Three sports writers in their mid-20s—none with any professional oddsmaking experience—set point spreads for every college football, all 798 of them, this week.
On behalf of college football fans everywhere, we thank them.
The list from the fabulous sports betting site Beyond the Bets includes everything from Alabama at LSU (-3) to Texas-San Antonio at South Alabama (-1.5).
It was a grueling process that began back in February, when the trio began figuring how many games each of the 124 FBS teams would win. Each oddsmaker was assigned a handful of conferences to breakdown. There was no complex formula or computer database. A giant google doc was passed around with evolving power ratings. And way too much candy was consumed during the four-day sprint to the finish.
“I went through four boxes of Raisinets,” one member of the Beyond the Bets editorial staff admitted to Crystal Ball Run.
Making Oklahoma a 10-point home favorite against Notre Dame (Oct. 27) wasn’t nearly as difficult as deciding that Northern Illinois should be a 26 ½-point favorite over UMass, the editor added
But mistakes won’t cost Beyond The Bets millions. These lines, as they say, are for entertainment purposes only. And they are certainly entertaining fodder to debate and discuss as the slow summer sports season approaches.
For instance, Florida State is favored by 56.5 over Savannah State, the largest spread of any game.
The Seminoles, LSU, Oklahoma and Southern Cal are the four BCS teams Beyond the Bets projects to be favored in each of their games. Wouldn’t be a bad little four-team playoff, would it?
No BCS team is an underdog in all of its games, but Duke, Kansas, Indiana, Arizona State and Kentucky are projected as dogs in each of their conference games.
Some other big-game point spread projections from Beyond the Bets:
Sept. 22
Clemson at Florida State -9.5
Oct. 6
LSU -4 at Florida
Georgia at South Carolina -4
Oct. 13
Texas vs. Oklahoma -4
Oct. 20
Michigan State at Michigan -6.5
Nov. 3
Oregon at USC -6
Nov. 24
Auburn at Alabama -16.5
Michigan at Ohio State -4
Notre Dame at USC -14.5
Note: The sportsbook at the Las Vegas Golden Nugget will release lines on approximately 100 college football games on Monday. Check back at Crystal Ball Run for a complete run down.
