Taking The Pulse Of The Betting Markets

Texas finds itself a 6 point underdog a few days out from the Ohio State game. It’s not clear where that line is headed over the next 72 hours when betting limits stop being throttled and the various syndicates start making their move, but the line being immediately bet up after a OSU -4.5 open may be instructive.

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On the other side of the ledger, Notre Dame is a narrow favorite over Penn State (-1.5 or -2.0) for reasons that I can best attribute to a preference for Marcus Freeman over James Franklin. The teams, as currently comprised, are pretty much a deadlock.

Georgia gave the game away against Notre Dame (the Dawgs played hard and well for about ten quarters this year – six of them against Texas) and Boise State never had the dudes to compete with the Nittany Lions.

Back to Texas…

Judging by college football media and general public perception, Texas should forfeit the Cotton Bowl matchup and buy that network time for portal infomercials so as to avoid the public humiliation of losing by seven or eight touchdowns.

I predict we will probably play the game. Perhaps on the off chance that Ohio State contracts Beriberi or all give each other pink eye.

That number may hold, but I suspect it will make a move towards Ohio State -7 or retreat into the vague no-man’s land of -5.5. The juice around those numbers will be telling. To really understand the market movement, look at the money lines of Texas +180 to +200.

On the spread, the obvious resistance points in either direction will be -7.5 to -4.5. At that point, computer modelers will simply auto fire.

The Cotton Bowl total is a robust 53.5.

When you consider that Texas and Ohio State have Top 3 defenses by both personnel and performance, an imputed 30-24 score suggests competent offense. Or it suggests the potential for either team to score cheap defensive or special teams touchdowns.

Or this is an anticipation of game state. A Buckeye lead and Texas throwing it 30 times in the second half with a halting clock for an attempted backdoor cover.

Beyond single game handicapping, these are the current odds to win it all:

• Ohio State -125
• Notre Dame +430
• Texas +460
• Penn State +500

Texas is 3rd in those odds precisely because they have to play Ohio State. We know this because Texas is -2.5 or -3 in hypothetical markets against Penn State and Notre Dame in a title game. Were Texas on the other side of the bracket, they’d be the clear cut #2.

Ohio State is the clear favorite to win it all (you can take an anyone in the field but Ohio State as champion bet at +102 right now on Fan Duel), but they are an interesting test case for sober, clear-eyed bettors.

Good sports gamblers do not overreact to recency bias. They are not habitual steam chasers and they’re skeptical of bandwagons built on two weeks of data.

The media and public are in a frenzy because Ohio State drilled a very flawed Tennessee in Columbus and then dismembered #1 Oregon in the Rose Bowl. They’re a juggernaut.

I get it. I saw them visit depravities on the Ducks.

They’re also the juggernaut that lost to 8-5 Michigan at home at the end of the regular season. For reasons. Incredibly embarrassing and dumb ones. But it happened.

This is a classic fade spot if you think Texas is a resilient dog with enough athletes to match up. Texas isn’t Boise State or Indiana. The Horns have dudes. They can level athletically.

Sure, Ohio State is on a tear playing at their ceiling, but teams play up, teams play down, and you’re better off trusting their median level of play for prognosticative purposes. They should be a 3 or 3.5 point favorite over Texas, not 6 or more. So take the Horns late and the free points. Hell, maybe you get a touchdown and a hook out of it as the public goes nuts late backing the Buckeyes.

This is the sober long view.

Not so fast, though.

This recency bias argument cuts two ways for sophisticated bettors. There’s another long view to be considered.

One that began back in April.

Ohio State is the most talented roster in the country. Always has been. They have been since everyone decided to come back, they brought in the most lethal weapon in college football from a high school in Florida and then they augmented liberally with the best portal class in the country.

Their currently level of play is is actually who they are.

It was simply a matter of waiting for their coaches to figure it out and stop actively making the team worse. Their recent play isn’t anomalous. Their play is exactly predictive of the best team in the country getting its act together.

Once that potential is realized, there’s no retreat to Michigan type nonsense.

This is actually taking a long view as well. And it is extremely plausible.