OT: Savannah State getting 70 1/2 points vs Florida St.

Submitted by robbyt003 on

Yea I know,  tomorrow is game day and the season has started, but this is ridiculous.  I understand they got beat by OK st 84-0, but is this team really that bad that they will lose by over 70 points again?

"Without a doubt," said Mike Colbert, vice president of risk management for Las Vegas-based Cantor Gaming, "this is the biggest line I've put up in 10 years doing this."

LINK

State Street

September 7th, 2012 at 1:09 PM ^

Someone needs to calculate about how many first downs they need to get while chewing up the max amount of clock to only lose 70-0.  It can't be that many.

Ballsy move on Vegas' part.

LSAClassOf2000

September 7th, 2012 at 2:01 PM ^

Here is some very rough figuring for that:

Savannah State managed all of 8 first downs in 34:13 of possession last week on their way to scoring zero points. It's not a perfect calculation by any means, but assuming for the moment FSU could score at the same blinding pace as Oklahoma State, then Savannah St. either needs to find a way to keep the ball about six additional minutes (or FSU slows down the offense and keeps it for about the same amount of time) or a way to keep them to approximately 27 first downs (again, assuming FSU scores at the more or less the same rate - the Cowboys had 33 first downs). Alterantively, Savannah St. would need to get 2-3 more first downs in this scenario. Going with the same assumption, for kicks, it would mean holding FSU to 5-10 on third down conversions (compare to 7-10 for Oklahoma State).

All figures are approximate, of course.

ijohnb

September 7th, 2012 at 1:12 PM ^

cover that, nor will they try.  If they had any inclination to run the score up they certainly will not now.  If you are a gambler, take Savannah St.  That is easy money.

RickH

September 7th, 2012 at 1:52 PM ^

That's 18 points a quarter to cover.  FSU will constantly playing offense because Savannah State has no offense themselves (as well as FSU having a top-tier defense).  I'm not so sure that Savannah's D will be able to stop FSU's third stringers.  Savannah State is one of the worst teams in FCS (as in D-1AA).

justingoblue

September 7th, 2012 at 1:16 PM ^

Why would anyone take FSU? They won't even try to win by that margin, and will call off the dogs even if their third string OL is making room for their sixth RB to rush for numbers like that.

MichiWolv

September 8th, 2012 at 12:43 AM ^

Think of it this way:  When we played Delaware St. 3 years ago, we basically had our 3rd string in halfway through the 2nd quarter with the score 42-0.  We still finished the game with 63, and they couldn't stop us even when we tried running the clock out.  And we finished the game with the ball (just barely) on their side of the field.  Our 5-7 team put up 63 points and had there been a couple more minutes left, possibly 70.  #16/#18 Okie St. just beat them 84-0, so I think a 70.5 spread is pretty realistic for #6 FSU (even though rankings don't mean much this early in the season).

I wouldn't touch this game either way though...  

michfan6060

September 7th, 2012 at 1:32 PM ^

On one hand Florida State is going to try really hard to not run up the score, but on the other hand I watched some of that Savannah State Okie State game and they really really suck.

michfan6060

September 7th, 2012 at 1:43 PM ^

Savannah State lost to Bethune Cookman by 56 last year and to Southeastern Louisiana by 57. They are one of the worst teams in all of football. No way I would ever bet on them.

RickH

September 7th, 2012 at 1:48 PM ^

Yes, Savannah State IS that bad.  They're a bottom dwelling FCS team that FSU had to schedule late because West Virginia backed out.  They had 139 yards against Oklahoma State and FSU's defense is lightyears ahead of Okie State's D.  FSU's third stringers will still be better than Savannah State (we'll see if their starters even get a full half in or not).  They need to score 18 points a quarter to beat the spread, that's not a whole lot when you're constantly playing offense the whole game because the opposing team doesn't have one...

WCHBlog

September 7th, 2012 at 2:02 PM ^

I think the line on the Savannah St/OSU game last week was 67.5, and OkSt still covered that pretty easily.

EDIT: Also worth noting that despite losing 84-0, Savannah St did win the all-important time of possession battle.

ESNY

September 7th, 2012 at 2:06 PM ^

Last week, Oklahoma State scored on its first five possessions to take a 35-0 lead late in the first quarter, needing no more than 90 seconds on any of the scoring drives.  The 1st string was out after like 3 series and the 2nd stringers were out shortly after that.  They ran the ball 42 times for 400 yards.   It sounds like short of taking a knee, they almost couldn't not score (not sure if that double negative works there).

Tubes

September 7th, 2012 at 2:06 PM ^

Take Savannah State and tease it 7 points.  You still have 9 TDs and a hook, and a little more bang for your buck.  FSU won't run it up.

Nick

September 7th, 2012 at 6:10 PM ^

is the dumbest thing you can do

Teasing across 3 and 7 (say from -8.5 down to -2.5) improves the chance of covering by around 20%.

Teasing from say +70.5 to +77.5 improves the chance of covering my maaaybe 5%.  Not worth the $.

Oh and teasing college football in general is retarded as well.  Too much variance.

Teasing NFL, in certain situations, is profitable though.

State Street

September 7th, 2012 at 2:44 PM ^

Do you have any background into how this game came about?  FSU was scheduled to play WVU this weekend.  WVU bailed for the Big XII and thus FSU had to scramble.  Savannah State was free and they linked up to play this game.

If the phone rings, another school calls and says hey come play us on date X, we'll give you enough cash to run a bunch of non-revenue sports for the entire year - you don't turn that down.

FrankMurphy

September 7th, 2012 at 2:49 PM ^

Oklahoma State beat Savannah State 84-0 because they had dedicated the game to their defensive coordinator, who was in the hospital. Oklahoma State refused to call off the dogs even after building a huge lead because they were trying to notch a shutout in his honor. That won't be the case when FSU plays Savannah State.