Point Blank – October 3
What a “Bettor Better Know” – NCAA #5...Big Ed gets a win, and a quarter for the jukebox (can a week start any better than with some Neville Brothers)...
A fascinating weekend on the NCAA front brought a new player into the Playoff chase (Washington could easily be at least -7 in every game the rest of the way); cemented Clemson’s place in the cosmos without disturbing Lamar Jackson’s lead in the Heisman race; produced the best single play I have seen anyone make this season (coming up in a bit); and a whole lot more.
That means a lot of work ahead, and as will be the case on Monday’s the Jukebox gets plugged in for some background to help you through. So after a week in which Ed Orgeron pushed almost all of the right buttons in preparing LSU to play football, Big Ed controls the music as well. One of the most meaningful comments from his post-game on Saturday night was – “Whole week, you can feel the state of Louisiana on fire”, so let’s go to the legendary Neville Brothers for a little taste of what it’s like when the embers are smoldering on the bayou -
Item: LSU played hard for Ed Orgeron
Sub-Item: Florida International played hard for Ron Cooper* (* - but…)
Coaching changes were a major theme here last Monday, and because some of the impact on Power Ratings can be substantial, we’ll start with the follow-up. Naturally it is Orgeron and LSU front-and-center, LSU turning in a superb effort in manhandling Missouri, but something that creates a Good News/Awkward News element for Tiger boosters.
If you don’t like Big Ed you either haven’t read enough about him, or there is something wrong with you. He is the classic “football guy”, someone that works with a passion, and gets the players to do the same. Orgeron has been one of the nation’s best recruiters, and you could both see in play, and then read the responses from the players afterwards, what it means to have him in charge.
On the field it was a domination from the start, LSU leading Missouri 158-31 in total offense in the first quarter, on the way to a staggering 634-265 final measure. No Leonard Fournette? No problem. Derrius Guice and Darrell Williams combined to run for 293 yards and six touchdowns at 7.7 per carry, which has led to some amusing back-room discussion as the new week approaches – why is LSU/Florida being kept off the board for Fournette being “Questionable”, when it would have been awfully difficult for him to produce numbers any better than what the other RBs put out there on Saturday?
As for the aftermath, let’s use this from WR D. J. Chark as a prime example - "It makes us feel good knowing that we’ve got our coach’s back. It’s a new season for us. Going on the road next week, playing against a good Florida team, we just want to show we got Coach O’s back again and (we're) going to fight for him in The Swamp."
So it’s all good, right? A guy born and raised in Louisiana takes over the program, and you could bring in the Brothers Grimm to write out the rest. But there is a problem. Big Ed is extremely Old School, and that is not necessarily what a University wants to lead a football program these days; just ask the folks at USC, after he went 6-2 SU as the interim in 2013. Orgeron is of Cajun descent, and his gruff voice and mannerisms make him one of the all-time great assistant coaches, but not necessarily what many folks want to lead a program these days.
This will be interesting to watch. The Alabama game is in Baton Rouge this season, so the door is open for the team to play well enough to make the LSU powers that be squirm a bet – while many of them want Orgeron and the team to do well, there may be some that don’t want them to do too well, even if turning the team over to him in 2017 could mean bringing in Max Browne as an upgrade at QB.
Meanwhile over at Florida International the Golden Panthers indeed played harder under Cooper than for Ron Turner, who was only counting the days towards retirement, but be a little careful with that. The problem in evaluation is that they were up against chief rival Florida Atlantic, in their annual battle for the Shula Bowl Trophy, and there was a bit of bad blood involved – when FAU won the game 31-17 in 2015 the Owls tore the FIU helmet off of the trophy, and things got awkward afterwards, the players and coaches not shaking hands (you’ll have to pause the Neville’s for a moment), so this time the favor got returned -
Because of that, it was likely that FIU was going to bring some passion anyway, and in fact the most meaningful take from Cooper all week may have only been this - “The only thing I did different this week is that I put a little more contact in practice. I told the team we better have some energy.”
The Cooper resume is not a shining star; as noted last Monday his stint at Louisville being among the most dubious of the recent NCAA era. But this is an instance in which charting how the players react to him does matter – promoting him to the HC spot full-time might be an inexpensive way for a program mired in mediocrity to stay near that level, with no indication that the University wants to spend the kind of money it takes to move to a higher level.
Item: Notre Dame’s defense played harder, but not necessarily better, for Greg Hudson
Sub-Item: Charlie Strong becomes the last line of defense at Texas
And of course it isn’t just a change at HC that impacts the Power Ratings, but OC and DC as well. With the pressure on at the higher levels of college football these days, few jobs are safe. Last Monday also focused on the transition at Notre Dame from Brian Van Gorder to Hudson, and as is the case with Cooper at FIU, the Hudson resume lacks glitter, undistinguished tours of duty as a DC at Minnesota, East Carolina, and the last three seasons at Purdue.
The Notre Dame results vs. Syracuse were a mixed bag – the defense allowed 33 points and 489 yards, but that did come vs. 88 snaps, which mitigates the totals a bit. An ugly sign was that there were no turnovers forced. But note how the flow improved as the game went on – Syracuse had an astounding 281 yards in the first quarter, but only 208 at 3.5 per play the rest of the way. Part of that slow start can be understood when you read this, from junior safety Drue Tranquill – “The first play of the game I look around, and there’s three freshmen in the secondary. It speaks to our youth and it speaks to our passion. We’ve got a lot of young guys and we’re only going to get better.”
Inserting those younger players is part of what Brian Kelly is calling a re-boot, as he also takes on a bigger role with the defense - “We’ve got a lot of really good players that deserve to get on the field, and that’s the kind of defense this is going to be. There are going to be a lot of players playing in this defense. There’s a lot to do, but I thought it was a good start.”
There is a big challenge ahead for this group, with first-year N.C. State OC Eli Drinkwtiz bringing an intricate playbook for them to decipher. And the jury will remain out on just how good Hudson is – since this is his first year with the Notre Dame program, he also does not know the players all that well.
Meanwhile down in Texas there is a major change this week, with Charlie Strong demoting DC Vance Bedford and taking over the play calling himself, just one week after Strong had said the following – “I have a lot of confidence in Vance Bedford, and I know Vance is going to do a good job.”
What causes such a shift? Allowing 49 points and 555 yards at Oklahoma State on the field, and then the aftermath from Texas AD Mike Perrin off of it, which included an anything but ringing endorsement of Strong – “I evaluate everything. I’m not evaluating Charlie per se. Look at everything.”
The frustrations in Austin are understandable. Strong was brought in as a defense-first guy, and when the offense failed to take hold he made an off-season move that has already shown promise, bringing in Sterlin Gilbert as OC. Gilbert’s designs have worked – in back-to-back road games the Longhorns ran for over 300 yards, and passed for 261 and 239. But they lost both of them, hence the blame properly going to where it should, a defense that has been abysmal. In particular the Texas pass defense is allowing 9.2 per attempt, without a single interception despite the ball being in the air 119 times.
It isn’t just defense that needs to be cleaned up – the Longhorns may have set an all-time record in having three PAT attempts blocked on Saturday. There is a lot to clean up, and with the Longhorns in an underdog role at Oklahoma this week, and again at Kansas State in three weeks, there is an extreme pressure building.
Item: Wisconsin had a uniquely fortuitous ride through the Michigan schools
The Badgers don’t play again until next week when they host Ohio State, but after noting last Monday & Wednesday here how fortuitous that scoreboard was at East Lansing, when some major bounces of the ball fell their way, it was more of the same against Michigan in Ann Arbor on Saturday. Wiscy was pushed around to the tune of 22-7 in first downs and 349-159 in total offense, but managed to escape with only a 14-7 loss, and an ATS cover.
Through the Michigan tour the Badgers trailed by 18 first downs and 199 yards, yet won the collective scoreboards by 17, and beat the closing spreads by 32. This was not a case of the “800 Yard Field” limiting their opportunities to build box scores, but rather an offense that has a long way to go, not able to establish Corey Clement through the usual power ground game (only 2.8 per carry across 40 attempts), and with young QB Alex Hornibrook not being ready yet.
Item: Navy passed out of necessity, not choice
You may have done a double-take when you saw the Navy box score at Air Force, the Midshipmen throwing the ball 30 times, Will Worth completing 17 of them for 260 yards. There was even the appearance of a go-to guy, with Jamir Tillman catching nine passes for 128 yards. Was this a case of the coaching staff coming up with some new wrinkles to throw at Commander-in-Chief rival Air Force off of a bye week? Were these tweaks something done for Worth, after original starting QB Tago Smith was injured in the opener? The box score called for a deeper dive.
As it turns out there were no changes made at all to the schemes. The problem they ran into was Air Force having 10 senior starters on defense, a topic that has been brought up here previously, and because of that experience the Falcons had the intricacies of the Midshipmen option game down pretty well. Navy did come out trying to run, but 20 attempts in the first half only produced 48 yards.
It was after intermission that Worth began putting the ball in the air a lot more, and while his overall numbers were good, so many of the productive plays came after the outcome had been decided. Here is how OC Ivin Jasper broke it down - "It's pretty simple. We got our butts kicked. They came out and really took it to us. They're always going to bring those linebackers up and push the football. They're going to make you run the ball inside. … We had to try to establish the fullback inside, and if we can't do that we have to throw the football and try to make big plays in the passing game."
The Navy game plan did not change, but at least the handicapper can file away that should there be a need to air it out in the future, like this week vs. Houston, Worth is a more capable passer than is often found at the position at the Academy.
Item: Yes, Marshall/Pittsburgh Totally happened
One of the biggest moves in betting history took place on the Marshall/Pittsburgh Total for Saturday night, and the final sequence led to one of the biggest $$$ swings ever for a Total. So for those of you that were wasting your time watching something as dull and insignificant as Louisville/Clemson, let’s delve into the details.
There was a big push to the Under twice during the week. The stores were forced to open it a bit high, which is what they do when they do not have the proper handle on a team – the first three Pittsburgh games had played Over by 67 points, with the losing team in those games scoring 39, 38 and 36. But they seemed to have gone a little too far, and by the opening of trading on Saturday morning there had been a significant drop. Then came even more, and to understand just how far here are the openers from CRIS and Pinnacle, where they were when the first game-day action came in, and where they closed -
Open Sat AM Close
CRIS 69.5 64.5 57.5
Pinnacle 70.5 64.5 57
CRIS got as low as 56.5, before going back up, but note the lack of buy-back, despite how extreme that move was.
Those that didn’t buy anything back were likely happy with their positions until it got twisted up late. Marshall scored to cut the Pitt lead to 30-27 with 4:01 remaining, but the only real sweat at the time was OT; if the Panthers could get two first downs it would be game over. They got the first one, and then were sitting on third-and-three at their own 46-yard line after a Marshall time-out at 1:15. If Pitt made a first down the Under would be safe; if not there was the potential to go 30-30 into after a punt back to Marshall, or maybe 34-30 Thundering Herd in regulation.
Instead it was a 54-yard TD pass from Nathan Peterman to Jester Weah, one of those cases of what looks like a defensive breakdown not really being one – Marshall put the focus on preventing a first down, daring the ball to go further down the field. That is what you do in order to win the game, and in this instance it back-fired. That put the game on 64, which was good for the early-week shoppers, but had eliminated almost all of the game-day purchasers. And then came the capper – on the final snap, Marshall’s Chase Litton threw an interception to Avonte Maddox, who chose to run it back for a TD rather than just taking a knee.
There were a lot of tickets written to the Under on that game, except for someone that grabbed the 70.5 off of get-go at Pinny, they all lost. Yes, on the merits of the game flow all could have made the case that they were correct, especially those with 64 or better. But from a market behavior standpoint, who in the hell was out there on game day going under 61, 60, 59 and 58 on a game that had opened at 70? Could thre possibly have still been a positive expectation at those numbers?
Adjusting Pittsburgh Totals higher is something that the guys behind the counter are forced to do. And there are times when they have to go low, very very low, to find the bottom for some teams…
Item: On Charlotte and Bowling Green, and how low can the markets go
For there to be the appearances of “steam” to Eastern Michigan last week tells us that there is something unique at hand in the betting marketplace. The Eagles ended up as road favorites at Bowling Green on Saturday after opening at +3, despite having gone 0-12 on the MAC road the last three seasons, the average loss coming by 28.1 points. The program had not been favored on the conference road since a trip to Buffalo for the final game of the 2005 season. And EMU went on to win the game, which continues a theme from last Monday about just how far things have fallen off for Bowling Green.
The odds makers face a challenge around this time of any season, trying to prevent streaks from carrying too far in either direction – they need to get the hot teams under control to prevent the markets from piling on; and also to take the bulls-eyes off of the decrepit. That makes pricing the Falcons, and Charlotte among others, a headache right now.
Bowling Green is not just 0-4 ATS, but those losses have come by a hideous -111.5 against the closing market projection, the closer having moved against them several times. Meanwhile Charlotte is 0-4 ATS at a -63, which means an error of nearly 16 full points per game. At least there is a break for the odds makers in terms of the 49ers this week, taking on a Florida Atlantic team that is also 0-4 ATS,
Understanding this process matters for the savvy handicapper – while many want to focus on who is “Hot” and who is “Not”, hoping to ride that momentum to victory, at a certain point you are clashing directly with those that are trying to prevent those runs from going too far. A couple of current teams are making that even more of a challenge than usual.
Item: The last two UL-Lafayette games played Under by 34 points (once more, be careful with your tracking source)
And just as a follow-up reminder, make sure you are doing your own tracking on Overtime results. Even if you do not have the time to isolate the box scores, since that does require going through play-by-play charts and scraping stuff out, at least recognize the final scores at the end of regulation, especially for Totals. Most stat services don’t do that, so imagine how misleading it looks for a team like UL-Lafayette – the last two weeks the Ragin’ Cajuns played dead Unders, finishing 34 points below the closing Totals, yet many sites will record both of those games as Overs. In terms of predictive value, the final score at the end of regulation is all that you should be tracking.
Item: Cal made a goal line stand
Sub-Item: Yes, a team that is favored can have a 97-49 advantage in plays and lose
Sub-Item: Hell, a 30.5 point favorite can have a 114-52 advantage in plays and lose (preparing your Boise State/New Mexico handicap)
There was an odd celebration in Berkeley on Saturday, California fans able to cheer on a defense that came up big on the final series against Utah, a rarity in the Sonny Dykes era, when the Golden Bears had scored 28 points or more on 12 occasions and still lost the game.
The ending vs. Utah was particularly unlikely if you do the proper pre-set. A bad defense had already been on the field for 90 offensive snaps when the following sequence began, the Utes having a first-and-goal with 3:00 remaining -
1-9, CAL9(3:00) Zack Moss rush for 2 yards to the CAL 7.
2-7, CAL7(2:20) Armand Shyne rush for 0 yards.
3-7, CAL7(1:50) Troy Williams sacked by Cameron Saffle and Devante Downs for -4 yards to the CAL 11.
-, CAL11(0:20) California penalized 9 yards.
1-2, CAL2(0:14) Zack Moss rush for 1 yard to the CAL 1.
2-1, CAL1(0:07) Troy Williams incomplete pass to the left.
3-1, CAL1(0:03) Zack Moss rush for 0 yards.
To get flagged for pass interference on fourth down can be back-breaking to a good defense, much less a bad one. On the ensuing first-and-goal if a price were to be set the Utah offense would have been an overwhelming favorite to score. But the Golden Bears held, and it is in winning through that particular way that the team might get an extra boost on the practice field this week.
Let’s start with Dykes - “Those guys just kept hanging in there, and those players just kept saying, ‘Coach, we got this. They just kept telling me that over and over and over again. You’ve got to give them credit for believing in themselves.”
And from DT James Looney, who came up with the big tackle on the final play - “We believed. We had faith. I had a chance to make a play, it was my play to make, and it was about time I made one of those. I’m one of the leaders of this defense, and I need to make those plays.”
That is quite an ending for a game that finished with Utah having 97 snaps, to just 49 for the Golden Bears. Put an even matchup out there, which is what that one was with the home field built in, and it is either a major achievement for the winner, or a failure for the loser, if the team on the short end of those play counts breaks through. As such make this an important part of your post mortems each week because it is often a neglected factor.
I am going to bring that particular aspect of handicapping front-and-center as the lead later in the week because it is Boise State/New Mexico coming up on national television Friday night, and as a prelude to the handicap for that one we can delve into what may well have been The Most Interesting Game Ever Played…
There is a hint to that one in the headline, but I’ll save the rest for now.
Item: Hawaii 38 Nevada 3, end of the 3rd Quarter
I’ll close with a couple of Saturday late-night items that many of you may have missed. One of the things that I kicked around with Brad Powers on last week’s NCAA Podcast was the unique notion of upgrading the Hawaii power rating despite the fact that the Warriors did not play the previous Saturday. It was not only a chance for the team to get a second wind after a brutal opening schedule, but an early bye for a new coaching staff can be an important time – they get the opportunity to do some major tweaking, now that they have a better feel for their roster. But I was not prepared to see just how much energy and precision Nick Rolovich’s team brought to the field vs. Nevada, and for as impressive as the final score and stats look, note that it was 38-3 in the third quarter, before they backed off the rest of the way.
Rolovich made one major change, starting JuCo transfer Dru Brown at QB, after opening the season with the safer choice of the experienced Ikaika Woolsey. Brown was 15-18 for 222 yards and a pair of TDs, showing a good comfort in the offense despite it being his first start, and the effectiveness of the passing game also helped open the door for Diocemy Saint Juste to run for 205 yards. It was a jolt of energy a struggling program badly needed, and down the street from my home there may have been something similar…
Item: Dalton Sneed, and the best play I have seen this season
UNLV was only leading Fresno State 21-10 in the third quarter, and the Rebels faced a third-and-11 from their own 9-yard line, when this happened -
That run was from Sneed, a redshirt freshman QB making his first college start, and the energy from the play helped turn the game into a 25-point UNLV rout. Is it any kind of turning point for Tony Sanchez and the program? Not necessarily, because they were facing a bad Fresno State team with a soon to be fired Tim DeRuyter. But in particular note the way that Sanchez talked about his player afterwards –
“At the end of the day, the game’s about players making plays. You recruit guys who have competitive souls, and that’s exactly what Dalton has. He put us on his back on that play and made an unbelievable play. That wasn’t a call. That’s just his heart and spirit stepping up and doing something special.”
Sanchez has a long way to go before the program can be turned around, with recruiting a major challenge. But UNLV football has not been known for heart and spirit, and hearing those words may be a sign of progress, even if it is only a minor increment.
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