We move on to Week 1 of the football season and our college football card for this weekend. We feel the key here is not overreacting to something you saw last week.
The best comparison we can make to an overreaction to a team’s second game is the overreaction in the market place to what the Down Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 or other stock indexes may do in a certain day. How often (if you follow financial news) have you seen huge reaction to a large drop in an index in one day? Alarmist reporting, world coming to the end scenario articles, etc. never seem to play out. If you’re like most investors with retirement savings in a 401K or a college fund for junior, these ebbs and flows really shouldn’t affect you. If they do, you should be putting your savings in a different asset class – high daily, weekly, or monthly volatility really only effects short-term investors.
We here at The Sports Market aren’t that type of sports investor. We attempt to do our fundamentals and grind out a profitable return over the long haul. You won’t see us overreact to one bad day or week here (it’s called variance), nor will you see us quote our record over the last 7 or 10 plays, or offer any 500★ stone cold locks to rally your bankroll. We grind our return out in a conservative approach that aims to win over a season, a year and hopefully into the forseeable future.
With that being said, we won’t be overreacting and steaming Stanford and Michigan with our full bankrolls this week. You could argue we’re doing this with our Wisconsin position, however we feel this has more to do with travel, the quarterback situation and a running-back injury to Oregon St., rather than just thinking “Oregon St. got beat by Sacramento St.”
After cashing in on Oklahoma St. last night we’ve rounded out the rest of our card. The first two we tweeted out earlier in the week and now provide a full explanation along with a few other positions.
1★ Positions:
Wisconsin -21 vs. Oregon St.: We tweeted this play out earlier in the week and it has subsequently dropped. This could be the square side here, but we like the Badgers. Their offense was spectacular last weekend. Their defense did leave a bit to be desired. Oregon St will be travelling across the country to meet the Badgers. They lost last week at home to Sacramento St. and although we don’t expect performances that poor to continue, it’s a tall order to bounce back at Camp Randall in a morning game for a West Coast team.
You could also argue Oregon St. is in a bit of disarray. Not only did they lose to Sac St. last week, but they’re looking to rebound amid a quarterback controversy. Starter Ryan Katz who struggled greatly last week (11/22 – 87yds – 0 TD – 1 INT) will split time with red-shirt freshman Sean Mannion. The Beavers relied heavily on the one successful part of their offense last week, the running game. Sadly, leading rusher Malcolm Agnew is out with a bad hamstring. Oregon St. going cross country, amidst turmoil and without the one reliable part of their offense will prevent them from staying with this potent Badger offense.
Utah +9 @ Southern Califonria: This line is down to 8.5 in some places after opening at 10.5. Southern California looked less than spectacular last week in staving off a Minnesota team that will be near the basement of the Big 10 this year. Although they out gained the Gophers, USC had less yards per pass attempt and yards per rush than Minnesota. We think Utah will pose a more difficult challenge for the Trojans. The Utes were very successful on the ground, while struggling a bit through the air. You have to think Norm Chow returning to USC will make the Utes very motivated. This line feels almost a TD too high for us. Had we been able to get on the other side of 10, we likely would have upgraded this to a 2 ★ position.
UNLV +14 @ Washington St.: UNLV showed us something last weekend. They moved the ball a bit against Wisconsin in a tough environment. Washington St.’s environment won’t be nearly as difficult, nor will their offense. Washington St. has been one of the worse teams for the better part of the last 5 years. While we know you can probably add UNLV to that category as well, how either team would be a 14 point favorite is beyond us. Washington St. has won 5 games in the past 3 years, and hasn’t been a favorite against an FBS school since 2007. Until they prove they can beat anyone on a regular basis, let alone win by double digits – we’ll take the points.
Brigham Young +7 @ Texas: BYU Quarterback Jake Heaps came on at the end of last year for the Cougars as they won 4 of their last 5 and blew UTEP out in their Bowl Game. In addition to having Heaps back, they also return 4 starters on their offensive line and their running back. On the opposite side of the ball their defensive line dominated Ole Miss allowing only 64 yards rushing. As Texas installs a new offense we see these teams as fairly equal and think taking the points is a good position.
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