It’s almost April, which means we’re in the middle of spring practice and we’re almost to spring football games in the SEC (we’ll post about those later this week).
No one has even seen the teams practice yet, but that’s not stopping Vegas from putting out early lines for opening weekend, and we’re excited about it.
Last season, documented on this site, I finished 117-102-9 (53.4%) against the spread, and Chris finished 102-118-8 (46.3%). We’re planning on doing MUCH better this year. These numbers are a combination of the 7 biggest CFB and NFL games of the weekend (Chris and I pick the same 7 games against the number), along with our 5 personal picks that we really like each week.
Normally, it’s closer to summer before we ever see lines, but they’re jumpstarting things early this year.
The Golden Nugget SportsBook in Las Vegas has already set 13 lines for opening weekend, and BetOnline has already set the conference title futures for every major conference over at their book, so we’ll look at the opening game lines and the SEC futures bets.
Ok, let’s jump into what stands out here:
- Alabama is already -5.5 against Florida St in a huge game in Atlanta. Kinda surprised it’s not lower, considering all of the losses Alabama has to endure from NFL players… but when you look at it realistically, the Seminoles are losing a ton too. Toss in the fact that Saban has never lost to a former assistant, and the line sits about right – directly in the middle between a field goal and a touchdown.
- Oddsmakers don’t put a lot of stock into all the losses Colorado will have before next season (both players & coaches, most notably starting QB, 8 of 11 defensive starters including the entire defensive line, and DC Jim Leavitt), and they obviously aren’t looking at the fact that Colorado St returns 15 starters, their 2 big time running backs, a senior QB, and 5 of their top 6 wide receivers. I’ll be jumping all over Colorado St here.
- The Florida / Michigan line is incredibly tight, considering the last time these teams played, about 14 months ago, Michigan housed them 41-7. But, Michigan loses a lot of players off last year’s team, and Florida looks to have a ton more talent than they did.
- UCLA gets Josh Rosen back, and the fact that they’re playing in the Rose Bowl makes them -2.5 against Texas A&M. Sumlin has started at least 5-0 the last 3 seasons, so this will be an interesting line to watch.
- Temple has a new head coach, but a ton of returning players, and Notre Dame is coming off a really bad 4-8 season. I’d keep an eye on ND -6.
- South Carolina got the ball rolling late last year on offense, and they get back almost everybody on that team. They’re +7 against NC State in a neutral site game in Charlotte… if it goes over 7, I’m all over it.
Let’s go ahead and put the SEC odds in order from first to last, before we start discussing it.
- Alabama -140
- LSU 5.5-1
- Auburn 7-1
- Georgia 7-1
- Florida 10-1
- Tennessee 12-1
- Texas A&M 40-1
- Miss St 50-1
- Arkansas 50-1
- Ole Miss 66-1
- Kentucky 80-1
- South Carolina 80-1
- Vanderbilt 150-1
- Missouri 150-1
This kinda goes in line with Clay Travis’s article on Monday about how inferior the football coaches are in the SEC. Ed Orgeron has the 2nd best odds of 14 teams trying to win the SEC Title. On top of that, if you look at all of the other future odds for conferences at OddShark, Alabama is the only team in college football that is giving up money as a favorite. USC is +110 in the Pac 12, Ohio St is +135 in the ACC, Oklahoma is +110 in the Big 12, and Ohio St is +160 to win the Big 10 while Alabama is -140 to win the SEC.
Does it surprise anyone else that Tennessee is only 12-1 after losing basically everybody from their team? With their schedule, I’d be more willing to bet the under (guessing it’ll end up around 8) than I would bet on them to win the conference. They open with Georgia Tech in Atlanta, they play at Florida, at Alabama and at Kentucky, and they host Georgia, LSU, and Vandy this year. Butch may be shown the door after this campaign, even though the schedule has enough breaks in it to make it manageable.
I’m surprised Ole Miss is on this list, considering they’re banned from postseason play this year. Even still, they’re 66-1 while Miss St is at 50-1. That’s gotta be painful for the crew from Oxford.
And then you’ve got the normal crew rounding out the bottom 4: Kentucky, South Carolina, Vandy, and Missouri.
