FBall Odds

General NCS Football6

While most people look to the media for rumination and prognostications about sports (SI’s Preseason Comments), I am much more of a “free market” guy. IMHO, there is NO PLACE more accurate and more efficient at predicting and projecting games/seasons as the open market of gambling and gaming odds.

This link to the N&O’s Blog highlights the odds of individual ACC teams to win the BCS Title. As I said in the previous entry related to the Sports Illustrated predictions, “When I account for the variance between NC State’s ranking and the rankings for Georgia Tech, Maryland, Virginia, and UNC-Chapel Hill then I think the rankings are totally absurd.” The following odds seem more in line of my thinking where it makes sense for individual teams to shake-out.

Ga. Tech 200-1
Maryland 200-1
Virginia 200-1
N.C. State 250-1
UNC 400-1

The media’s love affair with UNC usually gets diluted when it comes time to put your money where your mouth is.

For those that are interested, the lines for college football games for the first week of the season have been released. Some games of note are as follows:

Carolina -5.5 vs Rutgers
Clemson -33 vs Florida Atlantic
Navy -11 vs East Carolina
Wake Forest -16 vs Syracuse
Pitt – 3.5 vs Virginia
Notre Dame – 7.5 @ Georgia Tech
Miami -3.5 vs Florida State

General NCS Football

6 Responses to FBall Odds

  1. BoKnowsNCS71 08/17/2006 at 8:57 AM #

    “The media’s love affair with UNC usually gets diluted when it comes time to put your money where your mouth is.”

    The media are not the odds makers. The odds makers don’t have agendas (like sports writers or fans) or let their personal preferences interfere with the calculations. Their goal is to get us to bet. They base their odds on historical comparisons (records, recruiting, talent, experience, etc) and the likelihood of success.

    So does that mean that NCSU won’t win the BCS Title? No. If everything went right, we could — but it’s highly unlikley. And with odds like 250 to 1 — guess how many fans would bite on that bet? The 1967 WP was not supposed to do well but was in the top 5 in the nation until a very close loss to Penn State (that we could have won had we not been so predictable in sending “Barchuck up the middle”) and then we folded to Clemson the same way the next week (close game – last play on the 1 yd line).

    Would we wager $1 of the payback on us was 4 to 1? Probably not.

    And personally, I’m taking Rugers in that UNC game. Rutgers is still good and has a history of opening day shockers. I’d take FSU in that game. Most of the FSU Miami games are won by 3. Wide right or wide left. lol

  2. RickJ 08/17/2006 at 9:15 AM #

    I absolutely love looking at betting lines for the reasons you sight. The lines for winning the BCS are very much affected by your schedule, particularly for teams such as the ones you show in this example. These teams pretty much have to win every game to have a chance to make the BCS championship game. Notre Dame, USC, FSU, etc. can sometimes do it with 1 loss. The game UNC-Chapel Hill plays at Notre Dame is definitely affecting their odds. I really believe if UNC-Chapel Hill were playing at say, Purdue instead of the Irish, their odds would be more like 300 to 325 – 1, still worse than our 250 – 1. For my way of thinking, this is another good reason for NC State to play a manageable out-of-conference schedule. If we replaced App State & Akron with Ohio State & Auburn, our odds would probably be in the neighborhood of 500 – 1 in spite of how much better we would be for having faced the tougher competition (not sarcasm).

    Wake Forest being a 16 point favorite over Syracuse is an astonishing line. I doubt Wake has ever been a 16 point favorite over any D1 team not named Duke.

    I really like Georgia Tech at – 7.5 because it is the first game of the year and it could be played in very hot weather. On the other hand, I’m assuming there will be a Big East officiating crew and this has the potential to be like our Ohio State game in Raleigh with a Big Ten crew. The officiating in this game always bothered me more than the UNC-Chapel Hill loss the same year (and that bothered me plenty).

  3. BoKnowsNCS71 08/17/2006 at 11:09 AM #

    Rickj — look at this info. College Football News “early picks” is picking GT to defeat ND outright.

    (40) Notre Dame at Georgia Tech, Sept. 2
    The Yellow Jackets showed what they could do in openers shocking Auburn last year. Now they’ll try to ruin Notre Dame’s national title hopes before they can begin. Expect another shocker. Georgia Tech’s offense is nowhere near good enough to keep up if the Irish attack is humming, but the Yellow Jacket defense should keep things from getting out of hand. Reggie Ball is an experienced enough quarterback to not make too many mistakes.
    Predicted score in mid-August: Georgia Tech 23 … Notre Dame 21

  4. choppack1 08/17/2006 at 11:42 AM #

    A couple of thoughts here.

    1) Normally, I agree that the media prognisticators have agendas and usually those agendas come forward in the rankings like SI’s.
    2) I’ve always believed that Vegas gives you a decent idea of how you’re team and coach is performing/trending on a seasonal basis. (If you cover, you are exceeding expectations. If you don’t, you aren’t meeting expectations.)
    3) This year, I understand why prognisticators would pick us to go 1-7 in conference. Wake beat us last year and returns more starters than we do and Carolina has beaten us the last 2 years, we’ve beaten Tech once in Gailey’s tenure, we’ve lost to Clemson 2 years in a row, we’ve lost 2 of the last 3 to FSU, and we lost to BC last year. Chuck has never beaten UVA in Charlottesville. There are only 2 conference games on our schedule that trend favorably for us – at UMd and home vs. Wake.

    As much as I’d like to, I can’t chalk this one up to media bias. To me, it’s a rare case of the media actually coming to logical conclusions.

  5. vtpackfan 08/17/2006 at 12:31 PM #

    I know that this is not an appropriat place for this comment but my wife shared some exciting news relevant to this site. Cullen Jones has just signed a multi year contract with Nike making him the highest paid swimming sprinter in the world. (And an English major my wife likes to add. She majored in English at State after starting out swimming at UMBC). Its in the N & O if any one would like to learn more about the endorsement deal. Go Pack, and congrats Cullen.

  6. bTHEredterror 08/17/2006 at 7:58 PM #

    Vegas Baby. They can be trusted because money is on the line. It’s their only agenda and the oddsmakers know EVERYTHING about the teams and matchups. Isn’t Florida Atlantic where Schenllenberger coaches? If so, I’d take that 33 to Clemson.
    About the GT-ND game. ND has a better coaching staff, better overall talent, a better quarterback, and its their first game too. They won’t get caught sleeping. Weiss & Co, have a had an offseason to tinker with the weak D, which I expect to surprise people. If they don’t win by 14+, I’ll be shocked.

    I know they are the football program people love to hate, and media darlings to boot, but don’t overcompensate for that bias. ND 41 GT 24.

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