Online Sports Betting

Happy New Year!

Three of today’s 5 bowl games feature Big 10 opponents, and none of them are being shown a great deal of love by bettors. Not hard to understand of course, especially considering how Wisky first and last night Minny were pounded on the scoreboard.

But there might be some value on the midwestern teams. In particular a closer look at the Wisconsin-Florida State game is in order. The Badgers actually won the yards per play battle both on the ground and in the air. Special teams, turnovers, and “clutch” play did them in. It wouldn’t be surprising to see some of those clutch (otherwise known as lucky) plays going the Big 10’s way today.

Oh, and the meaning of today’s title post? A little NFL playoff tech for you.

Is It Really A Bad Defense?

In their first game of the playoffs, play any NFL team that gives up more than 21 points per game.

Record: 21-11 ATS since 1983

Play Arizona & San Diego

Posted under College Football, NFL

The predominate type of blog in the online sports betting niche is the “pick blog”. Guy puts up a blog and posts his pix, looking for acclaim I guess or perhaps as a cyber riposte to the sports service guys. I dunno.

A good free pick blog is worth its weight in gold, but sometimes its tough to know without a history of several hundred plays. So I like my sports betting sites to have some other types of content too. If a guy can pick’em, he can probably write some decent stuff on related subjects too.

Stock Lemon is pretty good example of this genre. Lots of pick posts, but some helpful analysis too, like the post on top sports message boards, or SL’s list of Top Wagering Sites. So give Stock Lemon a place in your RSS reader. He’s in mine, and I even put SL in my blogroll.

Posted under Uncategorized

Sorry if some of you saw some unintelligible crap over the last couple of hours, but this blog went under the knife for a second upgrade in just over two weeks. This one wasn’t quite as easy as the last one. But I had to get it cleared away for some of my plugins and for the new theme I’m going to be installing sometime in the next month.

Hey, I’ve noticed a lot of new traffic coming here over the past couple of weeks. Please, if you’ve got any comments, criticism, brickbats, wants, needs, you name it, please LEAVE A COMMENT. I’ll probably respond personally, assuming you aren’t trying to sell me any Cialis or something.

Posted under Uncategorized

Ack! Its been a week since the last post here, mainly because I’m doing a whole bunch of bowl prep. Lots of words to be pumped out like so much handicapping bilge. So no well thought out post here, just some quick off the cuff reaction to a busy week of football coaching news.

Stan Brock was let go at Army after another 3-9 season topped off by a 34-0 whitewashing by arch rival Navy. On the face of it, sure it makes sense. A coach’s job is to win games. But unless a smart hire is made the Black Knights are throwing away a season of real progress. In his first season Brock continued a heritage of proven failure by sticking with pro-style offense that just doesn’t suit Army or its mission.

But during the summer of 2008 Brock changed gears and consulted with coaches past and present to put together a version of Navy’s Flexbone attack. As to be expected there were some hiccups along the way, but the rushing numbers both offensive and defensive were quite similar to Navy’s, at least before the Navy game itself. With another recruiting class geared to the Flexbone it didn’t require much imagination to see Army quickly climbing to respectability. If the right guy replaces Brock this season won’t all be for naught.

Oh, and don’t buy the crap being peddled by some that the new offense didn’t work. Sure Army finished 110th out of 119 in FBS total offense. But its YARDS PER PLAY that matters most. When you’re running a crapload of fullback dives games can get very short. The only thing Brock didn’t do is figure out how to throw the ball out of the “Brock Bone” as well as Navy. Given another summer to tweak things maybe he would have solved that too.

Brady Hoke bolted Ball State for sunnier climes at San Diego State. As a Michigan assistant Hoke used to recruit California, but the top reason Hoke left was dough, followed by the hope for a better relationship with school administration. He and BSU president Gora did not get along. Hoke’s salary was one of the lowest in the FBS, and after a 12-1 campaign you’d think Gora would pony up the cash to keep Hoke around.

Instead Gora came up with just enough to convince her constituency that she gave it the old college try. The total compensation package came to about 700K, which is about what SDSU offered. But the Aztec’s money is hard salary, while BSU’s offer was packed with incentives, much of which would have been very hard to attain. Hoke isn’t sticking around to coach the bowl game, and if I’m a BSU player its fair to wonder how much the administration backs me up. Not good mojo to carry into a contest against high flying Tulsa that will test the Cardinals severely.

No, I’m not going to write about the Chizik affair and Turner Gill. I don’t have much to add you can’t read elsewhere. Except to say that Gill’s Bulls play some of the dullest football I’ve ever seen. Watching his offense is like a freakin’ time warp back to 1981. I’d rather watch a cookie cutter spread team than that crashing bore. I don’t care how good the fullback and tight end kick out on Buffalo’s 50th off-tackle play in a row.

Well, I racked up a big fat word count pretty quickly. More coaching stuff in a day or two. Especially the Scott Shafer “resignation” in Ann Arbor.

Posted under College Football

That is the title of my favorite new blog. Partially because its a pretty good blog about sports betting, like this one. And anybody that cops classic Norm McDonald lines has to be by definition pretty cool.

YGIFS has a cool post up about public betting patterns as compiled by Wagerline. Check it out, like now. Its a breakdown of 2008 college football games and the percentages by which the Wagerline public preferred various classes of favorites.

I was serious; go check it out and then come back here.

YGIFS confirms in detail what my own rather scattershot work on the subject has revealed. If you want to use public consensus info as a guide in your own wagering, there are a few things you gotta know:

1) Yes, the public overwhelmingly prefers favorites. But one should learn to differentiate between what the public likes, and what the public REALLY likes. Note from the master table of public betting percentages for all favorites that on average John Q Square made about 61% of his 2008 college football bets on the fave. Off the top of my head I would have put that at about 59%, but then I’ve spent more time looking at the NFL info.

2) The public likes bigger favorites even more than it likes favorites overall. The squares median preference for faves of more than 14 points is about 62 to 63% of wagers, but only just over 56% for favorites of 3 or less.

The smart way to use this info is to color your own perception as to what truly is a “public” side before knee-jerking the other way. What I’d really like to do is get my hands on such detailed data and pair it up with my own database. There are a lot more ways to break down this stuff.

Posted under College Football, Site Reviews

This bowl season will feature TWELVE different games where one contestant comes off at least two losses in a row. That’s the most such bowl sides in my database. Over the past 15 years the average has been between five and six back-to back losers.

Here is this year’s list of Festivus Failures:

Notre Dame
Central Michigan
Miami
Missouri
Maryland
Minnesota
Vanderbilt
LSU
Air Force
South Carolina
Kentucky
Connecticut

For the betting types among you, and why not since the blog is titled “Online Sports Betting“, you should note that these losers can be lovable. There are likely more spread winners than losers from that bunch. More on that as the season progresses.

Posted under College Football

Phew! Looks like the WP upgrade I did took just fine. I’ll be updating the look and feel around here soon, so the changes aren’t done yet. And with football season starting to wind down just a bit the content focus will change too. That will get implemented slowly. Once the college bowl games are done that will become more apparent.

Posted under Uncategorized

Jeff Genyk was finally let go at Eastern Michigan. The Hurons(I refuse to call them the Eagles) then went out and beat “rival” Central Michigan 56-52. I put “rival” in quotes because a true rivalry implies dislike or disrespect on both sides. I’ll bet if you polled kids in Mt Pleasant a large number couldn’t tell you where Eastern Michigan is located(Ypsilanti), and a few might have problems locating EMU in the right state.

Yes, yes that is a wholly uncalled for and gratuitous dig at the Chips.

Eastern Michigan doesn’t have a natural rival. So when Genyk was hired on at the end of the 2003 season he singled out Central Michigan as Ypsi’s bete noire. Made sense; CMU is closer to EMU than Western Michigan, and the game always takes place late in the season. On a personal level the game had meaning for Genyk because he got the head coaching job at the same time Brian Kelly got the job at Central. The programs were at the same stage; in shambles and near the bottom of the FBS.

But events didn’t go according to plan. Kelly quickly revived fortunes in Mt Pleasant won a MAC title before leaving for greener pastures in Cincinnati. And his successor won a MAC title too. Meanwhile Genyk had a hard time putting together a decent staff of assistants and had little support from an administration that had plenty of problems of its own. Genyk did succeed though in focusing his kids on the annual match with Central Michigan. Over 5 seasons the CMU-EMU match was never decided by more than 7 points and three of the games went to overtime.

But last weekend’s game, just 4 days after Genyk was let go, may finally have left an imprint in the Central Michigan psyche. Genyk must have gone to great lengths to foment some CMU hatred, because what happened on Saturday almost defies explanation.

The insanity started long before kickoff, when the Eagles lined up at the 50-yard line and called out the CMU football team, which was going through its pre-game stretch. The Eagles continued their taunts while EMU coaches looked on.

Then about 20 minutes before kickoff CMU’s Butch Jones had words with EMU assistant Josh Buis. Buis claimed that CMU coach Butch Jones told him he wasn’t going to help the Eastern coaching staff find new jobs and used more than a few expletives.

Look, I know that the coaching community is pretty insular, but is that really the kind of think opposing coaches talk about minutes before kickoff? Is Butch Jones really responsible for helping the EMU staff get new jobs? This smells to high heaven like a setup. Let’s go to the tape:

“That totally got our coaches and our players extremely excited to go out and play some tough football,” said Genyk, who improved to 4-1 against CMU. “It’s just the emotions of rivalry week. It’s really important to play with a lot of emotion, and it was a lot of fun.”

Following the game, he said Jones told him, “I thought you had more class than that.”

“All we can worry about is controlling what we control,” Jones said. “As a head coach, I’m responsible for each individual. If anyone was a witness to what went on, I’ll just leave it at that.”

That’s a pretty weird non-denial denial too.

EMU moved the ball well all day, and Genyk took to vamping after every big play and especially the first downs. Yes, I used the word vamping. Genyk actually struck poses like hotdogging players after first downs.

After EMU scored to take a 14-0 lead, Genyk stepped onto the field, raised his arms and started yelling at the CMU sideline. Later, with seconds to go in the first half and CMU at the EMU 10 Butch Jones called a timeout to preserve the clock and attempt a field goal. Genyk gathered his entire roster onto the field and conducted an impromptu Two Minutes Hate. The ensuing emotion got a penalty called on EMU that gave CMU a first down on the 5 yard line. Instead of settling for a field goal CMU punched the ball in for a touchdown.

After the following kick a bunch of Eagle players hassled CMU’s kicker on the way to the locker room. One player managed to get a personal foul called for taunting. EMU’s Andre Hatchett picked up the yellow flag and threw it, triggering a second penalty. The other EMU players taunted the rest of the CMU roster as they left the field.

Well, I’ve got two observations: first, make a note never to invite Jeff Genyk to dinner. Second, I think Butch Jones and CMU just circled this game for 2009.

Actually, I’ve got one more. Butch Jones made a pretty big mistake letting himself get caught up in Jeff Genyk’s death rattle. Plenty of college football programs are attacked for being insular, but in circumstances like this a closed, tight-lipped organization will respond the best. If you inculcate a culture of restraint, it is much, much easier to whip your kids up into a frenzy of revenge when they are slighted by the opposition. Don’t allow public retaliation and keep the vitriol bottled up and channel the response to the field. Had Jones done a better job of that CMU probably would have won the game.

Posted under College Football

After a pair of losses Tulsa got back on track by blowing out a defensively depleted Tulane 56-7. The Golden Hurricanes have a reputation as a passing dominant team, but Todd Graham and Gus Malzahn are practical coaches first. The Canes ran 59 times out of 72 plays for 489 yards, a school record. Why the huge rushing numbers? Tulane lined up in a 3 man front most of the night to stop Tulsa’s passing game. And it did, didn’t it? 20,391 attended the Senior Day game at Chapman Stadium. Only 20K show up for a team that is 9-2 and as entertaining as anybody in the country? The place seats 31K. Why isn’t it full?

Kansas State let go Ron Prince. Prince compiled a 17-20 record over 3 seasons in Manhattan. Of course that isn’t the real story. The big news is that former coach Bill Snyder is coming out of retirement to reprise his reign as the Wildcats’ most successful leader. From 1989 to 2005 Snyder’s teams went 136-68 and traveled to 11 bowl games. To put that record in its proper perspective, consider that those 136 wins equaled the number of wins at Kansas State in their previous 54 seasons.

But for Snyder to bring back winning to Kansas State he will have to do what he failed to do in his last years: recruit hard. Ron Prince was fired because he just didn’t bring in good enough athletes, and it started with the mess Snyder left him. Snyder first thrived at Kansas State because the president and athletic administration gave him nearly complete autonomy - from the direction of the program, to the time it took to build the program, to scheduling and to freshman/junior college eligibility requirements. He made the rules, everyone else followed the rules and it all worked, until Snyder tired on the recruiting trail.

If you want an early indicator of potential success in Manhattan, pay close attention to the new assistant coaches. Bill Snyder’s coaching tree is impressive. Current Snyder progeny include Bob Stoops(Oklahoma), Mike Stoops(Arizona), Jim Leavitt(South Florida), Mark Mangino(Kansas) and Bret Bielema(Wisconsin). Dina Dimel coached at Wyoming and Houston. If he can lure top young assistants, Bill Snyder might bring glory to Kansas State yet again.

Gary Pinkel signed a new contract that will pay him more money and keep him at Missouri for several more years. Yes, its a very smart move to get more cash now just before your superstar QB Chase Daniels plays his last couple of college games. Plus offensive coordinator Dave Christensen and defense coordinator Matt Eberflus, both longtime Pinkel aides, have been mentioned as candidates for coaching vacancies around the country. Pinkel is a good coach, but if the vacancies aren’t filled he might not look quite as good 12 months from now.

Posted under College Football

Thought I’d throw out a little comp selection this morning with the help of my NFL database. Pats were pasted in the first matchup in Week 3, 38-13. Bill Belichick was completely unprepared for the ‘Fins Wildcat formation. Miami pounded out 216 yards on 36 carries, and many of the Wildcat runs looked very much like run-of-the-mill plays out of the single wing, similar to what Urban Meyer has been doing the last couple of seasons at Florida.

I’m normally not a big fan of coaching or team trends. The sample sizes are too small, and the average cover margins rarely if ever match the record. I’ve seen team trends that are something like 49-29 ATS yet the average cover margin might be something like +1.5 pts/game. Well, going forward, even if you assume the trend works, +1.5 pts/game won’t bring you anything near 62.5% winners in the game of football.

But this game is a little different. Let’s get the weaker of the two coaching spots out of the way first: in his current stint in New England Bill Belichick is 8-2 ATS when he has a shot at same season revenge. Decent cover margin, something better than 4 points per game. Much better is Bill Belichick after a loss. As Pats’ head coach Belichick is now 26-13 ATS with a cover margin of nearly a touchdown per game. Now that is a nice healthy cover margin.

Have these two things ever intersected? Yup, twice. First against Buffalo in 2000. Pats won that game 13-10 as 5 point dogs. Second time was against this same Miami team in 2002. New England won that game 27-24 as a Pick.

Love the job Parcells and Sparano are doing in south Florida. But on this day, I’ll take Belichick.

Posted under NFL