Monthly Archives: January 2014

The Sports Line and Fortune Cookies

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Fortune-cookie College Bowl Season

 

Great Ending: Auburn vs Alabama

Now that the 2013-2014 bowl season has ended and 35 games in the NCAA football bowl schedule have been played, we have a final tally on the odds makers. On 35 games, the line was wrong at least thirteen times. On picks correctly choosing the winner, more than a dozen grossly failed to forecast the game, the scores, and the margin.

The last returns came in last night. In the BCS Bowl, Florida State was favored by two scores.

Final score: Florida State 34, Auburn 31.

This time at least the bad pickers–I mean the bad boys–picked the winner correctly. They just blew the game. Down by three is not the same as down by two touchdowns. This was another one I was not able to watch throughout. From what I was able to see, however, Auburn lost at least as much to itself as to the other team. Auburn owned the first half, except for a couple of wobbles late in the half, and FSU was never dominant. Maybe the hype won this one. After this bowl season, anyone who would cite Vegas on sports odds has to be ranked as out of touch.

Fortune

Do they believe what they read in fortune cookies? Have you ever wondered why there isn’t massive theft in fortune-cookie bakeries, where the fortunes are put out? Or why people aren’t thronging newspaper boxes and newsstands, to grab the earliest horoscope predictions for the day? Either the line isn’t what it used to be, or it never was any good, but either way his season exposed  how much those sports predictions resemble the ones in fortune cookies. Their adherents must be the same people who awarded the Heisman.

Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowl Wrong?

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Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowl Wrong?

The first weekend in January 2014 produced two of the less noticed football bowls.

Saturday, Jan. 4, in the BBVA Compass Bowl, Vanderbilt was favored over Houston by a field goal.

Final score: Vanderbilt 41, Houston 24

Sunday, Jan. 5, in the GoDaddy Bowl, Ball State was picked over Arkansas State by two scores.

Final score: Arkansas State 23, Ball State 20

BBVA Compass Bowl

Spread predictions here.

Another one up, one down, on the simple win-loss, so another 50-percent win ratio for the odds makers. Again, the correct pick also underestimated the game. Vanderbilt was not predicted to head for a blowout, undo it, and then win anyway by three scores.

Again, the line was emphatically wrong. So much for odds making. Where does Vegas get these experts?

As of today, the last day of the 2013-2014 bowl season, 34 of 35 games have been played on the NCAA football bowl schedule. For the 34, thirteen picks have been wrong, and more than a dozen picks choosing the winner have given a wrong picture of the game. Are they trying to lure bettors in? Those odds get inserted into almost all coverage of the games, in regular news media.

Another reason for not betting on college sports: every time you do, you contribute to compromise and taint the press further.

B_S

Going forward

On to the next college bowl game; how will the next picks hold up?

Coming up next, tonight is the big one, the BCS Bowl. Ranked #1 Florida State will play ranked #2 Auburn. Auburn comes off a series of miracle wins; Florida State off allegations of sexual assault against its compartmentalizing quarterback.

Florida State is favored by two scores.

Today’s question: Who will get today’s bowl wrong?

 

One more to come.

Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowl Wrong?

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Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowl Wrong?

More picks, more wrong picks. Friday night had the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl. Ohio State was favored over Clemson by a touchdown in the Orange, Missouri over Oklahoma State by a point in Cotton.

Final scores:

  • Orange Bowl: Clemson 40, Ohio State 35
  • Cotton Bowl: Missouri 41, Oklahoma State 31

Spread predictions here.

Landmark

One up, one down, as to win-loss. Admittedly, either of these games could have gone either way. Fewer plays like the back-to-back interceptions near the end of the Cotton Bowl, fewer penalties, better time management. On the other hand, the predictions also failed to come anywhere near the total amount of scoring, and the total scores could have zoomed upward even more with fewer mistakes.

Missouri wins

Again, the line was emphatically wrong. So much for odds making. Let’s hope none of the injuries incurred in the games linger too long.

Orange

As of today, 32 games have been played on the NCAA football bowl schedule. Out of 32, a dozen picks have been completely wrong, and way more than a dozen picks, including some choosing the winner correctly, have given no true picture of the game. Who is hiring these experts?

Going forward

On to the next college bowl games; how will the next picks hold up?

Coming up next are a couple of Ho-Hum Bowls. Let’s hope they offer more play than injury.

Sat. Jan. 4: BBVA Compass Bowl:

Vanderbilt favored over Houston by a field goal

Sun. Jan. 5: GoDaddy Bowl:

Ball State picked over Arkansas State by two scores

Last night wasn’t too kind to schools named ‘State’. At least one will have to win tonight.

Today’s question: Who will get today’s bowls wrong? (That post can wait until Monday.)

 

More to come.

Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowls Wrong?

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Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowls Wrong?

Yesterday, the odds on the bowl were short and sweet: In the Sugar Bowl, Alabama was favored over Oklahoma by at least two scores.

Final score: Oklahoma 45, Alabama 31.

Spread predictions here.

How the mighty are fallen, and I don’t mean Alabama.

Oklahoma!

The odds makers continue their inadequate performance. Not a lot of games on Jan. 2, but the big game was one of the major bowls. The Sugar Bowl is one of the real bowls–like the Cotton Bowl and the Orange Bowl–and still the established pickers got it wrong. The line was emphatically wrong.

The predictions were wrong even by the broad win-loss rubric. They were even more wrong on the picture of the game itself. Alabama came out scoring at the beginning, and the first minutes looked liked an Ahh, Whatever Bowl, but the initial snapshot had little to do with the rest of the game. No predictor said that Oklahoma would end up with something like 45 points, and anyone who predicted Alabama with 31 would not have projected that as a loss. Regrettably, I was not able to watch much of this game. That made the picture clearer: every other time I tuned back in, it seemed, Alabama’s quarterback was getting sacked again, or Alabama was about to try a third down, or Oklahoma players were clapping one or two of their own on the back, shoulders, or helmet in jubilation . . .

Caught behind

Too bad, in a way. A week of college football had started me wondering why coaches don’t teach their players to C.O.V.E.R-THE-R.E.C.E.I.V.E.R.S instead of always going for the big play on defense. Easy for me to say, of course, and even a non-expert can see that it’s easier to swarm one man, or attempt to, than to scatter around the field in different directions chasing several different moving targets. Still–getting close to a receiver can sometimes result in an interception, and getting the ball is better even than getting the quarterback. The repeated sacks against Alabama may have contributed to undo that little moral of the story.

Side note: ESPN (on Verizon FIOS) continuously captioned the Oklahoma-Alabama game “Rose Bowl 2014,” at least in the Washington, D.C., viewing region. They never corrected the error, all night long, so far as I know.

As of today, 30 games have been played on the NCAA football bowl schedule. Out of 30, eleven picks have been completely wrong. More than a dozen picks, including some choosing the winner correctly, have given no true picture of the game. On days when there were several football bowl games, much of the picking was wrong. On a day with only one bowl, the picking was wrong. Why would anyone bet on these experts like these?

Why would anyone bet on college students playing sports in the first place?

Going forward

On to the next college bowl games; how will the next picks hold up?

One of the last bowls 2013-2014

Today has the Orange Bowl and the Cotton Bowl:

Today’s question: Who will get today’s bowls wrong?

More to come.

Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowl Wrong?

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Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowl Wrong?

As of New Year’s Day, the odds on yesterday’s football bowls were as follows:

Jan. 1, 2014:

 

Wrong

Spread predictions here.

Six games on Jan. 1; four games picked emphatically wrong. Four 180-degree wrong predictions even by the broad win-loss rubric. Georgia was nowhere near beating Nebraska by two scores in the Gator Bowl, and South Carolina beat Wisconsin definitively in the Capital One Bowl. Central Florida came out scoring in the Fiesta Bowl and never stopped. The Rose Bowl was very hard fought from start to finish, but Stanford seldom or never looked like a favorite.

 

Hard won

LSU did not crush Iowa in the Outback Bowl, either. That game was more wobbly than predicted to be, though the outcome was correctly predicted. LSU had to fight all the way down to the fizzle of an end*–when it almost mismanaged the clock in final seconds so as to give the ball back to Iowa on downs. The coach had to intervene and arm-wave away a snap. Sometimes it’s a mistake to get too cute. With more than a minute left to play, any team worth its salt ought to be able to run a play without undue risk of disaster. If you’re ahead in the final minute and a half but can’t handle one snap, just one snap, and a single attempt to gain a few yards–that don’t even have to be gained successfully, for the win–maybe you don’t belong in a bowl in the first place. Perhaps the rules should be changed to prohibit taking a knee with more than 60 seconds left in the game.

Won

The Heart of Dallas Bowl and a couple of others serve as reminders that again, future years may see a need for more new bowl names. Lackluster Bowl?

 

Bowl season

As of today, 29 games have been played on the NCAA football bowl schedule. Out of 29, ten picks have been completely wrong. Ten or so of the winning teams and right picks, the favored, depending on how you count them, were favored too narrowly to be realistic. The prognosticators’ ratio is still ailing.

Going forward

On to the next college bowl games; how will the next picks hold up?

Today is the Sugar Bowl:

Today’s question: Who will get today’s bowl wrong?

 

*I root for Louisiana teams and thought LSU would be more solid. A regrettable typo in the previous post–typing in ‘Outback Bowl’ instead of ‘Capital One Bowl’–has been corrected. It would have been more wizardly if I had done it on purpose. Maybe I was picking up on something registered subliminally. Uncle Sigmund, call your office . . .

Speaking of offices, tacking on those sponsor names is making the bowl names more forgettable, not less. The more syllables, by and large, the more obscure.

More to come.

 

Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowls Wrong?

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Which Odds Makers Will Get today’s College Bowls Wrong?

Lots and lots of hindsight. Not so much foresight. Once again, betting on college sports has got to be a mug’s game, even aside from the general sleaziness and greasiness of putting money on other people’s bone-breaking from the vantage point of the couch, while fork-lifting plaque into the arteries via fat-filled dips washed down with alcohol. Not to sound like a latter-day Carrie Nation, gentlemen. But really. Google ‘Images’ for ‘bad cholesterol’.

ER care

As of yesterday, remember, the odds on yesterday’s football bowls were as follows:

Tuesday, Dec. 31 bowl games:

  • AdvoCare V100 Bowl: Arizona favored by about a touchdown over Boston College. Uh-huh. Final score: Arizona over BC 42-19
  • Sun Bowl: UCLA is picked over Virginia Tech by almost a touchdown: Final score: 42-12 UCLA
  • Liberty Bowl: Mississippi State favored over Rice: Final score: Miss State 44, Rice 7
  • Chick-fil-A Bowl: Texas A&M favored over Duke by at least two scores: Final score: A&M 52, Duke 48

 

Rice season

Spread predictions here.

That’s four games, with for a change four winners picked. However, three of the picks were so ludicrously undervalued that the prediction bears virtually no resemblance to the game. The Arizona-Boston College game was more lopsided than the score indicates. The UCLA-Virginia Tech game was more lopsided than the score indicates. Even the Mississippi State-Rice game was more lopsided than the score, not an easy feat to pull off with a final 44-7. The fourth bowl–Duke and Texas A&M–was undervalued in the other direction. Duke had an excellent chance of winning up to about the last minute and a half of the game. Arguably, Duke–which racked up 38 points in the first half–should have won. A couple of bad play calls and a wrong non-call on pass interference in the last quarter made a crucial difference in a game where mostly the Aggie defense looked helpless. Couldashouldawouldas aside, Duke predominated, especially in the first half, enough that the predictions in no way represented the game that took place. Duke can go home with nothing to be ashamed of.

There may be a need for more new bowl names in future years. Lopsided Bowl? Wild Card Bowl? Chalk-Up-a-Win Bowl? Beef-Up-Your-Stats Bowl? ‘Consolation Bowl’ is already de facto in use. As said, parody falls short in this context.

Not enough bowls

As of today, 23 games have been played on the NCAA football bowl schedule. Out of 23, six picks have been wrong. Of the winning teams and right picks, ten of the favored, depending on how you count them, were favored too narrowly to be realistic. The prognosticators’ ratio is not improving, although the narrow win-loss tally is.

Going forward

So–on to the next college bowl games: How will the next picks hold up? Happy 2014.

Jan. 1, 2014:

Nothing is a sure thing in sports. Given the youth of the players, there are especially no sure things in college sports, and then there are the massive injuries.

Once again, betting on these is unsavory–and foolhardy. Even a non-expert can see that the picks for the Gator, [Capital One], and Rose bowls are houses built on sand.

For the more consensus views, there is a little more supporting evidence. Outback Bowl sponsor Outback Steakhouse has been advertising a promotion: customers coming in tomorrow (Jan. 2) and mentioning the bowl can get a free coconut shrimp appetizer if Iowa wins, or a free blooming onion appetizer if LSU wins. Since the blooming onion is considerably less expensive to make than the coconut shrimp, it’s a safe bet that Outback sees LSU as more likely the victor.

Today’s question: Who will get today’s bowls wrong?

 

More to come.