Bruins host Cardinal in Pac-10 opener
NCAA Football Betting Lines
09/08/2010 - Pasadena, CA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The 25th-ranked Stanford Cardinal kicks off its Pac-10 Conference slate against UCLA at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.
Stanford vaulted into the national rankings following a convincing 52-17 victory over Sacramento State in the season opener. The Cardinal is looking to improve upon last year's eight-win campaign, and last week's showing is a good start. The schedule gets fairly difficult in a hurry, as Stanford will face Wake Forest next week, followed by back-to-back road contests at Notre Dame and Oregon, then it's back home to face USC.
Meanwhile, UCLA was upended by Kansas State last weekend, 31-22. The Bruins struggled on both sides of the ball, although they put together a late rally to nearly pull off the win. UCLA plays three of its next four games at home.
UCLA owns a 45-32-3 edge in the all-time series with Stanford, although the Cardinal notched a 24-16 victory last season at Stanford Stadium to end a five-game slide versus the Bruins.
There wasn't much for Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh to nitpick about from last Saturday's offensive performance. The 52 points scored marked the program's third-highest scoring total in the modern era. Stanford has reached 40 or more points six times in three-plus seasons under Harbaugh, and last year ranked 11th nationally with 35.4 ppg. If last week was any indication, Stanford should continue to put up points in bunches this season.
The offense accounted for 529 total yards against Sacramento State, including 316 yards through the air from quarterback Andrew Luck. Luck set a personal best with four touchdowns in the victory, while his 316 yards were the second- highest total of his career. Doug Baldwin hauled in four passes for a career- high 111 yards and two scores. In all, the Cardinal had five plays of 30 or more yards.
"The big plays are really encouraging," Harbaugh said. "That's something that strikes fear into a defense and lets them know you have the ability to do that. It was good to see, and it was good to see us finish drives."
Defensively, the Cardinal allowed just 167 yards of total offense, which is the fewest since 2006, when they allowed 161 total yards against Washington.
"I was pleased with the way the defense played, particularly the secondary," Harbaugh said. "They had no missed coverages, and for the opening ballgame of the season that's pretty rare."
One of Sacramento State's two touchdowns came on a punt return, and the other came after a fumble set the Hornets up with a short field at the Stanford 29. Other than that, yards were tough to come by against the Stanford D. Two Hornets quarterbacks combined to throw for 113 yards and were sacked three times, while the ground attack was stifled to a combined 1.8 yards per carry. Max Bergen paced the unit with eight tackles and a forced fumble, while Chase Thomas notched two sacks in the victory.
UCLA sophomore quarterback Kevin Prince had a day to forget in last week's opener as he completed just 9-of-26 passes for 120 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. Prince had some promising moments last year as a freshman, but coach Rick Neuheisel is expecting more consistency this year from his signal-caller. He guided the Bruins on a quick scoring drive to cut the deficit to two with 1:19 to play, but he was not able to connect on a two- point attempt to try and tie the game. Senior kicker Kai Forbath is a solid weapon, having connected on 40 straight field goals from 50 yards or closer. Forbath was tops in the nation last year with 2.15 field goals per game. He went 3-for-3 in field goals against K-State, however Neuheisel is looking for more touchdowns from his offense.
UCLA has some work to do on the defensive side of the ball, particularly against the run. Kansas State running back Daniel Thomas gashed the Bruins for a career-high 234 yards and two touchdowns last week. If the Cardinal does not tighten up in a hurry they could be in for a long season in the Pac-10. The strength of the defense is in the secondary, as Stanford ranked 28th in the nation in pass defense a year ago. All-American safety Rahim Moore is the linchpin of this unit. He led the nation with 10 interceptions a year ago and is one of three starters returning in the secondary. However, as long as opponents are picking up chunks of yardage on the ground, there is little incentive to test Moore and the rest of the secondary.
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How to bet pro football
There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
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