They won’t. However college games can be mismatches such that the second and even third strings of the favored team can have more talent than the underdog.
Sometimes. Barry Switzer had a reputation as a guy who always tried to beat the spread to keep the very demanding OU alumni happy. Of course this meant that the OU spreads kept getting larger! It’s hard to say whether any particular coach cares or not. Naturally it’s not something that they talk about a lot.
How often does a Division I-A (damned if I call it FBS) game not have a point spread? I’ve heard of boxing matches, most famously the Buster Douglas-Mike Tyson matchup, not being bet in sportsbooks because the fight was obviously going to be non-competitive.
Were there no flag football teams for OSU and FSU to play?
FSU had West Virginia back out of a game at the “last minute” when they moved to the Big 12. As FBS non-conference schedules are set in stone years in advance, there probably weren’t many options.
I remember back in 1983 where a coworker was mad at me because I was from Minnesota, and the Gophers had just cost him a bet. The bet was something like:
–pick 5 games
–add 25 points to the spread
–win the bet if all 5 games picked correctly
The spread plus 25 put Nebraska as something like a 65 point favorite over Minnesota on the road, and the guy couldn’t pass that one up. Nebraska won 84-13.
I remember that game. One of the reasons the score got out of hand was it was a road game. NU had a limited roster to bring to Minnesota. The 2nd-teamers got tired, so they put the starters back in.
The spread has fallen to 69.5. Wow, Savannah State isn’t even a good FCS team. Nor are they a mediocre FCS team. They’re a totally shitty FCS team, 4-72 over the past seven years.
Rather than bet on the game, I’d rather bet that anybody who bets serious money on this game has a serious gambling problem.
Time to jump on FSU minus 69.5 and hope they win by 70.
That’s a real nice story, except in the case of the OSU game it’s an out and out lie. The starters for OSU were all out of the game by the end of the first quarter.
Aww, look who doesn’t know anything about the business of college athletics.
How cute.
It’s a business decision, pure and simple. Savannah State is getting paid close to $600,000 for the games against OSU and FSU. Things like this happen ALL the time in college football and no one who actually knows anything about the sport thinks that it’s any sort of joke, good bad or other.
Well, it’s 42-0 with 9:52 left in the 2nd quarter. Good thing I didn’t find a place to make that bet, it seems. At this rate, it might be 70-0 by the half.
Hah! FSU missed the extra point. Only 48-0 with 8:02 left (in the first half.)
It looks like FSU has their starters out of the game now, too. According to the box score, they’ve had two quarterbacks, five rushers and 10 receivers touch the ball.
Because of that missed extra point, the score actually could end up 69-0 and the spread wouldn’t be covered.
Half ended 48-0. Bit of a lightning delay (maybe 20-30 minutes). They didn’t score on their last drive, either. Looks like they agreed to a running clock for the second half, with more rain and lightning possibly on the way. So who knows? Maybe the spread won’t be covered. Could be interesting…
Actually, that lightning delay was closer to an hour, according to the announcer.
The most important rule of this board is to not be a jerk. You should figure that out sooner rather than later.
I’m no expert in college football, but aren’t there situations where two teams will have identical win-loss records and the determination of which has a higher standing is based on total points scored? If so, then it’s good management for a coach to make sure he runs up his score when he has an opportunity.
College football (indeed all college team sports) are ruled by polls.
FSU will try their best to cover that spread. The people that give them money make their money on games like this. Jimbo ain’t no dumbo!
And they do NOT cover the spread. Coulda made some money after all.