John Avello at the Wynn Las Vegas wasted little time opening up
his BCS bowl odds Sunday.
As soon as the announcement of the matchups were made official,
the Wynn sportsbook had the lines up within five minutes. It shouldn’t come as
much of a surprise that Avello and the Wynn were the first because they’ve been
the first in the world all season long putting up college football lines.
They already had LSU up as a 2-point favorite over Alabama in the
BCS Championship game for over a week so there wasn’t a mystery with the line. A
couple of the other games did raise some eye-brows, not only with the odds but
the actual matchup.
Two teams that likely shouldn’t have been BCS-bowl bound, Virginia
Tech and Michigan, are playing each other in the Sugar Bowl with the reason
being their alumni travel well.
Does Virginia Tech really deserve a shot at playing on this stage
after getting pounded twice this season by a questionable Clemson squad?
The ACC is just a notch – a small one – above the Big East.
Meanwhile we have Kansas State (10-2) coming from the strongest strength of
schedule conference and ranked No. 8, three positions higher than the Hokies and
seven higher than Clemson, getting left out because they’re not a strong
traveling school.
You can throw Michigan into that group as well, but they always
travel well. Who knew that traveling well was one of the BCS criteria? So this
is what it’s become about in the BS – or rather BCS – bowl system. Teams that
travel well and sell hotel rooms will get the nod from a major conference and
become eligible for an invite if they’re in the top-14 of the BCS standings.
The Wynn opened Virginia Tech as 3-point favorites over Michigan, but
immediately bet against causing the line to drop down to -1½. The Las Vegas
Hilton opened its numbers shortly after with Tech -1 and have since moved to
pick’em.
Trying to see who the bettors thought was worse, the ACC or Big
East, didn’t take long in Orange Bowl matchup between West Virginia and Clemson.
The Tigers opened as 2½-point favorites and were immediately bet up to -3. The
Hilton opened their number at -3½.
The Rose Bowl and Fiesta Bowl give us a couple of classic matchups
that are sure to leave us wanting more, like an extended playoff system to see
how the winners would do against the winner of the SEC bowl.
The Wynn opened Oregon -4½ against Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl and
it has been bet up to -5. The Hilton opened Oregon -4 and had been bet up to -5½
by Monday morning. It’s almost like we have seen this game before with the
Big-10 type of team in Stanford not being able to keep up with the speed of
Oregon earlier this season.
Oklahoma State did all they had to do in crushing Oklahoma last
week in hopes that voters would want to see the best team from the Big-12 play
the best team from the SEC, but it wasn’t enough as the terrible loss at Iowa
State still lingered in the back of every voters minds.
The Cowboys opened as 3½-point favorites in the Fiesta Bowl
against Stanford in what should be a very entertaining game. The two teams have
contrasting styles with the physical Stanford squad led by Heisman candidate
Andrew Luck and his precision execution to Oklahoma State’s fast paced offense
led by 28-year-old quarterback Brandon Weeden.
So far, this has been the only game with no movement as bettors
are showing great respect for each team.
Meanwhile, one-loss No. 7 Boise State is left out of the mix
joining Kansas State as a casualty of “BS” politics. Houston was also punished
harshly with its loss to Southern Miss falling from No. 6 all the way to No. 19
as if the voters said, “go away already, you’re bothering me.”
Southern Miss didn’t get much credit for knocking off the undefeat
“What the low numbers do is keep the underdog money-line respectable to a point
where we don’t lose too much if the dog wins,” said Osborne. “Everyone thinks
that when the underdogs win we do well. But that’s not always the case,
especially in the bigger bowl games with huge action. The trend is usually to
lay the points or take the odds with the dog at plus-money.”
Osborne opened LSU -2 over Alabama in the Championship with a
total of 40. He shortened the money-line about .10 cents to LSU -130 and +110 on
Alabama just to be ahead of the game over the counter that always replays
itself.
You can get all of the Gaming Today’s, Micah Roberts’ FREE college football winners and articles right here at www.aasiwins.com.