Thursday, August 30, 2007

Bettors Are Liking The Taste of Les Miles Kool-Aid

The college football season commences today, which means we get treated to Lee Corso, Beano Cook, cheerleaders, and gambling. Lots and lots of gambling.

Tonight, LSU begins their quest for a national championship with a visit to Starkville, Mississippi to take on the Bulldogs. Last year in Baton Rouge, the Tigers beat MSU, 48-17, which while a convincing victory, actually wasn't enough to cover the 35 point spread. This year, the spread opened at 16.5 points, and gamblers have jumped all over that number and have pushed the line up to 20 points. That's a huge move in a week, so I'm looking at a possible contrarian play and taking the points. Problem is, there isn't really much to go on to support that bet. Here are the results in the series since Sylvester Croom took over in 2004:

2006: LSU 48, MSU 17
2005: LSU 37, MSU 7
2004: LSU 51, MSU 0

Ouch. Granted, two of those three games were on the road, and the Tigers did lose JaMarcus Russell, Dwayne Bowe, LaRon Landry, and Craig Davis, but there is still quite a bit of talent left for LSU. So while I want to take the points, I just can't do it. But I'd love to hear any arguments for MSU that could convince me otherwise. Until then, I'm going with:

LSU -20 at Mississippi State. (Random guess at a score, LSU 45, MSU 10)

Another intriguing game tonight is Utah at Oregon State. I like Yvenson Bernard, but I think the Beavers will struggle early in the season until they figure out who their quarterback is (going w/ a tandem today) and get some clarity on if and when Sammie Stroughter will return to the field. Utah will be running an option/spread offense with Brian Johnson returning at QB after missing all of 2006 with a knee injury. I think this game should be low scoring by Pac-10/Mtn West standards, so I'll take the points.

Utah +6.5 at Oregon State. (OSU 27, Utah 21)

Disclaimer: If anyone happened to be a reader over the last two years, you may know that my fatal flaw is that I take the road team way too much in college football. It was my undoing last year, resulting in me eventually taking a hiatus from gambling. That was a sad time. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I learned from that experience. I did at least make sure to stock the fridge full of beer so I can drown my sorrows.

Good luck. Oh, and if anyone has any sportsbooks that they recommend, feel free to leave a message in the comments or send me an email. I promise not to forward it to the Feds.

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3 Comments:

At Thu Aug 30, 08:10:00 PM PDT , Blogger Stefan Ming said...

LSU's defense was very impressive. If their offense can pick it up they will be in the BCS Title Game.

 
At Fri Nov 16, 06:16:00 AM PST , Anonymous Anonymous said...

How come nobody has asked who the hot chick is?

 
At Thu Apr 16, 04:05:00 AM PDT , Blogger Unknown said...

Many new investors only purchase places or calls as a more economical solution to theorize on the move of a stock, but with no suitable knowledge of investor will most likely find yourself losing cash investing and how option spread trading are priced.

 

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