South Carolina opens at -4.5

Submitted by ish on

4.5 points seems a tad too much to me toward South Carolina.  I would've expected 3 or thereabouts.  But I'm no Vegas insider.  Jamie?

BeatOSU52

December 3rd, 2012 at 4:14 PM ^

Here is a link to the rest of spreads that have come out so far (don't think it's worth a new topic):

 

http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-football/odds/las-vegas/

 

TCU is a 1 point favorite over MSU currently.  Alabama is a 9.5 favorite over ND.  OK St is a 17.5 favorite over Purdue....I follow spreads pretty closely and I don't think I've seen someone favored that high in a bowl game for a while.

 

Someone from mgoblog should set up a yahoo or espn bowl pick 'em group (with confidence points)....

mGrowOld

December 3rd, 2012 at 3:36 PM ^

Actually a bit lower than I thought it would be.  I was guessing we'd open about -7.

The interesting part of betting is watching what happens next.  Which way will the line move from this point onward?  The Alabama game saw the initial line move a LOT as all the money dropped on Alabama and kept dropping on Alabama right up until kickoff.  Not that it means anything to the ultimate outcome but it is a bit disconcerning when seemingly everyone thinks your team is about to get it's ass kicked (and they were unfortunately right).

BeatOSU52

December 3rd, 2012 at 4:39 PM ^

A good site to follow where the money is moving is covers.com.   For instance, if you click on this link, and click "Lines History", you can see the money is has been poured on Navy the last few days to cover the spread vs Army this Saturday.

http://www.covers.com/odds/football/college-football-odds.aspx

 

Just thought I'd share for anyone interested...

alum96

December 4th, 2012 at 7:05 AM ^

I'm with you sir, I expected 7 or so.  All this talk about "favorable" matchup seems to forget USC's demolition of Georgia 35-7.   They lost to LSU by 2 and the only saving grace is a blowout loss to Florida, but that was game 3 of a brutal 3 game stretch of GA, LSU, and FL back to back - can you imagine?  South Carolina is a superior product to last year's V-Tech team which we all know was a "stolen" game (no complaints) and once again we have speed, speed, speed to deal with. 

On the plus side SC beat Wofford 24-7 so maybe they'll take it for granted and Michigan's improved defensive play will keep us in the game.  Just difficult to see a very close game without a run game not named Denard.  But that said, I would rather see this matchup than a lesser bowl since it keeps putting up measuring sticks.

Ali G Bomaye

December 3rd, 2012 at 10:04 PM ^

Most of the time when we play an SEC team it's in a Florida-based bowl game, so we should be at an equal homefield disadvantage to playing the Pac 10 in the Rose Bowl.  And while the USC song girls are incredible, it's not like SEC teams have ugly cheerleaders...

ST3

December 3rd, 2012 at 3:55 PM ^

Probably mentioned elsewhere, but all 7 B1G teams are underdogs. Look at it this way, the conference only has to win 1 game to exceed expectations.

Don

December 3rd, 2012 at 4:06 PM ^

??? On one hand we've got a 10-2 team that pounded the snot out of Georgia, who was within 5 yards and 10 seconds of winning a spot in the NC game, and on the other we've got an 8-4 team that didn't score a single TD in three games and was just a hair away from being 6-6.

Even without Lattimore, 4.5 seems a bit generous to me.

Don

December 3rd, 2012 at 4:54 PM ^

Just a couple of minutes of perusing various sites seems to show that it's not as clear-cut as you say when it comes to who's had the tougher SOS:

SC stronger sked:

http://www.teamrankings.com/college-football/ranking/strength-of-schedu…

http://www.collegefootballpoll.com/current_congrove_rankings.html

UM stronger sked:

http://www.jhowell.net/cf/cf2012.htm

http://www.colleyrankings.com/currank.html

alum96

December 4th, 2012 at 7:17 AM ^

Do you think if OSU or ND played in the SEEE EEEEHHH CEEEE they'd be undefeated teams? Let's be real - this was (save for last year) one of OSU's worst teams in perhaps a decade. They barely beat Indiana mid season.  They squeeked by a very average MSU team. They were very beatable by a "bit above average" Michigan team at home.

As for ND - great defense, and lots of fog and mirrors.  If Denard had knelt every play in the 2nd Q, Michigan wins that game.  Stanford is their main quality win of the year and that was "disputed".  They played USC without their QB. Etc.

S.C's top 3 opponents were GA, FL, LSU.  Michigan's were Bama, ND, and OSU.  I don't think that supports Michigan having a much more difficult schedule whatever the rankings.  On a neutral field do you see OSU or ND being a favorites versus those teams? If yes by more tha 1 point or 2?  They are equitable.  The rest of Michigan schedule was a garbage Big 10 conference that was ugly in non conference.  ANd dont give me Nebraska that was owned by Wisconsin, OSU and UCLA.

ChiCityWolverine

December 3rd, 2012 at 4:16 PM ^

Fair line. HOWEVA, I love the matchup for Michigan. I expect a Brian-esque 19-15 score in this one. SC will not move the ball very well against us.



If the D can contain Ace Sanders, it comes down to how Devin Gardner handles the pressure. X-factor will be the effectiveness of a gameplan utilizing Denard as a weapon.

LSAClassOf2000

December 3rd, 2012 at 6:19 PM ^

The line pretty  fair and actually a little below what the Sagarin numbers would estimate for the game actually. I checked the VI Consensus movement progress for this game as well and it looks like, right now, the O/U is hanging out around 48 points. My very preliminary inclination would be to take the "under" on the total for this game. 

Tater

December 3rd, 2012 at 5:16 PM ^

Michigan is a four-loss Big Ten team playing a two-loss SEC team.  Considering the public's perception of the SEC compared to the Big Ten, and considering that odds are simply designed to even out betting, I'm surprised the line isn't closer to 7.

StateStreet

December 3rd, 2012 at 7:38 PM ^

I don't think Michigan is a great team this year, but let's look at our four losses. Losses against the #1, #2, and #3 teams in the country, and a loss against Nebraska with a RS freshman behind center taking the first meaningful snaps of his career in a tough road environment. I think we have a better shot at this than some people might think.

Marshmallow

December 3rd, 2012 at 8:26 PM ^

Maybe, but we haven't beaten anyone.  SC crushed Georgia, which looks like the second-best team in the country.LSU and Florida are better than Ohio State and maybe even ND.  And the Nebraska loss didn't look so bad until you realize that anyone's grandmother could have run for 100 yards on their defense.  They're terrible.  I think we ought to show some humility, for once, particularly after the beating we took to start this season.  We're not that good this year.  Sorry to say it.  It hurts to realize it, but it's true.

ThadMattasagoblin

December 3rd, 2012 at 8:38 PM ^

South Carolina didn't play the # 1, # 2 , and # 3 teams away from home.  They got crushed by Florida and Georgia was coming off of an uninspiring game against Tennessee when they played So. Car.  Georgia was a different team at that particular time than the past few weeks.