Point Blank – September 29
Revenge and Redemption on the playing fields - Part I (and thanks Tom Herman, for a chance to bring in Johnny Cash)…Kirk Cousins will get plenty of time to throw on Sunday…Will the Rays bring the energy of playoff contenders tonight…It will be noisy, in Boise, on Saturday night…
Today was to be the day that I went into a long discourse on college football revenge. Now that conference play is approaching just about every matchup will bring it to at least some degree, and it is an extremely common thing to hear and read about across the handicapping fraternity and Sports Mediaverse. But because Tom Herman has brought a unique twist it will be only be Part I of II, because there are some other topics to delve into today.
The bad news is that revenge does not provide nearly as many opportunities to step in at advantage as most bettors would like. It is easy to force it out in to all sorts of settings but overall it is a negligible factor. But when it does fit it can be one hell of a fit, which I will get to in a couple of instances today.
First we go to Houston for tonight’s ESPN broadcast, and a chance for Herman to come front-and-center, which he does from a myriad of directions. In this instance there is a bit of creativity involved, and that also allows for the jukebox to get plugged in. Since so many topics will be covered a little background can help you to glide through (the general rule of thumb now is that anything over 2,000 words needs music), and when else was I ever going to get a chance to bring in the great Johnny Cash, with “Redemption”, one of the last songs he ever wrote, and one of the best –
In Part II tomorrow it will be Shakespearean notions of Revenge; for Herman’s Cougars tonight it is a different path.
Item: Houston is allowed to win by 100 tonight* (* - though I will likely not bet the game)
It is no secret that I like Herman a lot, and he has been written about several times as a lead topic here. He is a fascinating focus point tonight because there are so many dynamics involved –
1. The fact that Houston is absolutely a part of the Playoff picture, and you can build a case right now that if Louisville wins at Clemson on Saturday, and the Cougars go unbeaten (which will mean beating those Cardinals, of course), they are more than in the picture, they are in. In a stand-alone game in front of the national cameras, they can make a statement to the playoff committee this evening.
2. The fact that Herman is already being talked about as the next head man at LSU, so much so that he is the betting favorite at Sports Books posting the prop. This is a mini-showcase in that process, and you can be damn sure that folks on the search committee have made watching films of the way he designed Ohio State’s offense to attack Nick Saban’s defense in the playoffs two years ago a priority.
3. Houston got beat 20-17 at Connecticut last November. That is the only game the Cougars have lost since Herman took over as HC.
First let’s note that one of the best of the revenge settings comes when there is a Control Element in play – one team that not only brings the motivation, but has enough control of the event to put it into play. You certainly have that when a team is favored to win by four touchdowns. Now the drawback – if the favorite wins by 21 they will have earned their revenge; those that backed them at the betting windows will not have earned a return on their investment. Hence why those added factors come into play tonight – it is not just extracting a measure of satisfaction against the Huskies, which might have Herman and his players happy to be up 34-14 late at another time, but that in this setting they have particular motivations to play as well as they can for 60 minutes.
Now the intriguing part. Herman has not chosen to sell Revenge to his team, and has not set up Connecticut as a particular target. Instead he has drawn up a different path – Redemption, the unique twist of having his own players and coaching staff look inside themselves to note what went wrong, and to build out the fix internally –
“I’d be foolish to not think there was some added motivation to atone for the wrongs made or committed in Connecticut last year, and hopefully make them right ... maybe get a chance at redemption.”
You just gotta love that. What I can’t do is find a way to take it to the betting windows, with as high as -29.5 showing in the current trading. Connecticut is nothing special, but the Huskies are fundamentally sound on defensive under Bob Diaco, and that means making Houston work for points, instead of getting quick scores off of mental errors. But instead of backing off of a beaten conference opponent in the latter stages of this one, it is a setting in which the favorite is allowed to keep going.
There is one revenge favorite I will be backing on Saturday, which I will get to in a moment, but first some other matters…
Week #4 Fantasy QB – KIRK COUSINS
We got a good ride out of Ryan Tannehill last week despite him being available far down the draft boards, and I believe some of the factors that helped to make his day successful are in play again at Washington. The Browns don’t have a pass rush and Cousins and the Redskins get the ball out early and often, which opens the door for some numbers to get put up. As always here the notion is one of “Value”, and with Cousins #10 of the DraftKings board, and #12 at FanDuel, he is a fit.
The Browns only have three sacks in 124 drop-backs this season, while the Redskins have only allowed two in 126. Even with the loss of Kory Lichtensteiger I do not expect much change in those flows – Spencer Long played well at center vs. the Giants.
The Washington pacing also matters here, the offense having picked it up by three full SPS over last season, and with the weapons Cousins has to spread the ball around (I believe DeSean Jackson will play, though he will only take limited part in any practices), getting time in the pocket will inevitably lead to plenty of open receivers.
Item: Will the Rays play hard for Chris Archer tonight
While dealing with the major motivations of sports, like football teams playing with revenge or the Marlins in the aftermath of the tragic death of Jose Fernandez, sometimes there are subtleties. The Tampa Bay Rays have been rather hideous of late, mentally checking out for the 2016 season a while ago, but do they reach back for something a little extra tonight?
Archer takes the mound with an 8-19 record, one of the toughest-luck seasons for a pitcher I have ever charted. How bad have the fortunes of Baseball been to him? If we use xFIP as the guide, he has been the #6 pitcher in the Major’s this season, and for perspective Max Scherzer is #7 and Jon Lester #8. Want to use SIERA? Archer is #9. He did contribute something to that misfortune with a 16.4 HR/FB%, but so much of this has come from a lack of support – in 21 of his 32 starts the Rays scored three runs or less, and he has had nine starts in which he allowed two earned runs or less and got either a loss or a no-decision.
There has only been one 20-game loser since 1980, Detroit’s Mike Maroth going 9-21 in 2003, but Maroth had a 5.73 ERA and led all pitchers in total runs allowed. He earned those losses. Archer hasn’t, and to his credit he has kept battling down the stretch – it has been a 3.51 ERA in September, all four games against playoff contenders, but the Rays only backed him with nine runs across them so there were no wins. Over the past month he has twice lost 2-1 to the Red Sox. So Archer has kept an even keel, and even into tonight appears to be that way -
"Going into every start, I'm not thinking about getting a loss. I'm trying to do everything I can to win the game. And I feel like up to this point, I prepare myself more than anybody to be in a position to win. It's just what that given day gives me, gives the team and gives the other team."
Does this setting bring an extra drive to the rest of the Tampa lineup? That is a good question, but of course part of the answer would be “Does it matter anyway?”
In the Sights, Saturday NCAA…
Let’s go to a spot where I believe the revenge motivation matters, and also one in which the value is proper to take advantage of it, backing #214 Boise State (10:15 Eastern) on Saturday night. This one is sitting at -20 across the board this morning, and would be good up through -21.
Bryan Harsin could easily steer his Broncos in the direction of Redemption rather than Revenge, with the 52-26 loss to Utah State in Logan last October among the strangest games I have ever recorded. The victorious Aggies only had 15 first downs and 334 yards, managing just 4.9 per play, but in an amazing sequence a Boise State offense that only turned the ball over 12 times in the other 11 regular-season games coughed it up eight times in a span of nine possessions. That included five fumbles, for a team that only lost four fumbles in the other 11 games.
Not only does that put a bulls-eye on this game, but the Broncos are well-set to not only hit the target, but to smash it. There will be about as much energy focused in as we will find in a game in which a team is favored by three touchdowns – Boise had a bye two weeks ago, and backed off early after leading 31-7 at halftime vs. Oregon State on Saturday. Not only does that energy help, but from a line value standpoint consider how misleading the scoreboards were at both UL-Lafayette, where a 35-3 halftime lead only turned into 45-10, and at Oregon State, where the final only went to 38-24. Each of those games could have easily scored in double figures beyond the final margin.
Meanwhile Utah State has been a discussion point both in these threads and on the NCAA Podcasts – much credit has to be given for the great run the program had, including that peak season of 11-2 in 2012, but that is not sustainable in Logan. The current edition was not able to compete in the only road trip, a 45-7 loss at USC, and until Devonte Mays gets back to 100 percent the running game will not be there to establish any balance in the offense. That leaves the defense on the field far too long, and with the Broncos being able to attack in so many ways, whether it be Brett Rypien spreading the ball vertically (8.3 yards per pass), or Jeremy McNichols working behind an excellent OL (he ran for 208 at Oregon State), the Aggie defenders become vulnerable as the game goes on. With the focus that Harsin and his team are bringing, I also don’t expect them to back off the throttle; this is a prime example of one of those “Control Element” settings.
For your listening pleasure (though we sure as hell ain't Johnny Cash…)
There are podcast previews of all of tonight’s games up, with the NCAA here -
And Dolphins/Bengals here -
And for the full NCAA weekend, Brad Powers and I kick it around...
And for the NFL Weekend...
The complete Point Blank Archive
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