Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Week 1, or Shall We Call It Weak 1?

It's shaping up as a lousy opening week for college football bettors. The first set of lines for games on Aug. 28 and Aug. 30 were posted at Doc's Sports (they have since been on and off the site) and the lack of marquee games was reflected in pointspreads.

Every game but one had a double-digit spread. The only exception was James Madison at Duke, with the Blue Devils a mere two-point favorite in David Cutcliffe's debut.

On the other end was Chattanooga at Oklahoma, with the Sooners listed as 47.5-point favorites.

Other games of note: Appalachian State at Louisiana State (-23); Youngstown State at Ohio State (-34); Tennessee Martin at South Florida (-39.5); Western Illinois at Arkansas (-23); Coastal Carolina at Penn State (-37);

Villanova at West Virginia (-35); Maine at Iowa (-22); Eastern Washington at Texas Tech (-33); Idaho State at Boise State (-44.5); Northern Arizona at Arizona State (-31.5).

Louisiana State and Texas Tech each had an opening on Aug. 30, but instead of playing each other, they opted for the lightweight approach to scheduling.

Seriously, is this what passes as competition in this day and age? It's laughable how the big teams run from each other. Just laughable. When does the actual season start?

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Wiz -

LSU 100% contacted Texas Tech about a game. The Red Raiders didn't want to schedule a neutral site or 2 for 1 and told my Tigers to stick it. It's a shame. Please keep up the good work pointing out when teams schedule pathetically.
And I'm an LSU fan.
-CK

Anonymous said...

I find that very hard to believe. What about Clemson-Alabama, Illinois-Missouri and UCLA-Tennessee? Those are solid opening weekend games that certainly don't deserve double-digit spreads.

Anonymous said...

+1

dawizofodds said...

Just to point out, not all the games have been listed at this point.

Another note: The list incorrectly has Southern California playing Houston. Houston opens against Southern.

Anonymous said...

I'm not a Texas Tech fan, but I'm amazed that an LSU fan would criticize them for not agreeing to a 2 for 1 with the Tigers. If LSU wasn't even offering a 1 for 1 then how do you suppose they would have reacted if Tech asked them to make two trips to Lubbock in return for one game in Baton Rouge?

Anonymous said...

where is NC State at South Carolina??

Anonymous said...

There's other games that should be close match-ups, besides the ones already mentioned...

Oregon State at Stanford
SMU at Rice
Syracuse at Northwestern
Michigan State at California
Memphis at Mississippi
Ohio at Wyoming
Tulsa at UAB
UL Lafayette at Southern Miss
TCU at New Mexico
Kentucky at Louisville (Sunday)
Colorado vs Colorado St (Sunday)

I'm with Wiz on the scheduling though. There are no fewers than 32 FBS vs FCS games in just Week 1. I guess it's good for a FCS schools but the FBS teams shouldn't be playing those schools every season. Some teams are even playing 2 FCS teams this year.

Unknown said...

ANON -
after re-reading my post I see where it could have come off as a bash of Tx Tech. Not at all. I would never agree to anything but a home and home or agreed multi-year neutral site. My b.

Anonymous said...

What about Fresno State vs. Rutgers? Almost all rankings out so far have Fresno in their Top 25. It's yet to be determined where Rutgers stands with Ray Rice in the NFL though. Either way, this is a quality out-of-conference match up and I'd like to see more of them.