I'm glad I did quite a bit of price shopping while I was in Vegas, because I think I got decent value with these picks. We'll see. I'm not entirely settled on my unit size for football, so these are in current units, but I don't think it makes a huge difference for record keeping purposes.
Georgia Tech 75-1 4x to win 300x at the Plaza Hotel and Casino
Michigan State 125-1 2x to win 250x at Four Queens Casino
The rationale for these picks are somewhat square, but in college football, where there are no good metrics, there will be some squareness to any future pick. In my opinion, in college football, schedule analysis plays some role in determining how teams will do, and that was a driver in both these picks.
Georgia Tech is returning 17 starters from a middle of the pack ACC team last year, though everyone except Duke was middle of the pack last year. Their schedule is set up somewhat favorable, getting North Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Georgia at home. Their hardest road game will be in Tallahassee on October 10th.
While those are decent reasons for liking Tech, I have to admit that my opinion of them is driven strongly by the Flexbone offense they run. I'm a bit of a Smart Football fanboy and think GT will thrive in Year 2 of Paul Johnson's offense. With teams only seeing the flex once a year, it gives a strategic advantage to the offense (see: 2008 Georgia game).
The big question mark for Tech will be do they have the talent to compete for the MNC? North Carolina continues to amass talent and Virginia Tech always has a strong defense. Even if they get through the ACC unscathed, they would be heavy dogs to Florida, Texas, or USC in the national title game. Still, 75-1 is the best price I've seen on the Jackets since futures opened and that represents value in my mind.
Michigan State loses Brian Hoyer and Javon Ringer, but neither are big time losses. Hoyer was a typical mediocre Big Ten quarterback, while Ringer got a lot of touches but wasn't particularly explosive when he had the rock.
This pick is basically like Jonny's Penn State future on steroids. Ohio State is universally regarded as the Big Dog in the Big Ten, but have a lot of holes to fill on both sides of the ball and Terelle Pryor was not particuarly impressive throwing the ball in his freshman year (not because he was a freshman, either; the guy had the worst throwing motion I've seen from a D-1 QB). Penn State is regarded as their closest competitor, but again, faces big holes at WR, OL, and DB. Sparty has been picked mostly third in the conference this year and Dantonio has been bringing in good recruiting classes somewhat quietly, but like Tech, faces a talent disparity with the UFs and UTs of the world.
Michigan State's schedule sets up somewhat favorably. I'm not on the Notre Dame bandwagon yet, but the two Directional Michigans will be difficult non-conference tests. Once getting to the Big Ten schedule, they miss Ohio State and get Penn State and Iowa at home, so they couldn't have asked for a better set up heading into the season.
Obviously, all of what I have written is stuff that the books have likely considered in setting these lines, but the fact that I saw GT as low at 40-1 at many books and Sparty as low as 45-1 at one leads me to me think that these plays have value going into the season (or, at least, someone who matters banged these teams down).
I've got some cleaning up to do after getting back from Vegas, but I hope to put up a basic analysis of the futures I found in Vegas which maybe will illuminate some value at offshore books looking forward (or not, but it will be fun to play with numbers anyway).
The CFB Futures Positions
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Labels:
2009 college football,
futures,
waste of money
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
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3 comments:
I would point out that much of the reason Ringer was not so explosive was BECAUSE he had so many touches. Coaches had little faith in Hoyer and tried to bring him along slowly. Hoyer's debacle against FAU set things back.
So by the time the meat of the B10 season came Ringer was pooped. I'm amazed he could play the week after Michigan.
I too am a big SF fanboy, and love GT. But when LSU had lots of time to prepare for the flexbone running PJ could't get the Shoot portion of the offense to pick up the slack.
There is one small add'l consideration: Wake Forest sees fellow flexbone team Navy two weeks before GT. In fact, by the time they face the Yellow Jackets this fall WF will have seen the flex three times since the beginning of 2008.
I would point out that much of the reason Ringer was not so explosive was BECAUSE he had so many touches. Coaches had little faith in Hoyer and tried to bring him along slowly. Hoyer's debacle against FAU set things back.
So by the time the meat of the B10 season came Ringer was pooped. I'm amazed he could play the week after Michigan.
Why does this argument fail for Brown (1st in yards, 2nd in attempts, 12th in POE), Lewis (3/3/31), McCoy (9/4/14), or Greene (2/5/2) if use was the problem? I could see the argument if Ringer was mediocre in POE, but he was flat out awful.
But when LSU had lots of time to prepare for the flexbone running PJ could't get the Shoot portion of the offense to pick up the slack.
Agreed. Therein lies my concern if, for whatever fluky reason, GT makes the title game. Still, the offense should be better this year with another year for both the mental aspects of running the flex and having Dwyer and Nesbitt a year older. I'm far more concerned with the GT defense against good teams.
Should have worded things a little better. I'm not saying Ringer was the most explosive back around. But his overuse made him look worse than he really was.
The Michigan game was Ringer's Waterloo. He carried the ball 37 times for 194 yards. In the 2nd half he would have problems just walking back to the huddle. He had shoulder problems, hip problems, leg problems.
After that win, Ringer had carried 300 times in just 9 games. Total yards at that point, 1367. Not awesome numbers, but the offense was SOOOOO predictable. Everyone knew what was coming. MSU had lost a couple of very good pass catchers, and the safeties cheated in more. Ringer was often running against 8 in the box.
Last 4 games? 89 carries, 258 yards. Less than 3 per.
D'Antonio sacrificed Ringer's body to get to a New Year's Day bowl game. If I were Javon I wouldn't be caught on the sidelines in East Lansing this fall. D'Antonio would be tempted to sneak him on to the field.
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