College Football Opening Line Report Week 8

Opening Line Report - Week 8
By Marcus DiNitto
VegasInsider.com

With undefeated teams dropping like flies, there’s probably going to be room at the College Football Playoff party for a few one-loss clubs. Two such teams meet Saturday night in South Bend, with Notre Dame installed as the home favorite against USC.

Notre Dame -4, the first line posted in Las Vegas – on Sunday at the Wynn – was bet up to -4.5, which drew immediate money on the underdog, prompting a move back the original number. Later in the day, the point-spread was down to 3.5 at the Wynn, and on Monday, there was a fairly even split of 3.5s and 4s being dealt around town.

“USC was life-and-death to win last week (at home vs. Utah, 28-27),” said Wynn sports book director John Avello, who noted the Trojans have been involved in several close games en route to their 6-1 record. In fact, they’re a wallet-depleting 1-6 against the spread.

Notre Dame, on the other hand, has covered the spread in all five of its victories, its only loss coming against still-unbeaten Georgia.

”Notre Dame’s done nothing wrong, and they’re good at home,” Avello said, “Last year, they didn’t play well at home, but you go back in history, you’ll see that’s a very tough place to play.”

To Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook manager Ed Salmons, though, ”Anything above 3 in this game is too many. Anything above 3 is a decent bet on USC. If I made this line, I would have made it probably closer to the pick ‘em range.”

Here are two more games on Saturday’s college football slate that could figure into the national title picture:

Michigan at Penn State (-10)

Wiseguys took Michigan +10.5, the Wynn’s opening line, with the spread settling at 10 at that shop and at most books in town. The Westgate in an exception, as it’s dealing 9.5, and Avello said it wouldn’t surprise him to see the number continuing to move in Michigan’s direction.

Even though the Wolverines followed their loss at home to Michigan State two weeks ago with a nail-biting overtime win at middling Indiana, both bookmakers believe Jim Harbaugh’s men will give the Nittany Lions all they can handle.

“Definitely, no question about it,” Avello said. “What makes me think they can be competitive is that they haven’t played their best football, and they’re coming in knowing the other team is undefeated. I think you’ll see their best game here.”

Added Salmons, “You give coach Harbaugh 10 points, I like my chances. I know Penn State’s off a bye week, but I think that spread is a little on the high side.”

It’s not so much that Salmons disagrees with the sentiment that Harbaugh may be overrated, it’s just that the coach’s style of play lends itself to low-scoring, close games.

“He plays essentially 1970s football, he plays Woody Hayes football, where he wants to run three yards and a cloud of dust and stop the run,” Salmons said. “If you give him 10 points and he’s playing that style, it will probably work really well.”

In comments that may take some college football observers aback, Salmons added, “Penn State’s not going to run the ball against Michigan. Penn State has struggled to run the ball against anyone this year...The one thing you’re not going to do against Michigan is run the ball.”

Wait, what about the ballyhooed Saquon Barkley?

Well, despite the hype, Penn State’s rushing numbers haven’t been the stuff of legends. Really, Barkley has had just two outstanding games, and one was against Akron. As a team, the Nits are 67th in the nation with 165 rushing yards per game , and 45th with 4.8 yards per carry.

Said Avello, “I like Penn State a lot, I like the team to possibly make the final four of college football. Their defense has been impressive, but their schedule has been really weak except for the one game at Iowa, and they were hard-pressed to win that game. Now they’re getting a team that’s well-coached, and the defense will be well-prepared.”

Syracuse at Miami (-14.5)

Early bettors grabbed +16, as Syracuse looks to deliver the first loss of the season to its second straight foe. As 24-point 'dogs, the Orange upset Clemson 27-24 Friday night in the Carrier Dome. In fact, ‘Cuse has covered all three times they’ve caught points this season, cashing against big numbers in relatively tight losses at LSU and at N.C. State.

“I understand the move on them because they keep games close,” Avello said of Syracuse. “The only issue I have is Miami comes off a game they could have lost very easily, rallied to beat Georgia Tech (25-24), and Georgia Tech’s a better team than Syracuse. They may recoup in this game and score, because it’s not like Syracuse has got a good defense – they don’t. Syracuse may go up and down the field, but they could go up and down the field more times, so that’s the fear if you’re betting Syracuse.”

Both bookmakers see Syracuse as a team on the improve, Avello mentioning quarterback Eric Dungey, Salmons impressed with coach Dino Babers.

“I really like the Syracuse coach,” Salmons said. “You can see now in his second year, they’re playing faster and smarter on offense. This game’s going to come down to if Syracuse can somewhat control Miami from scoring points, they should hang in there, because Syracuse can score points against anyone. It’s definitely a team on the rise.”

Salmons, though, said if this game was played a week ago, before Syracuse got people’s attention by beating Clemson, the spread would have been closer to three touchdowns.

As casual bettors weighs in before kickoff, it may be approaching that number.

“The early money, the sharp guys, they did their handicapping, they think there’s value (in the opening number) ,” Avello said, “but the weekend crowd may not, and that game may go back up.”

College Football Opening Line Report Week 8
By Adam Burke
Bangthebook.com

After a crazy weekend in the college football betting world, we’re seeing a lot of activity early on in Week 8. Opening lines have been posted and are already starting to bounce around quite a bit as bettors position themselves to get favorable numbers and get out in front of the market.

As always, injuries are playing a role in some of these games and the cat-and-mouse game between the sharp bettors grabbing early line value and the sportsbooks looking to balance the action continues to be fascinating to watch. With a few notable upsets last week and some other games that played out in surprising fashion, we’ve got a lot of adjustments being made.

The best way to illustrate what is going on is to just look at the games. Here is the College Football Opening Line Report for Week 8:

Memphis at Houston (-3, 61) – The Tigers and Cougars meet on Thursday night in what is a horrible, terrible, no-good spot for the Tigers. Memphis is coming off of a bit of a misleading win over Navy, who runs the triple-option. Houston got rocked by Tulsa last week in something of a surprising outcome. The market has fluctuated between -2.5 at 5Dimes and BetOnline and -3 at DSI and the CRIS books. Expect this game to get a heavy handle with two well-known teams.

Western Kentucky (-9.5, 49.5) at Old Dominion – Western Kentucky has been a team dropped in many people’s power ratings. As it turns out, walking into a great situation isn’t a guarantee for success. Mike Sanford walked into a great situation, but the Hilltoppers have fallen off dramatically on offense in Jeff Brohm’s absence. Old Dominion is getting healthier, so we’ve seen a slight move off of the key number of 10 down to 9.5 based on what we know about the Monarchs.

Iowa at Northwestern (PK, 47.5) – This number opened Iowa -1 at Bookmaker and got as high as Northwestern -1.5 in the betting market before settling back in at PK. Moves around -1, +1, or PK aren’t real significant, but it appears that we have decent two-way action on this game. It’s always interesting to see books throw a pick ‘em or +/-1 out there because they’re content with letting the market dictate which side is right. That seems to be the case here.

Tulsa (-6, 70) at UConn – Tulsa scored a big win last week, but needed a big second-half flurry to put Houston away in what was something of a misleading score. As a result, the market is against Tulsa this week. We see that a lot. If you isolate a team off of a final score that isn’t indicative of how the game went, you generally see a point or two line move on that game early in the week.

North Texas at Florida Atlantic (-3, 63) – North Texas had one of the season’s most improbable wins last time out. Typically, we see that as a letdown spot, but not this week. Against a Florida Atlantic team that everybody loved coming into the season, and an Owls team off a bye to boot, the Mean Green have gone from +6.5 to as low as +3 at some shops. Pinnacle and Bovada are two of them, which shows that sharps and public bettors are looking to ride that wave. We don’t typically see those two books match up because of different types of clientele, but that is the case this week.

UAB (-7, 52) at Charlotte – The best story in college football this season may have another chapter added to it this week. The Blazers are favored by a touchdown at Charlotte and would get within one win of bowl eligibility with a victory against the winless 49ers. How about that? The 49ers in the NFL and in college football are both winless. Anyway, we’ve seen most of the value extracted out of this number after an opener of -4. It wouldn’t be a surprise if this number blows through -7 as the week goes along.

Temple at Army (-5.5, 47) – With a low-scoring game expected, Army is down to a 5.5-point favorite from an opener of 6.5. It really doesn’t take a lot to move a number down through six, though it is a bit of a key number. It isn’t to the degree of three or seven. Temple has been a pretty consistent fade team. To me, this line looks like a setup, with heavy Army money coming in as limits increase throughout the week. We’ll see if it plays out that way.

BYU (-5.5, 55) at East Carolina – Poor BYU. Getting bet against with East Carolina on the schedule is embarrassing. The Pirates have been a free-faller through the power rating ranks this season and this week’s game is a sign that BYU is the more notable free-faller. It is a long trip out to North Carolina, but still. This is just sad at this point.

Wake Forest at Georgia Tech (-7, 47.5) – Wake Forest has lost the last two weeks to Florida State and Clemson. Those are two teams with huge athletic advantages. Georgia Tech doesn’t really have one of those. Between that and the expectation of a low-scoring game, this line has dropped down from -8.5 to -7, with Wake Forest taking on some early sharp investment. We haven’t seen a move below -7 yet and don’t see any signs of one, so this number will sit tight for a bit.

Michigan at Penn State (-10, 42.5) – The low total on the Michigan vs. Penn State game is probably the biggest reason for the line move down from 12.5 to 10. Most sets of power ratings have this game double digits or close to it by now, but the fact that the total is sitting at 42.5 makes it hard for a favorite to cover double digits. This is simply a matter of playing on a spread that was nearly 30 percent of the total at open.

Rice at UTSA (-21.5, 51) – Value comes in many forms. For early-week bettors, they have isolated some in the Rice vs. UTSA game. UTSA was the team that lost to the aforementioned North Texas Mean Green last week. Apparently bettors are expecting a bounce back against the lowly Rice Owls, as this number has blown through 21 despite a fairly low total for covering a number like that.

South Florida (-12.5, 55) at Tulane – A reality check for the Tulane Green Wave came last week in the loss to FIU. The market seems to expect another one this week against South Florida. Tulane has been a hot team this season and Willie Fritz has done an excellent job, but the market has pushed this number up from -11 to -12.5 with the expectation that the Bulls can stop Tulane on the ground and continue to have lots of offensive success.

Utah State at UNLV (-4.5, 61.5) – So, look. Here’s how it goes. When UNLV is getting sharp steam, you pay attention. Hopes haven’t been high for the Rebels in several years, but this was one of the seasons in which the market was taking notice of the hometown team. Obviously not all sharp bettors reside in Las Vegas, but a good chunk of them do and this move is significant to say the least.

Southern Miss at Louisiana Tech (-1.5, 55) – At time of writing, Bookmaker has a stray -2 on the board, but the rest of the market continues to inch closer to pick ‘em. Louisiana Tech has been a free-falling team in most power ratings this season with no semblance of last year’s offense. Southern Miss took steam last week and is getting some more now, so the market seems to have isolated a buy team.

Arizona (-2.5, 61) at Cal – The market is looking to fade Cal off of its huge win over Washington State. Well, that’s only part of the equation. The market is really high on Arizona right now. Khalil Tate is putting up video game numbers for the Wildcats and the market has taken notice. Arizona got steamed and wound up the right side against UCLA last week, so why not try it again? It is a great spot to play on Arizona off of Cal’s huge win as well.

Oklahoma State (-7.5, 65) at Texas – With Texas off of a loss in the Red River Rivalry, the Cowboys are getting pumped up in the betting market. Oklahoma State is now favored by more than a touchdown at most shops, which represents a pretty big move early in the week to go from -6 to -7.5 on the road. This doesn’t look like a setup. This looks like a true position.

Iowa State at Texas Tech (-6, 71) – Bettors have had to make a lot of adjustments on Texas Tech this season. They are playing much better than anybody expected with Kliff Kingsbury, who appeared to be a coach that could be the first one fired coming into the season. New defensive coordinator David Gibbs has done a brilliant job. Speaking of brilliant jobs, Matt Campbell is killing it in Ames. The Cyclones are also a power ratings riser. But, the market likes the Red Raiders more in this spot, with a line move through the dead zone from -5 to -6.

Fresno State at San Diego State (-7.5, 47) – Fresno State is another team with a lot of power ratings helium. San Diego State showed some cracks in the armor last week in the loss to Boise State. This number is one of the biggest movers down from 11.5 to 7.5. A four-point move this late in the season is pretty significant, since the markets generally aren’t off by that much. I don’t know how low this number goes, but this is a very true position from the sharp players.