Football lines that make you go hmmm...
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DAVID CHAN - My handicapping process delivers profits season after season
November 4, 2009
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College football can be a difficult sport to handicap. No matter how many times I’ve tried I’ve never come up with my own computer formulas that are as good as Jeff Sagarin’s Predictor number. So that’s usually my starting point and then I adjust for injuries, intangibles and other things.
You’ll find that a fair number of the books that put out early lines are also in love with Sagarin. They won’t admit it; usually it’s sort of a shameful, steamy, parking-lot hook-up kind of romance.
Each week I’ll take a look a few college lines that seem a little funky and deviate some from Sagarin’s system.
Oregon Ducks at Stanford Cardinal
Opened: +5
Wednesday night line: +6.5
Sagarin says Oregon should be an 11-point favorite on a neutral field, so the implication is Oregon -7.5 or -8 away. Given Oregon’s dismantling of USC, I’m surprised this number isn’t closer to 10. It should certainly get to 7 and if anybody was hanging -6, it’d be worth playing for middling reasons alone.
Cardinal backers will point to Stanford’s nice run against the spread in-conference and to Oregon’s loss at Boise State. The only other argument that could keep this below 7 is Stanford’s home-road dichotomy.
The Cardinal are 4-0 at home this season, winning by large margins (8, 15, 20 and 25 points) each time. They haven’t played nearly as well away from home sporting a 1-3 record with losses against Arizona, Oregon State and Wake Forest.
I think it’s safe to say we were all expecting a line closer to Oregon -7, or pretty much exactly where it’s been bet up to now.
Houston Cougars at Tulsa Golden Hurricane
Opened: +3
Wednesday night line: -1
Sagarin says Houston -9 on neutral field, so 5.5 or 6 visiting Tulsa. This line is really low, especially when looking at yardstick of recent common opponent:
Tulsa 13 vs. SMU 27 October 31
Houston 38 vs. SMU 15 October 24
Only thing favoring Tulsa is other common opponent, UTEP. Both travelled to El Paso, Tulsa losing by four and Houston by 17. The line is being bet in the other direction so there should be even more value backing the Cougars in this situation.