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Welcome to the Football Forecastor, home to Jim "Dirtydog"
Campbell, who is considered one of the nations most prolific sports
handicappers, we specialize in NFL and College Football handicapping
and take sports betting to a whole new level by treating sports
wagering as an investment...take a ride with us on the "Money
Train" today!!
College National Championship Game
January
7th
ALABAMA
-4 over Texas
3***Play
Selection
.....WINNER
Let’s first of all talk about the line movement on this National
Championship Game that pits undefeated Alabama against undefeated
Texas in a game that will take place in Pasadena California which
is home to the Rose Bowl. The odds maker installed the Crimson
Tide of Alabama as 5.5 point favorites and posted an O/U total of
44.5. The current widely available line is Alabama -4 with a total
of 46 at the time of this writing which is Thursday 1/7 late
morning.
Market
trends show that the majority of tickets written have been over
60% on the Crimson Tide thus far yet the line has moved downward
1.5 points off the opening number of 5.5, meanwhile, the posted
total has moved upwards by 1.5 points to 46 from the opening total
of 44.5. Superficially one would think that this would strongly
suggest that Joe Public is firmly behind Alabama while the sharp
action is firmly behind Texas, however, I don’t think that is
the case in this situation.
A
deeper look-see reveals that most sports books posted their
opening College bowl game spreads on the 7th of
December and for the most part virtually every book had the
opening line of Alabama -5.5, this number stayed solid virtually
everywhere with only a couple of variations until the 19th
of December when money started coming in on Texas, most books
dropped the number to -5 but with additional juice added.
The
money kept pouring in on Texas to the point that on the 21st
of December most books again dropped the line but this time by a
full point to Texas -4 and it didn’t stop there as Texas
continued to get pounded to the point that on January 3rd
and 4th respected sports books such as Pinnacle,
Bookmaker, Bet Cris, and Bet Jamaica, to name a few, all dropped
their lines to Alabama -3.5. The point spread of -3.5 was short
lived however because at most outs the number moved back up to
Alabama -4 by the following day.
So
thus the question, how do we read this line movement? First of
all, I don’t think it was sharp money that pounded Texas down by
a 2 full points from the initial offering of 5.5 to its low point
of 3.5, I think it was Joe Public that did it.
Why
you ask? Think about it a moment, if the sharps really wanted
Texas in this contest they would have done one of two things; they
would have either taken a position on the Longhorns immediately by
taking the offered 5.5 points or possibly bought a ½ point to get
to a full +6 before Joe Public had a chance to influence the line,
and secondly, if the sharps wanted Texas they would have waited to
see if Joe Public would bet the favored Crimson Tide up and then
hope for a solid +6 and then bet on Texas without having to pay
the additional juice on the ½ point.
We
know sharps didn’t smack this line downward because it never
moved off the opening number until a full 12 days after the
openers were posted, I mentioned above when the first line move
occurred, do you remember the date? It was the 19th of
December which coincidentally is the same date that the first
couple of bowl games were played and this is also the same date
that Joe Public not only started to make their individual bets on
bowl games but also turned in their money-line bets, their parlay
cards and of course made their teaser bets, hmmmmmmm, there’s
some food for thought.
In
my humble opinion the sharps waited on the sidelines in this one
as a means to see what the public was going to do before taking
action, and take action they did because almost as soon as the
number fell to Alabama -3.5 it shot right back up to Alabama -4. I
would strongly recommend laying the 4 points now and not because
that is the side the sharps appear to be on, (I handicapped
Alabama to score an easy win from the outset), but instead because
I would not want to take a chance at the line moving against me
and going to -4.5.
Onward
to the game itself, I am not going to get into that much detail
but with that being said my numbers and ratings have Alabama being
better than Texas by 9.7 points which means that we are getting
5.7 points of value with the Crimson Tide which in turn makes
Alabama a 3***Play Selection, if you were to find Alabama at -3.5
the value would then be 6.2 points and would equate to a
5*****BEST BET.
Texas
which is led by QB Colt McCoy is getting a lot of pub with regard
to their having a high powered offense that for the season has
scored 529 total points which is an average of 40.69 points per
outing, what is NOT being publicized is the fact
that Texas only faced two top 25 defenses all season long and BOTH
of those defenses shut down what the Longhorns brought to the
table.
The
Longhorns faced Oklahoma and their 8th ranked defense (Sooners
didn’t have their starting QB) and barely won by the final of
16-13 on a game winning FG just before the gun sounded, in that
game the Sooner defense made McCoy look average by holding him to
21 of 39 (53.85%) for a measly 127 passing yards and zero passing
TD’s.
The
only other top 25 defense Texas faced was Nebraska’s, once again
the Longhorns needed a FG to win, this time the winning FG came as
time expired to defeat Nebraska 13-12. In that game the Texas
offense was once again shut down and once again Texas QB Colt
McCoy looked average in posting a line that read 20 of 36
completions (55.56%) for a mere 184 passing yards and zero passing
TD’s.
The
same thing holds true for the supposed great Texas defense that is
being heralded as “just as good as ‘bama’s”. A check of
the national rankings reveals that Alabama has the #2 overall
ranked defense in the nation while Texas is ranked right behind
them at #3, don’t let those numbers fool you my friends as the
Texas defense only faced two top 25 offenses all season (Texas
Tech and Oklahoma) and had the luxury of playing BOTH
of those game in the state of Texas. Texas Tech had their chances
to win but their 49th ranked defense was outmanned,
Oklahoma had their chance to defeat Texas as well and probably
should have, but in the big picture a 16-13 loss without your
starting QB and against a highly regarded team like Texas is a
pretty good showing.
Whereas
the Texas defense is a little fraudulent based on the offenses
they faced, the Alabama defense is for real as they faced three
offenses ranked in the top 25 (Florida #8, Auburn #18, and
Arkansas #22) and held those three teams to an average of only
13.7 points scored and in turn defeated those three teams by an
average difference of 17.3 points.
Alabama’s
offense might not be as flashy as the Texas offense, mainly
because the Crimson Tide is a pound ‘em out kind of offense that
uses the run to set up the pass whereas Texas does just the
opposite, but here is the difference; whereas the Texas offense
faced two top 25 defenses and were shut down BOTH
times, the Alabama offense faced five top 25 defenses (Florida #4,
VT #12, South Carolina #15, Mississippi #21, and Tennessee #22)
and averaged 24 points per outing and won those game by an average
of 12.8 points per contest. Alabama’s closest game all season
was a 2 point win over Tennessee.
However,
the Tide was actually winning by a 12-3 score against Tennessee
with just over three minutes left to play when the Vols scored the
late TD. As a side note “Mount Cody”, Alabama’s huge nose
tackle blocked a punt at the games end to preserve the win,
needless to say the Tide had a scare in that game, but that’s
what usually happens when you take your opponent too lightly and
that is exactly what ‘bama did against the Vols. No need to
worry about the Tide taking this game lightly tho’.
Alabama
QB Greg McElroy isn’t as good a passer as Longhorn QB Colt McCoy
but in the big picture he doesn’t have to be for three reasons;
first of all the Texas defensive secondary can be beat, Sooner
backup QB Landry Jones showed us that and so did Tyler Potts of
Texas Tech and Texas A&M’s Jerrod Johnson, these three
QB’s threw for an average of 363 yards against Texas. Secondly,
McElroy has one hell of a rushing game behind him led by Heisman
Trophy winner Mark Ingram who spearheads a Tide rushing attack
that is ranked 12th in the nation, and third but
certainly not last is the Alabama defense which has McElroy’s
back should he falter by making a mistake here and there. Alabama
makes it look easy with a double digit win.
Our
extraordinary record is based on our outstanding "Late
Week" selections which have averaged a 57.88%
winning rate over the past 12 years in all sports and that also includes our NFL
"Best Bets"
which have achieved a winning rate of 63.05%
over the same time period!!
By releasing these key selections later in the week and
closer to game time we are able to take advantage of the latest
information available which includes the latest weather and injury
reports as well as any "Line Movements"
that have taken place. |
