filled extravaganza is always a good one. (More info about all the festivities here.) But you may remember that last year's was not only impressive, it was funny in places -- especially when the Expressway Authority's ghost float rolled by.

blogs.orlandosentinel.com

04/11/07

Who2beton's Pair Best 'Cappers in America 'The Prez' and Ben Lewis First in NFL and College Football

Lawrence "The Prez" Prezman and Ben Lewis of leading sports-betting picks site Who2beton.com, are currently ranked the No. 1 handicappers in North America in NFL and college football, respectively, according to the National Sports Monitor.

(PRWEB) November 4, 2007 -- Lawrence "The Prez" Prezman and Ben Lewis of leading sports-betting picks site Who2beton.com, are currently ranked the No. 1 handicappers in North America in NFL and College Football, respectively, according to the National Sports Monitor.

The Prez has a 44-27 record in NFL picks this season, good for a 62 per cent winning average. So far this season, The Prez is up 14.3 units. Lewis is 48-25 in NCAA Football picks, a winning percentage of nearly 66 per cent. Lewis is up 20.5 units.

The Prez, the President of Who2beton.com (www.who2beton.com), started betting in 1994, became a full time gambler in 1997 and founded Who2beton in 1999, with the help of the late Frank Matthews and the Great JB Sports. He spent the first year setting up the business and started selling my plays in 2000.

Using what he calls a "simple system," The Prez starts by picking his games and then starts "the real research" before releasing the plays.

He also works the phones and the Internet, talking to 10 different bookmakers a week, including some of the largest offshore bookmakers in the world.

"I know where most of the money is going almost every week, including what Syndicates from Boston, Dallas, New York and Hong Kong are betting," says The Prez. "I would argue that I am one of the most connected people inside the industry that sells plays publicly."

He's a high-volume NFL bettor and can release as many as 10 NFL Plays on a Sunday. Averaging over 20 Units per season, Prez has cashed for over 100 units in the past 5 years.

No stranger to handicapping sports or participating in them, The Prez, based in Toronto, Canada, spends a great deal of time at the poker tables in Las Vegas during the summers, and on the ski slopes in the resort of Whistler, just north of Vancouver, Canada in the winters.

Lewis, based in Reno, Nevada, has been handicapping sports for 15 years, specializing in CFB, NFL, MLB and NHL.

He boasts more than 30 trend-based systems and plans to release system plays for College Basketball for the first time later this year.

The National Sports Monitor (www.nationalsportsmonitor.com) is run by the legendary Bobby Babowski, a regular contributor to the New York Daily News.

It's the only Professional Sports Monitor that advertises the nation's leading handicappers in print, radio and the Internet. It features free sports picks from more than 175 of the nation's best sports handicappers.

For more information, contact Rob Gerein

29/10/07

Betting tilts toward Central Michigan

BEHIND THE LINES

The Chippewas are picking up most of the action in their Kent State matchup after an injury to the Golden Flashes' starting quarterback.

By Lonnie White, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

October 27, 2007

Gamers have to look deep inside the college football schedule to find one of the most lopsided wagered games of the weekend, which features Central Michigan (4-4) at Kent State (3-5).

This Mid-American Conference showdown has the Chippewas as 2 1/2 -point favorites over the Golden Flashes, who have lost three consecutive games.

According to Sportsbook.com's betting trend, Central Michigan has attracted 94% of the bets against the spread this week, while theSpread. com's NCAA betting chart has the Chippewas picking up 89% of the action.

The reason for the strong support? A key injury, of course.

Kent State lost starting quarterback Julian Edelman for the rest of the season when he broke his right arm in the final minutes of last week's 31-20 loss to Bowling Green. In Edelman's place, the Golden Flashes will turn to freshman Giorgio Morgan, who was scheduled to redshirt this season.

As a reward for his first start, Morgan takes over a struggling team against Central Michigan, which at 3-0 is the only undefeated team in MAC play.

Another under-the-radar game getting one-sided attention is today's matchup between Idaho (1-7) and Nevada (3-4). The Wolf Pack, which has lost two of its last three games, is a 17 1/2 -point favorite at home and has attracted 89% of the bets against the spread, according to theSpread.com.

The Vandals, who played USC tough early in the season, have lost six games in a row and have failed to cover against the spread in five consecutive games.

Pro football

After going all week without a line on the San Diego-Houston game, Las Vegas oddsmakers didn't need much time to place the Chargers as the favorite once a decision was made Friday not to move Sunday's game because of wildfires.

San Diego, which has won two games in a row, is listed as a 9 1/2 -point favorite over the Texans, who have lost two games in a row.

If the game had been moved and played in Los Angeles, Arizona or Texas -- as Commissioner Roger Goodell suggested earlier in the week -- Mike Seba, senior oddsmaker for Las Vegas Sports Consultants, told Covers.com that the Chargers would have had a home-field advantage worth only 1 or 1 1/2 points to the line.

Hockey

As the NHL season heads into its second month, three teams have emerged as leaders against the spread.

Carolina (which is in first place in the Southeast Division) started out 8-2 against the spread; surprise teams Boston and Columbus (early contenders in the Northeast and Central Divisions) opened 7-2 against the spread.

Two teams off to decent starts (Minnesota at 7-1-2 and Pittsburgh at 5-4) have struggled against the spread. The Wild began the season 3-7 against the spread, and the Penguins were 2-7.

lonnie.white@latimes.com

15/10/07

Bookies, Bettors Pick More College Football Winners Than Polls

By Aaron Kuriloff

Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- Oddsmakers and gamblers may be better at predicting college football games than the computer models and polls used to establish the national rankings.

Bettors can forecast the outcome of a game more accurately than the polls that determined the University of Wisconsin had the fifth-best team in the nation -- right before the Badgers lost to unranked Illinois, said economist James Quirk, a retired California Institute of Technology professor and author of "The Ultimate Guide to College Football.''

The gambling line made the Illini a 2 1/2-point favorite. No. 8 Kentucky lost to No. 11 South Carolina a few days earlier; South Carolina was a four-point favorite.

"I'm a strict believer in markets,'' Quirk said. "The odds are doing a better job on this stuff than the polls are.''

Since the 119 football teams in the National Collegiate Athletic Association's top division can't play every opponent each season, their national ranking is determined by polls of coaches and reporters. To earn a trip to the national title game, a school must receive the first or second-best score on a formula that includes polls and computer models.

Betting Lines

The betting line in Nevada, the U.S.'s only legal sports book, accounts for all the information in the polls and then some, said Ray Fair, a professor of economics at Yale.

The betting odds "dominates these guys,'' said Fair, who examined 1,582 games between 1998 and 2001 for a paper called "College Football Rankings and Market Efficiency'' published in the February Journal of Sports Economics. A combination of polls predicted 72.9 percent of winners, the paper found. The betting spread predicted 74.7 percent.

"Any information the models have, the market also has,'' Fair said. "The market seems to be incredibly efficient.''

The two major polls, one of media members and the other of coaches, are prejudiced by voters' familiarity with certain teams and often fail to keep up with increasing parity, said Charles Davis, a former defensive back at the University of Tennessee who now works as an analyst for XM Satellite Radio. Limits on the number of scholarships that colleges can offer football players, for example, have prevented traditional powers from hoarding talent over the past 15 years or so, he said.

"Some people want to discount the scholarship argument and say it's old and tired,'' Davis said. "But there's a reason it's old and tired.''

New Tactics

Davis said coaches do a better job of training players and have developed tactics -- such as using short, quick passes and extra receivers -- that sometimes dilute the athletic advantage of top programs. More television coverage has also helped encourage prospects to attend schools that once had trouble attracting talent because they weren't on TV, he said.

Jim Tressel, coach of No. 3-ranked Ohio State, said in a conference call with reporters this week that parity between top programs has been on the rise for "quite some time now.''

The point spread does the best job of showing that, said Jeff Sherman, assistant manager for the Las Vegas Hilton Race & Sports Book, which says it's the world's largest.

"We don't look at any of the polls at all,'' Sherman said. Spreads fluctuate to keep half the bets on each team every time the market has new information.

USA Today's poll of 60 coaches was created to prompt conversation about college football, not pick winners, said Jim Welch, deputy managing editor for sports at the newspaper. Coaches sometimes over-value conference rivals, or teams that appear frequently on television.

"These things are not that precise,'' he said. ``You'll find that teams that have been high-profile football schools find their way onto the ballot.''

Everyone's Wrong

Sometimes neither the polls nor the spreads guess right. This season opened with Appalachian State, a team from a lower division, defeating Michigan, then ranked No. 5. Stanford, a 41- point underdog, beat No. 2 USC on Oct. 6 and Syracuse, a 36 1/2- point underdog, beat No. 18 Louisville on Sept. 22.

That doesn't make a trend, said Lee Corso, the former coach at Louisville and Indiana University who works as an analyst for ESPN. While the scholarship limits have helped historically bad teams get better, they still haven't replaced traditional powerhouses such as Texas, Florida and Ohio State.

"The sky is not falling, I can promise you, Chicken Little,'' Corso said in a telephone interview. "An acorn just hit you on the head. And it was labeled Stanford.''

The upsets this season attracted attention because they're so abnormal, Quirk said.

"It's early in the season, so what happens is sportswriters and coaches and everybody else who participates in these polls uses the information on what teams have been like historically,'' Quirk said. "The betting markets usually do a pretty good job evaluating these things.''

And the oddsmakers realize that, Sherman said.

"A lot of us are amused after a so-called upset,'' he said. "If people were aware of what the spreads were, they might not think it was such an upset.''

To contact the reporter on this story: Aaron Kuriloff in New York at akuriloff@bloomberg.net .