Photo Attribution: US Presswire
Two years ago, after OSU started 8-1 with Weeden and Blackmon and Texas started 4-5, the Cowboys were only -5 favorites in Austin. Last year much of the same, and only -7 favorites. This year we know much less about OSU and Texas looks much better than it has in recent memory.
And OSU opened as a 5.5 favorite.
The team that got drilled by Arizona (which lost to Oregon 49-0 yesterday) and is starting a freshman at quarterback for the first time in his college career opened as nearly a touchdown favorite over mighty Texas1.
This isn’t a “we have insider info that Wes Lunt is going to be coming out of that tunnel on Saturday” line. It’s more of a “we have insider information that somehow Brandon Weeden and Josh Cooper found another game of eligibility somewhere” line.
Last week one of the guys who helps me with this site (Amilian) and I texted a little about what the line would be for this game. I said Texas by 7.5, he said Texas by 6.5. So I sent him a text this afternoon that just said “5.5!!!” He hadn’t seen the line yet, all he said was “oh cool, I was only one off.”
I want to say this speaks to how far we’ve come as a program. We can hang with the big boys now! We don’t rebuild, we reload!
But in the last hour that line has already been bet all the way to Texas -1.5. A 7-point swing in one hour.
My solace in that: the number of times I’ve found myself saying “how does Vegas do it?!” when watching them nail a number I thought was ridiculous.
Hope I’m saying that late this Saturday night.
- I’ll admit, nobody has any idea how mighty Texas is after routs of Wyoming, New Mexico, and Ole Miss but one would think they are mightier than the team that was routed by Arizona AND that just lost its starting quarterback. ↩
Vegas isn’t stupid. They don’t make a knee jerk reaction based solely on scores. You say OSU got drilled by Arizona, but if you look deeper there is a whole lot more to it than that. School record for penalties, -4 turnover margin, multiple dropped passes and still only down a score in the 4th. It simply wasn’t the domination that the scoreboard would indicate. It was an extreme outlier and, frankly, a fluke (and a massive hose job by Pac 12 refs, but I digress). I would guess that Vegas is seeing it that way too. Texas has looked like a world-beater in one game, against a woefully outmanned Ole Miss team that was devoid of both depth and talent. Those dead ducks from Ash that were underthrown for chunk plays won’t work against a secondary with a pulse. Gilbert, Brown and co. are due to be the guys we thought they were (and have been), those ducks should be picks against OSU.
Agree 100%. After being initially shocked about the line, I realized that I haven’t watched Texas one down this season, so I’m in no place to have that strong of an opinion. So I started thinking, well maybe Ash is putting up these numbers against weak secondaries, and not that our defense has proven to be outstanding so far this year, but we do have athletic and talented defensive backs who could make plays where former Texas opponents didn’t. So yeah, everything you just said.
Vegas is right more than wrong, so this is actually encouraging.
1.5 either way is about right. Horns pass gets shut down w MBA coverage and their mighty rushing attack is awesome against weak opponents. Game On!
Just my random 2 cents here, but I actually bet on quite a few games during the NCAAF season, and there is one thing that I think I have learned (take that with a grain of salt haha). The one thing I always try to keep in perspective is Vegas isn’t necessarily trying to put a line out for a game that they think is accuract or indictive of what the final score will be; they are more concerned with what they think the public perception of that game will be. Specificially, they want to put a line out that is going to get them equal action on either side of the line, that way no matter what the outcome of the game is they are going to pay one side of the action with the other side’s money- therefore hopefully coming out even and just making the JUICE. So for example, if Vegas thinks that Team A is a -2 point favorite, yet they know that Team B is a much larger brand name team (USC for example) they will have Team B as -1 point favorite since more people would naturally bet on Team B if they were a +2 underdog.
This is a long post…but something to think about. That is obviously what has happened in this case, Vegas is moving the line further and further and Texas’s favor to try and keep the action even on both sides of the line.
I understand why they are moving the line, but the question is why did it open where it did? If they’re trying to keep even money on both sides of the line, why open with OSU -5.5 knowing that a HUGE chunk of the money will go on Texas?
I agree I can’t see why they opened it at that. Also what I find interesting is since the opening week of this season OSU has been favored -1 points against Texas. After Lunt’s injury the line on this game last week was OSU -0 (basically a pick ‘em). After this weekend though the line opened this week at OSU -5.5 apparently, then just moved back to where it should have been to start with. Weird.