College season kicks off – September 1, 2009
It’s September. Time to get back to work.
Football season is upon us. This is the undisputed No. 1 sport for handicappers, well ahead of basketball and baseball in popularity. College football has a special appeal for sharps because of the size of the marketplace – 120 teams will play in the Football Bowl Subdivision this year.We get to pick and choose the NCAA Football lines we like the most.
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The best value against the spread is generally found in the mid-majors and lower. In 2008, you’d have made a killing with the Boise State Broncos (8-3-1 ATS last year) in the WAC and the Ball State Cardinals (9-4 ATS) in the MAC. But the biggest winners this time around were the national champion Florida Gators and the runner-up Oklahoma Sooners (10-2 ATS), both far too good to let a little chalk get in the way of a nice wad of cash. The Gators are 1-3 favorites to win the SEC this year and 2-1 favorites to make it back-to-back BCS championships. The Sooners are 3-2 in the Big 12 and 5-1 to win the national title.
Both Florida and Oklahoma have Heisman Trophy quarterbacks at their disposal. Tim Tebow (2007) is back for the Gators; he already has two BCS titles under his belt, and Florida’s underappreciated defense is potent enough to make it three.
Sam Bradford (2008) gets to play for an outstanding football program, but his offensive line isn’t nearly as strong as Tebow’s after losing tackle Phil Loadholt (Minnesota Vikings) and three others from last year’s starting unit.
The USC Trojans have been in title contention for most of this decade. In 2009, they’re tied with the Texas Longhorns for third-favorite status at 7-1 odds. USC has to replace QB Mark Sanchez (New York Jets), and it turned out to be freshman Matt Barkley winning the job over sophomore Aaron Corp and senior Mitch Mustain. Coach Phil Carroll and his staff are highly impressed with Barkley at this stage. He’s been through the spring practice, so Barkley will be more prepared than most freshmen going into the 2009 campaign. He’ll also get all the time he needs in the pocket playing behind one of the most dominant offensive lines in the nation.
The Longhorns could very well be the best of this elite foursome. Colt McCoy is one of the early favorites to win the 2009 Heisman at 3-1, behind Tebow at 2-1 and Bradford at 5-2. If Texas proves to be as good as it looks on paper, this year will be McCoy’s turn. He also plays behind a brick wall of linemen and has the luxury of throwing to talented receivers like Jordan Shipley, whose added work on special teams could prove to be the difference over Oklahoma in the Big 12.
Florida, Texas, Oklahoma, and USC are the top four teams in the preseason rankings and in a class among themselves. The second tier features a pair of SEC heavyweights in the No. 5 Alabama Crimson Tide (16-1) and the No. 13 Georgia Bulldogs (45-1), with the Bulldogs available at a bargain price after losing QB Matthew Stafford (Detroit Lions) and RB Knowshon Moreno (Denver Broncos) to the NFL. Like Barkley at USC, freshman Joe Cox has a stout offensive line in front of him, and running back is a relatively easy position to fill at the college level. We’ll get a much better idea of what Cox can do when Georgia faces the No. 9 Oklahoma State Cowboys on Saturday night. This is a national broadcast on ABC, so we have live betting ready to go starting at 2:30 p.m. Eastern time. The ‘Pokes are 38-1 to win the national title and 5.5-point home favorites against the Bulldogs.
Of this year’s crop of mid-majors, the Mountain West trio of the Utah Utes, Texas Christian Horned Frogs, and BYU Cougars figures to be together at the top. But there doesn’t appear to be much betting value here after the three teams went a combined 34-5 last year. The Utes (8-3-1 ATS) and Frogs (8-4 ATS) were especially profitable; the Cougars (3-8 ATS) were not, but that leaves them room for a market rebound with QB Max Hall returning for his senior season. They start the 2009 campaign off as 22-point road dogs against the Sooners (Saturday, 7:00 p.m., ESPN). As long as the Cougars don’t pull off the upset on national cable, they should retain their relative anonymity and their mid-major betting value.
