Football Odds Weekly Report on Most Significant Line Moves
by Aaron Smith - 9/19/2014
The first day of fall is this coming week in the Northern Hemisphere, and that means some more football weather. With football now in full swing, it's nice to be able to beat the heat and enjoy football with some more crisp temperatures. As the temperatures cool off, the action in both college football and the NFL will be heating up. Doc's Sports will be offering a weekly line moves report this season. This report will cover some of the most notable line moves from the week for both college football and NFL games. The goal of this report will be to not only look at what lines have moved, but also investigate possible reasons for that move. Let's take a look at the games.
Rotation Number with Current Line and matchup - Original line before move in Parentheses
College Football:
#335 Utah +3.5 vs. Michigan (Utah +7) Saturday, Sept. 20, 3:30 p.m. ET
Everyone saw how Michigan played in their other key matchups so far this year. A loss at Notre Dame would have been considered acceptable, but a 31-0 loss wasn't. The doubts are going about Brady Hoke's ability to take this program to the next level (as they should be). Utah hasn't played anyone of real importance this year, but they have certainly played well. The Utes have a new offensive coordinator in Dave Christensen, and he has turned this offense into a much higher-octane unit. Michigan's offensive line issues make them a dangerous team to lay points with against any decent defensive front.
#329 Army -2.5 vs. Wake Forest (Army +3) Saturday, Sept. 20, 3:30 p.m. ET
Here's one of those unique flipped favorite spots. You won't find them all that often, but they are interesting to track. Coach Dave Clawson inherited a total mess at Wake Forest. The Demon Deacons are the smallest school in the ACC by a huge margin, and it can be awfully hard to stay competitive. Army was beaten badly last weekend by Stanford, but don't let that fool you, Wake Forest is no Stanford! Army will run the ball early and often, and Wake Forest isn't likely to have an answer. I agree with this line move. I think the oddsmakers missed on their initial number here.
#316 Toledo -14 vs. Ball State (Toledo -8) Saturday, Sept. 20, 7:00 p.m. ET
I suspect that Toledo's poor showing at Cincinnati last week had something to do with the oddsmakers releasing the Rockets as a single-digit favorite here, but that was an overreaction. Toledo is still one of the best teams in the MAC, and Ball State just lost last week to Indiana State. The Indiana State Sycamores are a lowly FCS team that has struggled to compete with FCS opponents, but they were good enough to knock off Ball State last weekend. The Cardinals really miss Keith Wenning running this offense. I'm not convinced that the Cardinals offense can match points with a talented Toledo offense.
#390 West Virginia +7.5 vs. Oklahoma (West Virginia +12.5) Saturday, Sept. 20, 7:30 p.m. ET
This is a really intriguing game. Remember, Oklahoma hosted West Virginia last year and won only 16-7. Before the season, no one was very high on the West Virginia Mountaineers. After playing a highly-competitive game with Alabama in the season opener and then racking up almost 700 yards of total offense against Maryland last week, bettors are starting to respect this West Virginia team. Also on bettors' minds is the fact that over the past few years, Oklahoma has always had at least one letdown game each year. The Sooners walk into a really tough environment in this game, and an outright upset here certainly wouldn't shock me. There appears to be some very sharp money on the Mountaineers.
#391 California +7.5 vs. Arizona (California +12.5) Saturday, September 20, 10:00 pm ET
The Cal Golden Bears had a very ugly season a year ago, but Sonny Dykes and his staff appear to have done a nice job with the team in the offseason. Their upset win at Northwestern in the season opener was impressive. Still, I can't help but wonder if bettors are overvaluing that one win. How good is Northwestern? Even though the Wildcats were expected to be good in the preseason, they haven't shown anything on the field thus far. Rich Rodriguez's team has some key injuries on the offensive line, which is at least part of the cause for the line move. Arizona defeated Cal only 33-28 last season, and Cal was a 14-point underdog in that game.
NFL:
#480 New York Jets -3 vs. Chicago Bears (Pick'em) Monday, September 22, 8:35 pm ET
The New York Jets have gotten a lot of support from bettors during the course of the week. The Bears suffered a big blow when Charles Tillman was placed on the injured reserve this week. This was a Bears defense that was already thin in the secondary, and now they are really hurting. Even though the Jets lost last week in Green Bay, they acquitted themselves very nicely against a high-quality opponent. The Bears came from behind to win in San Francisco, but they couldn't have won that game without the help of a second-half meltdown by Colin Kaepernick.
Note: There is only one game on the NFL side of the line moves report this week because there has been a remarkable amount of stability in the numbers on the NFL side.
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