PPH Football Betting -- Bowl Season Illustrates Good and Bad About College Football
Here are some initial thoughts on a couple of the bowl matchups that were announced yesterday, for the benefit of our Price Per Head football bettors who are working with WagerHome.com:
Las Vegas Bowl, Dec. 21 - USC vs. Fresno State
-- Fresno State seemed to play down to its level of competition on several occasions, but you'll have a great chance to see the quarterback who many think could be one of the top five or six selections in the NFL Draft. As most football bettors are aware, David Carr was a #1 overall selection for the Houston Texans out of Fresno in 2002. Now his brother Derek is going to be a first-rounder; the only question is, how high? We can tell you that the guy is likely to pass the 5000-yard mark in the bowl game, and that he has 48 touchdown passes on the year, with just seven interceptions. Those stats are not all that different from his brother's in his senior season (42 TD's, 7 INT's, 4830 yards).
The USC situation represents to WagerHome.com customers just how screwed up college football can be as they purport to be acting in the best interests of the athletes. Ed Orgeron, who created the positive atmosphere that gave the Trojans the impetus to get to this bowl game, could have had the opportunity to coach the team in this bowl game, but he quit, in a huff, because they reportedly had him in mind strictly as an assistant head coach as their eyes were on Washington's Steve Sarkisian, who indeed left his own program in the dust to sign a lucrative deal. So now, in case our sportsbook bettors don't know it, USC will be led not by Sarkisian, but by assistant Clay Helton (who admittedly has a lot of experience) against Fresno State, while U-Dub, which plays BYU in the Fight Hunger Bowl on December 27, may lose some of that hunger as the coach who led them all the way is now suddenly out of the picture.
So they just tell kids whose programs have been turned upside down that "it's all part of the business" as they have to prepare for perhaps the biggest game of their season with a coach and (likely) several of his assistants already having left town. But God forbid any of them got a few bucks from an assistant to go have lunch; there would be a whole fleet of NCAA squad cars looking to pick the kid up. And as for transferring, because, after all, they only came to a school because the coach that walked out on his team had done a big song and dance to get them to go there in the first place, and they are made to sit idle for a year. Coaches get to skip on contracts all the time, yet they hold the athlete's feet to the fire when it comes to that scholarship agreement.
And NCAA people have the nerve to point toward the sports betting "element" as something that is inherently corrupt. Bullshit.
Now let's skip ahead.
BCS National Championship, January 6 -- Florida State vs. Auburn
-- We'll have more thoughts on this, obviously, as the game approaches. The Price Per Head betting line at WagerHome is not yet out on this game, although we expect this thing to gravitate between eight and ten points, with Florida State the favorite. The Seminoles have mowed through everyone this season, including Duke, who they beat 45-7 in the ACC title game. They have the guy who is such a prohibitive favorite to win the Heisman (Jameis Winston) that there isn't even any football betting interest on it. And they are the lone undefeated team remaining.
We're not offering as final opinion yet, but WagerHome customers should take note of some things. One is that while Florida state has run up a lot of scores this season, much of that was in an effort to impress pollsters, so there is a gratuitous element to it. Another is that Auburn's offense is very hard to diagnose and prepare for, no matter how much time you have. And another thing for PPH bettors to keep in mind - the ACC was not a strong conference; in fact, FSU's best opponent, by far, was an overrated Clemson squad that lost its toughest non-conference game (to South Carolina) by two touchdowns. Of course, South Carolina is part of the SEC, where seven straight national champions have come from, and Auburn, having beaten #1 Alabama, is the champion of that conference.
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