Will The Real USC Please Stand Up?
Time to go back to the well. When it comes to USC, depending on your point of view, Vegas either believes it's still 2005, or it is dramatically underestimating a team that's still on track to play in its third straight national championship game. Which is it? Let's take a look. Southern Cal is favored by 18.5 at home against an Arizona State team that's been absolutely manhandled at Cal (49-21) and home against Oregon (48-13), the only two real games it's played this year. USC has won six consecutive games over ASU, by an average of 26.7 points (and by an average of 30 points in three games at the Coliseum). Sun Devils QB Rudy Carpenter has thrown two TDs and five INTs in his two Pac-10 games this year, and for the season has seen his completion percentage, which was over 68% in his freshman year, drop to 54% so far this year. And ASU's defense is, in a word, bad. They're 89th in the country stopping the run (and this includes three games against Colorado, Nevada and Northern Arizona), and 82nd against the pass. They allow 4.1 yards per carry, and a 62.4% completion percentage against. It's hard to imagine them slowing down the Trojans much. On the other side of the coin, the Trojans haven't exactly been a bettor's paradise this year. Sure, they're 5-0, but they've failed to cover in any of their Pac-10 games so far in '06. They were a 21.5-point favorite at Arizona and won by 17, a 14-point favorite at Washington State and won by six, and a 19-point favorite at home last week against Washington, and won by six. Since a 50-point outburst in the opener against Arkansas, the USC offense has been nothing special; they still gain a ton of yards, but they're having a hard time scoring touchdowns. The wide receivers are banged-up, and no one in the crowded Trojans backfield has stepped forward to claim either Reggie Bush or LenDale White's jobs. Emmanuel Moody may be the best of the group (a 6.6 yards-per-carry average would have you believe so), but a year after Bush and White combined for 44 touchdowns, the Southern Cal runners have accounted for a grand total of six. So which is it? Is USC living off past glory, or are they lying in wait, ready to spring an explosive offensive game to announce their presence? Against Arizona State, I think the line is too low. The Sun Devils are simply dreadful against the spread in their last several games. They're 0-4 ATS in conference games, 0-6 ATS against winning teams, 1-4 ATS when underdogs by more than 10.5, and 2-5 ATS overall. I could quote you all kinds of glowing numbers about Southern Cal's recent ATS performance, but the truth is that those stats would include the past couple years, when the Trojans were dominant; this year, as I mentioned above, USC is underperforming against the number. There are no two ways about it. But this week, I think that will change. All-American candidate WR Dwayne Jarrett will be back and looking for blood (though his running mate, Steve Smith, will be out with a bad ankle). The Sun Devils' run game, behind junior Ryan Torain, has been good, but Southern Cal's rush defense is excellent (21st in the nation, 3.4 ypc against). Carpenter will throw the ball downfield, but with a TD/INT ratio of 11-to-9, he can be rattled, and will make mistakes. ASU is 2-18 straight-up against ranked teams since Dirk Koetter has been their coach, and also in the Koetter Administration, they're 0-11 in Pac-10 games played at USC, Cal, Stanford and UCLA. Last year's ASU team was an offensive powerhouse, scoring 40+ points five times. This year, though, with Sam Keller gone to Nebraska and Carpenter struggling a bit, points and yards have been more difficult to come by, and the defense has been brutal. It's possible that John David Booty and his band of '06 Trojans have me hoodwinked, but Southern Cal was good to me earlier this year against Nebraska, and I think they'll come out with guns blazing Saturday night. Remember, for all the talent it lost on defense, the Trojans are still only allowing just under 14 points a game, and still boast an impressive array of offensive talent. I don't see how the Sun Devils can score enough to stay with them. So I'm taking USC (-18.5) at home against Arizona State. Last Week: Oops. When you get caught in an avalanche, I suppose it's best to just get out quick with your head down. After four straight wins, I had a piece of Auburn, as a 15.5-point favorite, hosting Arkansas. Yeah, right. Well, not only did Arkansas cover, they won the dang game. I TiVo'd this one, and fast forwarded through the uninteresting parts. Then, by the third quarter, I stopped watching altogether. Kenny Irons's Heisman candidacy went up in a puff of smoke, as the Hogs completely shut him down with a zone-blitzing scheme that had the Tigers shaking their heads all day. Thus does another national championship hope come crumbling down. Anyway, for the season, that puts me at 4-2 against the spread. Christopher Harris is a featured writer for the Professional Handicappers League. Read all of his articles at http://www.procappers.com |
Other Football System Articles
Sports Book: A Popular Obsession For centuries sports have always played a large role in people’s lives. They have provided entertainment and an escape; a fun and competitive way to connect with fellow fans. With the birth of the internet, sports have also played a large role in the industry. Recently sports books, a place for all sports addicts to place bets on games, have bee ...Casino Gambling: Taking Full Control over the Games Nothing beats the allure of Casino Gambling. Whether it be a real or an online casino, millions of people worldwide flock these sites just to experience a slice of the luxury, fun, and entertainment offered by these places. Every player naturally wants to get a hold of the entire casino experience and yet he can only take as much as his money ...Football Wagering Lines If you enjoy sports betting you probably like to bet on football games. Of course if you just place a friendly bet with a friend you’re probably not very concerned about the football wagering lines or how they are arrived at. However, if you’re serious about betting the football wagering lines can be a key to success, but you want to know all of ...Blackjack Tournaments In recent years, more casinos have begun hosting blackjack tournaments. From a consumer’s perspective, they are usually accompanied by hotel and meal specials and it’s therefore a good idea to book a trip around a tournament. Players tend to enjoy tournament play because rather than competing against the house, players compete against each other ...Learn Blackjack Card Counting and Beat the Dealer! Blackjack is one of the few games where you can get an edge over the casino.This is something you can learn and profit from quickly and easily.Before you learn to card count however, you need to be familiar with blackjack basic strategy, the system that all card-counting strategies are based upon.Here we will introduce you t ...10 Poker Trivia Questions Caught up in the poker craze? Can’t get away from the televised tournaments?Think you know the stars like Howard, Annie, the many Phil's, Barry, the Magician, the Grinder, and the Unabomber?Well, here’s the chance to impress your buddies on poker night. See if you can identify the players in this quiz.Answers below. ...Asian Handicaps Explained The most common way to bet on football in the UK is with 3 way betting (sometimes called 1X2). The three options are home win, draw and away win. Working out whether you win a bet is straight forward. If you bet on a home win and the home side wins, you win, else you loose. The same goes for the draw and the away win.The aim of Asian Hand ...Poker Tournament Field Sizes With the advance of online poker, players are no longer relegated to choosing the only tournament available to them at their local card room. The excitement of tournament poker has been a driving force behind the new found interest in the game, as can be seen by the growth in tournament options and availability at all the top online poker rooms. ...The Dish: Nothing Korny When ESPN announced Tony Kornheiser would man the Monday Night Football booth, I smiled.I used to watch Pardon The Interruption all the time, and while its formula has gotten old and tired (perhaps primarily because the wizards at ESPN Original Entertainment have sucked the life out of it by trying to apply it to just about every other sh ...Secret Clandestine Facial Recognition Countermeasures and The Future of the CIA Presently Universities and Private Enterprise are working to build more robust “Facial Recognition Technologies” due to the Homeland Security Funding for such research this field continues to grow. Anti-Terrorist efforts are a worldwide goal, so we are sharing this technologies with allies for use in their countries. These new technologies will ...Texas Holdem Poker Strategy: Playing the Blinds The blinds in Texas hold'em are positions that oblige the player to place a bet before getting to see the cards. A blind is often thought of an imposed pre-flop bid, because it is made before getting your cards. You don't have a choice when in this position and you will have o bet the amount the game imposed for the respective blind. Texas hold' ...A Way To Achieve Successful Step-Parenting Blending of families is becoming more familiar today. When a new family unit comes together, when parents remarry and their spouse’s children come into the mix, there are many readjustments to be made. All the parents I have spoken to admit that this isn’t an easy or simple task. Thank goodness there are certain solutions available that wil ...Betting the Arena League People ask me about how to handicap Arena League football. The answer is far more simpler than one might think: It's football! While the rules are different from the NFL, the same betting strategies apply. Revenge situations, match-up analysis, home/road breakdowns, coaching, previous meetings, strength versus weaknesses, etc. Betting numbers ar ...Football Wagering Football wagering is the gambling activity with the most demand on the sports wagering industry. NFL Football has attracted millions of persons to their stadiums, reached millions of televisions across the world and encouraged American football fans to bet on the sport, pushing NFL football wagering with great strength.For those of you th ...Ness Notes for August 21 The Seahawks beat the Colts last night at Indy 30-17 and the Raiders made it three straight wins this preseason when they beat the 49ers 23-7 in Oakland. The Colts have now lost eight consecutive preseason games (2-6 ATS), matching the Chiefs' eight-game slide (0-8 ATS). The 49ers had their five-game ATS winning streak snapped last night (were j ...Why Use an Internet Sports Book to Make Wagers? Although I started using online sportsbooks almost ten years ago, I still maintained contact with a couple of local books for the express purpose of getting better lines with regard to the local or favorite teams of choice in my neck of the woods, the reasoning of course was so that if I saw "Value" in going against the the local or favorite tea ...Blackjack Card Counting – Do You Believe These 4 Myths? Card counting does put the odds in the favor of blackjack players however there are common misconceptions about card counting that can and do cause players to lose.If you want to win at blackjack and do card counting then it is important you don’t believe these 4 myths:The More complicated the method the betterA card countin ...Go To a Casino Gambling Online Site, Have Fun And Make Money There are lots of casino gambling online sites with several different types of internet casinos at which you can play. There are two main types of sites: No-download Java-based sites which load directly in your browser. The other group is casino download game sites which allow you to download the games to your computer's hard disk.The fir ...5 Steps To Choose A Great Online Football Betting Service Sports Betting on the NFL and college football is a national pastime. Every week millions of dollars are bet on the home town favorites with local bookies. People bet even more money with online sports book agencies. Even the major news services publish all the betting stats.If you're going to bet money on games, you might as well be as i ...Ohio State/Texas 2006 Rematch It took late game heroics by Vince Young to lift last year’s National Champs past Ohio State in the Horse Shoe last season. Although Texas has home field on their side in 2006, Ohio State and their high-powered offense led by quarterback Troy Smith will be out for revenge.How does the Texas defense stack up against Ohio State’s prolific o ...College Football Week #10: Where Is Frank Solich? Ever wondered what happened to Frank Solich?You remember that guy: he was the coach at the University of Nebraska for six seasons. He was the loyal lieutenant who took over the Cornhuskers from Tom Osborne, proof positive that it's never a good thing to be the guy who takes over from The Guy. After compiling a 64-19 record as Nebraska's h ...The Dish: When 2-6 Is Favored To Beat 6-2 Strange, strange, strange line for the Steelers/Saints game at the Big Ketchup this weekend. New Orleans is 6-2, with an exciting aerial attack, visiting Pittsburgh, who's 2-6, and just gave up three touchdown passes to Jake Plummer. The Saints have the fourth-best passing offense in the game; the Steelers have allowed big days by Carson Palmer, ...NFL and NCAA Sportsbook Parlays In NFL sportsbook parlays you are supposed to link together some individual bets. You win if all your individual sportsbook parlays win. Even if you lose a single one, the entire sportsbook parlay bet is lost.The NFL sportsbook parlay can be reverse down to the next level. For example, a four team parlay bet would become a three team parl ...Winning Poker Hands Do you like to play poker? If so, you have something in common with the millions of other Americans who have caught “poker fever.” Thanks in large part to the explosive popularity of such big-money televised poker tournaments like the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Open, the game of poker is fast becoming a top sport. Texas Holdem is ...Beware of So-Called Baccarat Strategy Card Counting is one of those phony ideas published in baccarat strategy books. Card counting is most often associated with the game of blackjack - and is very effected, used correctly in the right casino. It could also seem to be of real worth in baccarat as the game does work off a comparable shoe. The issue that causes the problem is that ...DirecTV Satellite, Dish Network or Cable TV? 'Tis the Question! We’ve seen all of the television commercials, heard the radio ads, and gazed upon the billboards as we drive down the highway- the war is on and in high gear between the cable and satellite companies, and then more intensely between DirecTV and Dish Network. Each company is constantly ripping apart the other, making negative claims about the ser ...How to Start Your Own Home Poker Game The Home poker game scene is one of the fastest growing leisure activities around just now. With the explosion of TV poker there is an enormous interest in the game and of course people want to try it for themselves.One way to play of course is on the internet in the online poker tournaments, but if you'd rather experience the real thing, ...#17 Clemson Tigers Preview Fall camps are under way and the regular season will be here soon so that means getting an early jump on the 2006 NCAA football season. Knowing the teams now will save you time and Matt Fargo is here to help you get a grasp of what to expect this upcoming year. We go from worst to first in this 2006 College Football Preview.#17 – Clemson ...How to Download a Casino There was a time when if you wanted to play casino games, you had to travel. Whether it was a vacation to Las Vegas, a weekend jaunt to Atlantic City, or a visit to an Indian Casino, you were going to make a special trip if you wanted to play Blackjack, Craps, or Roulette. Those days are long gone. Thanks to the Internet and the proliferation of ...
|
