Relatively Speaking, The Wiseguys Like Nebraska
14 comments so far
August 21, 2008 by
Earlier this week the Las Vegas Sports Consultants emerged from their smoke and grease-board filled offices, took off their green-tinted visors to wipe their collective brows with Rolex-clad wrists and unveiled their preaseason poll to the adoration of media and coaches poll haters the world round.
I tried to pack that first sentence with as many tired bookie stereotypes as possible but I missed the most important one, the commonly held belief that bookmakers are 100% objective. The reason this stereotype exists, of course, is because bookies care not who wins that Friday night San Jose State-Houston game. They only care that, when the game kicks off, they’ve got equal money (or close to it) on both the Spartans and Cougars. After that, the vig takes care of the rest.
You could say that, on a week to week basis, Vegas oddsmakers are beholden to perceived market value rather than true market value (so long objectivity!) but to determine the former you have to have a pretty good idea of the latter. There is no Kelvin scale when it comes to college football power polling but if there was you could imagine it existing deep in the catacombs of some Vegas casino, the places normally reserved for composite characters in a Ben Mezrich book, visible only to those privileged and powerful enough to not only create it but keep it a secret as well.
That’s a long way of saying that no poll is perfect but, for my money, the LVSC poll strives the hardest towards the ideal and what’s better, they like Nebraska more than any pundit not named Matt Hinton.
The Cornhuskers didn’t crack the top 30 but if the “next ten� is truly the next ten in order then the wiseguys have Nebraska at 39th. The preseason magazine consensus compiled by Stassen didn’t have the Huskers in the top 43 teams and that’s with one vote from Phil Steele, second only to Hinton in his positive preseason appraisal of Nebraska, who had them at 43 in his preseason poll. Most of the publications who bothered to rank all the teams seemed to slot the Huskers in that mid-40s range and 39 doesn’t represent a huge leap in theoretical preseason power. At this point, however, I’ll take any indication I can get that a group of pollsters had done more than look at Nebraska’s horrific defensive statistics from last year when assessing the team.
That said, there's plenty more talking points embedded in this dirty gambler's assessment of college football that don't deal with Nebraska. Chief among them:
- USC #1 again.
- Georgia #7? But they're number one everywhere else?!
- Four Big 12 teams in the Top 9.
- Mountain West love. BYU, TCU and Utah all make the Top 40.
- The Great SEC swap: South Carolina outranks Auburn.
- Where are CU and KSU?
And, yes, prospective comment leavers "where they should be" is an acceptable response to that last question.
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carlinthemarlin Aug 21 08
Georgia's schedule is brutal, brutal, brutal. I think that's all there really is to it. They may be the best team talent wise (especially with all of the injury concerns at Southern Cal), but they're going to have a tough time going undefeated. Of course, a one loss Georgia could sneak into the title game ala Florida in '06. But it's still going to be tough.
As for Nebraska, Hinton's been getting our back a lot lately. I think he's written three or for articles in the last month or two basically saying what a lot of Nebraska fans have been saying: that whatever happened last year to cause the collapse probably left with the coaches/certain players and that the talent is there to win now. Which really seems obvious to me, but then I watched every game last year (well, all the ones that were televised), and I'm guessing a lot of people putting these polls together did not. But what I saw clearly had more to do with effort and decisiveness rather than talent, and Pelini's defenses, whatever else they may be, always give great effort and are very decisive. How that translates in stats is anyone's guess, but I think even, as Hinton himself put it, if he can simply split the difference between his '03 defense and last years "defense," we could easily be an 8-10 win team and contending for the division.
Brandon Aug 21 08
carlin,
You're right, Georgia's schedule is all there is to it which is why I'm in the camp that favors predictive polling of the Steele/LVSC variety. Most thinking fans are highly skeptical that Georgia can survive their slate of games which isn't a knock against the the Dawgs, dem's just da breaks. So what's the value in naming a team (any team, not just Georgia) number one with a fair amount of certainty that they won't end up there?
Essentially, the AP and Coaches polls are 75% reward for your 07 performance and 25% how many starters you have returning which would be fine if it had no bearing on who ended up playing for it all at the end of the year. Problem is, it does.
saunders45 Aug 21 08
I'll take Steel and the coaches poll over any others... The AP poll has Pitt in the top 25. The same Pitt that hasn't gotten to .500 in over 3 years... They're retards...
carlinthemarlin Aug 21 08
Brandon
Well, that's my biggest problem with the BCS. Everyone wants to talk about playoffs, and that might be the inevitable end, but I think there's a much quicker fix that needs to happen first, and that's taking the polling out of the hands of coaches who don't watch most games and the media who have a story to sell. I'm on the record as favoring a committee type approach similar to what basketball uses to seed the tournament. The idea being that if you get a bunch of people whose job it is to watch every game and come up with a poll that reflects the top 25 teams rather than letting a bunch of people with very specific interests and bias's decide who gets to play for all the marbles your solving half the problem with what amounts to a much, much easier fix than a full blown restructuring of college footballs postseason would be. It also introduces a higher level of accountability to pollsters, because each pollsters livelihood is dependent on them not being a blatant homer and voting Duke 25th (yes, I know he stopped that this year) or some such nonsense.
This won't satisfy most fans, of course, but I think it's a good first step.
Bill in Iowa Aug 21 08
I think our defense will be a top 40 defense, especially if we can stay healthy. I think the offense will be better than last year (a top 10 offense). How that translates in terms of wins and a season ending ranking, we'll find out. But I would be happy and not to surprised to see us enter the top 20 once again.
James Moore Aug 21 08
If Vegas don't know then nobody knows. . .
Flatlander Aug 21 08
To echo (sort of) a point that Carlin mentions, I don't really care "this year" what the record is, so long as they are fundamentally sound and trying to hit people in the mouth. Do those two things and eventually the W's will start to come.
Greg Morrow Aug 21 08
I mean, for entertainment purposes only..
Another reminder of why Steele's is the only pre season book I've bought, for the last several years. He actually sold me with his '04 prediction. I thought "no way" is Nebraska going to struggle and go down to the last game against Buffy, just for bowl eligibility- like what he said would happen.
With rankings, I'm waiting for top 10. I'll wait, patiently, as long as necessary. Other than that, the formula's simple. I don't expect Nebraska to finish in the top 25, even if they go 9-4 with a bowl win.
At this point, it's still only about the white helmets with the block N.
James Moore Aug 22 08
This year really comes down to the following scenarios from a national point-of-view:
1) The winner of the USC/Ohio State game, if they run the table for the remainder of their season, will be the one participant in the National CHampionship Game. I had mentioned here before Ohio State reminds me very much of where Nebraska was in 1988-1992. Brilliant regular seasons, excellent depth of talent, big non-conference game with a conference that offers no serious competitor for the penthouse, and a little too harshly judged for losing to some very good football teams in bowl games. . .
2) The other teams starting with the best inside tracks are Florida and Georgia at the beginning of the season. Georgia (because it's number 1 and has several returning starters from a young team last year) and Florida (starts out ranked high, gets to play Georgia, Auburn, LSU, should have an explosive offense, returning Heisman Trophy winner and the rest of a grueling SEC schedule). Florida will probably represent the SEC East in the Conference Championship Game. Get there and win that (with one or two losses, depending when you get them) and history has proven that with one or two losses an an SEC Championship Team has a tremendous shot of making it to the National Championship Game. . .
As for us we will have a 9-3 team that will make Husker Nation feel very good about Coach Pelini and the direction that we will be RAPIDLY moving in. Gosh 8 days. EIGHT FREAGGIN DAYS!!!
Georgia can't survive their schedule and honestly their offseason was highlighted with too many arrests and suspensions to have me believe that they are handling these expectations well. Many points previously mentioned in above posts cover this. . .
If one of these four trips up then Oklahoma, Missouri (God I want to puke typing that), Texas Tech (they might pull a Missouri-South type breakout year like the Tigers did last year), Auburn, LSU, and possibly Clemson could be in the hunt well into late November and early December. . .
Brandon Aug 22 08
James,
Good national take, but I'm taking Clemson out of the hunt. I think they might be 0-1 in a little over a week.
Why?
Because Julio Jones, Alabama freshman WR, is "the Tiger Woods of college football." It's true. I heard it on the Paul Finebaum show yesterday from a fan.
So I'm saying Tide over Tigers in Week 1 and the ACC ain't strong enough for Clemson to get there even if they win out.
James Moore Aug 22 08
Brandon,
Clemson will break out. Weak, weak, weak, weak ACC. Virginia Tech is suspect as a 9 or 10 win team this year. Too many losses, too many suspensions, injuries, and not a lot of punch on offense. Miami's retooling, Florida State is asleep, leaving only Boston College and Wake Forest to deal with them. Like Missouri last year, Clemson (obviously in my opinion, but it's only that) can get that one non-conference win they have a good shot at being undefeated at year's end. The EXPERIENCED, returning talent is there, but as you will agree history is not. . .
Alabama is a year away. Same bunch that lost to Louisiana-Monroe or Lafayette (one of them) is back. Anyone get the impression out of Tuscaloosa that they'd sell their mom to the Devil to be the kingpins of the SEC? Heck of an opening game though. Strategic for Clemson's recruiting reach stretching further into the South (i.e. game in Atlanta). . .
Lots of talk about Julio. It certainly does seem as if he might be the real deal. . .
Where's Tom aka Doombob he correctly predicted 51 points for us in the Colorado game and 9 wins for us. He's got the powers of a prophet. If he says Alabama wins then that's it!!!
Keep up the great work guys!!!
James Moore Aug 22 08
I just found this. Could you imagine if the following scenario happened? Man if it did. . .
http://www.theindependent.com/sports/x590308080/EA-Sports-bullish-on-Huskers-in-2008
James Moore Aug 22 08
I just found this. Could you imagine if the following scenario happened? Man if it did. . .
http://www.theindependent.com/sports/x590308080/EA-Sports-bullish-on-Huskers-in-2008
Brandon Aug 22 08
James,
I read that piece a few hours ago and the same thing is happening in my NCAA 09 Campus Legend mode.
On my game, Nebraska just beat OU to run their record to 9-0!
Two different machines, two different time zones, two independent simulations. Couldn't be just a coincidence could it?