Quote Originally Posted by pj702:
i agree not alot of value with usc -160 , but id play it if i think they can make the national title game, and lose to a sec school. i mean i think it unlikely usc beats lsu or bama, but its possible. as for oregon they have no chance to beat lsu or bama, so i woudl not want to bet oregon to win pac 10 and then see them in the national title game.
not much value on oregon either . dont really like any of these futures bets. i probably just make 1 future bet this year either lsu to win it all, or bama to win it all. last year i had bama 6.5 to 1. bama or lsu will win the national title again, dont really see another team doing it, unless oklahoma and usc both go unbeaten and lsu and bama each lose a game
but then if bama loses to lsu or lsu loses to bama and thats the only loss , that team should get in over a 0 loss usc or oklahoma, but everyone hates the sec except me so they probably vote in ou vs usc instead. but i think oklahoma has a decently hard schedule, you think oklahoma loses atleast 1 game? i do but alot of people think they go unbeaten
The odds listed are the odds to win the conference championship, not the national championship.
I understand how talented USC is, and of course I would not be surprised at all to see them win the PAC 12 championship. That said, laying 160 to win 100 on USC (or any other) team to win their conference is a sucker bet. The whole point of a high-risk future's bet of this nature is to get great odds - not terrible odds.
And if you do pull the trigger on on a bet with terrible odds like this one, at the very least wait until the last possible moment. What happens if you pull the trigger now and Matt Barkley (or some other prominenet player) breaks his leg in a car accident tomorrow? USC's roster is anorexically thin. If they have a rash of injuries, they could easily be a 3-loss team.
Furthermore, they could very well run the table in the regular season, suffer a key injury, and lose to a 2-loss Oregon team in the PAC 12 title game.
What I've said about USC can pretty much apply to any team (ie. West Virginia and Geno Smith), but I can get the Mountaineers at +400, not -160.
I agree with your thoughts on Alabama and LSU. I said in another thread that I think next season will play out very similarly to last season in that there is still a fairly significant degree of seperation between Alabama and LSU and the rest of college football. Like last season, the conference championship will come down to the heads-up meeting between the two in Baton Rouge, and the winner will win the SEC Championship, and most likely the national championship as well.
If USC had to play either Alabama or LSU during the regular season grind, I wouldn't give them much of a chance of beating either team. I do, however, think USC has a decent chance of beating either team in a national championship game environment. The reason I think so is because of the long layoff between the PAC 12 title game and the national championship game. That month-long layoff will be huge for USC's depleted roster. Give a talented team like USC a month to heal and prepare, and I think they are capable of knocking off anyone.