According to CBS Sports, this weekend Savannah State will be the biggest underdog in history vs. Florida State, a week after losing to Oklahoma State 84-0 (35-0 after 1 quarter). The Seminoles are favored by 70.5 points.
Currently Oklahoma State is AP #18, Florida State is #6. The 'Noles defeated the mighty Murray State Racers 69-3 last week.
Hmm, that’s a tough one. A lot depends on how bad a badass the opposing coach wants to be, and I don’t know much about Jimbo Fisher.
I guess my gut reaction is to take the points. If Savannah blunders into even one touchdown against the third string, then FSU has to score more than 77 which is tough to do unless the coach is consciously jacking it up.
It seems hard to believe that teams will continue playing their starters and playing hard when they are up by 50+. Were I the coach, I’d be wanting to avoid injury more than I want to keep running up the score.
I didn’t see the game, but looking at the box score, Oklahoma State seems to have maintained a fairly balanced attack, with 3 QBs combined passing 26/37 for 287 yds and 3 TD, and 7 players rushing 395 yds with 9 TDs on 42 carries. The 1st 7 touchdowns were on the ground, including 2 long 20+ yard runs (40, 24). There was a 42 yard rushing TD later in the game.
So it looks like Oklahoma State’s third and fourth team were still kicking the shit out of Savannah State right up to the end. I’d have to imagine the talent level of Florida State is at least as good if not better.
Don’t know. Odds makers are pretty good at this. There’s usually a huge point spread when a powerhouse faces a tiny school, but it doesn’t look like those are good bets on the spread to me. But I don’t pay that much attention to college ball, I have a pretty small sample of observations to work from.
I once saw a game where my Villanova Wildcats were up, I think it was 63-0, at halftime. At which point the game got called due to rain. And we weren’t even all that great a team. Extrapolating, I think it’s quite plausible that one team might beat another by over 70 points.
70 point wins probably happen at least every other year. The OP also pointed out that it already happened this year, to the team that’re the 70 point dogs. Whether or not those games occur isn’t in dispute, it’s whether or not you think this will be one of them.
I’m a sucker for huge underdogs, so I would probably put $20 on that game if I were in a betting-legal area. “Hey, we’re only down 35-0 at the half, we’re on pace!”