Commonly used expression, "Vegas thinks"

I think a lot of fans are a naive when it comes to betting lines and what they really are or are not. First of all, they're not a prediction of the result of the game based on what "Vegas" thinks. The only thing "Vegas" cares about is attracting bets. And they take their cut from the winners. And the best way to ensure the casinos always make money is to have a line where equal amounts of money are bet on each side. If they can get equal money on each side they are 100% guaranteed to make money, and that's what they want. Other than that, they don't care which team wins.



So really what they are measuring when setting their line is NOT not how good the teams are. It's actually just a guess of how the gambling public is likely to cast their bets. Then they move the line based on how where the money is being bet. Finally, there have been a lot of studies done on this, but there is very little correlation between the actual winning margin of games and where the betting line is. In fact, the line is a TERRIBLE predictor of the margin of victory. The general finding is that the Vegas line only hits within ten points of the actual margin of victory about 25% of the time. It is better at predicting the winning team, but that's not surprising nor hard to do. My brother has run a picks contest every year for decades, and I can tell you that the average informed fan can guess the right winner of a game around 70% of the time.



That said, UCLA should be favored at home as a highly ranked team. However, the only real insight to get from the 17 point line is what the gambling public is thinking. And probably BYU fans are less likely to gamble on their team, so it's likely a little more skewed than in most games. Personally, I think BYU keeps it close. As another poster said, I think it's highly unlikely either Nebraska or Boise State would be this much of an underdog going into UCLA, yet we beat both of them.



I think BYU is still a mystery to most of the gambling public at this point, and if anything, the spectacular endings of the last two games are making people think we're more lucky than good. On the other hand, I think most people who know very much about BYU or Boise State or Nebraska would say BYU is a pretty good team and not just a lucky fluke. Both Nebraska and Boise State are good enough to beat us handily if we were just a mediocre to bad team that got lucky at the end.



Also, if you don't think the 17 points is a little ridiculous, keep in mind fellow top 25 team Utah is only favored by 14 against Fresno State, one of the worst teams in FBS. Are you kidding?

Everything you said above is true. But I have to admit that, even as a BYU fan, I'm among those not "sold" on our team yet. I have a hard time forgetting the 2009 season when we were playing with a Senior QB. We upset Oklahoma, garnering national attention. And then we rolled over Tulane. By then people, including the national sports media, were saying we were a "team to be reckoned with" and it would be a "special season" for BYU. Of course, as we know, we got rolled - embarrassed really - by Florida State at home the following week. It can all come to an end real quick. If we pull out a win this Saturday, I'll be much more of a believer.

KingCoug wrote:
Everything you said above is true. But I have to admit that, even as a BYU fan, I'm among those not "sold" on our team yet. I have a hard time forgetting the 2009 season when we were playing with a Senior QB. We upset Oklahoma, garnering national attention. And then we rolled over Tulane. By then people, including the national sports media, were saying we were a "team to be reckoned with" and it would be a "special season" for BYU. Of course, as we know, we got rolled - embarrassed really - by Florida State at home the following week. It can all come to an end real quick. If we pull out a win this Saturday, I'll be much more of a believer.

The 2009 team was pretty good when all was said and done: 11-2 and nationally ranked at the end of the year. That said, even good teams can get beat when facing an exceptional team like TCU that year, or against a team that is a very bad matchup like FSU was. I don't know for sure what will happen on Saturday, but if this week is a loss and we finish 11-2 like in 2009 I will take it! But I don't think this is a bad matchup in the way FSU was. I think we're considerably more athletic than we were then and even if UCLA's QB is good, I'm not sure he's Christian Ponder good yet. We could very well lose. But I don't believe right now that we'll be demolished.



Also, I think as a whole this team has already done better than the 2009 team going into the FSU game. Oklahoma ended up being ok that year, but not nearly as good as they were expected going into the game. Also, their Heisman winning QB went out early and we overwhelmed the young backup. Beating Nebraska on the road and a fired up and confident BSU team is nothing to sneeze at.

there is no way UCLA will cover that spread. I don't know how often college teams cover massive spreads like that but a few years ago, we had a Pick'em pool going on at work for the NFL that took into account the spread and if you picked against a 2 score spread very often, you lost more than you won. BYU's defense is not a mystery, it is a very good defense and will not let this game get out of hand. If UCLA wins, they will win in a nail biter and all of stormy clouds on this board will be blaming Anae for the loss.

frdbtr wrote:
there is no way UCLA will cover that spread. I don't know how often college teams cover massive spreads like that but a few years ago, we had a Pick'em pool going on at work for the NFL that took into account the spread and if you picked against a 2 score spread very often, you lost more than you won. BYU's defense is not a mystery, it is a very good defense and will not let this game get out of hand. If UCLA wins, they will win in a nail biter and all of stormy clouds on this board will be blaming Anae for the loss.

I agree that our defense is pretty good. I really think that UCLA to cover this spread will have to hold BYU's offense to 7 points or less (like 24-7), and I find that unlikely. Our offense will get more than that. Otherwise, they'd need at least 40 points to win by something like 40-23, but I can't see our defense giving up that much. That would be even more points than they got against freaking UNLV. Not likely to happen.

BlueK wrote:

there is no way UCLA will cover that spread. I don't know how often college teams cover massive spreads like that but a few years ago, we had a Pick'em pool going on at work for the NFL that took into account the spread and if you picked against a 2 score spread very often, you lost more than you won. BYU's defense is not a mystery, it is a very good defense and will not let this game get out of hand. If UCLA wins, they will win in a nail biter and all of stormy clouds on this board will be blaming Anae for the loss.

I agree that our defense is pretty good. I really think that UCLA to cover this spread will have to hold BYU's offense to 7 points or less (like 24-7), and I find that unlikely. Our offense will get more than that. Otherwise, they'd need at least 40 points to win by something like 40-23, but I can't see our defense giving up that much. That would be even more points than they got against freaking UNLV. Not likely to happen.

The other factor we have to contend with is the PAC12 refs. I remember last time we played in the rose bowl we outplayed UCLA. And would have won that game had the refs called the game fairly. So'oto's obvious non-fumble gave them a score and the phantom penalty that negated one of our scores would have turned that game into a 24-20 victory for us. We have to play well enough to keep the ref's from having the chance to skew it to UCLA's favor.

The over/under has been steady at 60, which means with a 16.5 point line, "Vegas thinks" UCLA wins at about 38-22 (38.25--21.75)

BlueK wrote:
I think most people who know very much about BYU or Boise State or Nebraska would say BYU is a pretty good team and not just a lucky fluke.

I grew up in Vegas, and I agree with your point about the spread. In fact, that misunderstanding works in Vegas' favor.



But I do think we were lucky. And those wins were somewhat of a fluke. But pretty awesome ones!!



In my opinion, BYU is good enough to be within striking distance when lady luck flukes our way.

That's not taking away anything from our wins. Mathews still had to come down with an amazing grab. But those are highly improbably wins. I hope that our ability catches up to our lucky streak.



I too am concerned about the refs. I was at the last game in the Rose Bowl. Good fans, but we totally got hosed by the Pac10 officiating. Bronco's game clock management didn't help (which is to say that we made mistakes that could have altered the game), but just judging by the plays on the field and not how they were interpreted by the zebras, we won that game.

Since the 2008 season, when I was in Afghanistan, my team and I began picking the Top 25 games against the spread, plus the game of our favorite teams (BYU, Utah, Florida St) if that team wasn't ranked, plus one additional game between awful teams - we usually try to find a game between two teams that have just a few wins between them.



Here is how "Vegas" has done since then:

They had a .489 winning percentage in 2008, they fell to .455 in 2009 and but rose to .551 in 2010 and again in 2011 to .582. 2012 saw a drop to .491, but they bounced back to .538 in 2013. And they were at .462 last year. All tolled, Vegas is at .511



For a comparison, I've been above .500 every year but last year, and have a .521 overall percentage.

Like-wise was the FSU game in 2009. The game was competitive until the ACC refs whistled dead a BYU pick 6 that was shown on replay to be a legitimate interception. They wouldn't even let the play run out so it could be contested. No TD happened because they blew it dead, but the TD was certain if played out, due to no FSU player was within range. The dishonesty involved there was infuriating, but there was more to come. A blatant case of defensive PI allowed FSU to get a bogus pick 6. The FSU defender pulled the BYU receiver out of catch position and then occupied the receivers position himself to catch the pick. The pull exerted on the BYU receiver was actually a horse-collar from behind. Bronco was on the field vigorously protesting both of these cheat calls. All he got out of them was that they let him off without an unsportsman- like conduct call.



After suffering a 14 point swing from those two dishonest) calls/ non-call, the complexion of the game was changed to a hurry-up offense for BYU that resulted in three-and-outs and further misfortune.



My point is, that BYU would have/should have been in close contention to the end of that game. ACC officials are as bad as PAC ones, and that's pretty bad.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

BlueK wrote:

Everything you said above is true. But I have to admit that, even as a BYU fan, I'm among those not "sold" on our team yet. I have a hard time forgetting the 2009 season when we were playing with a Senior QB. We upset Oklahoma, garnering national attention. And then we rolled over Tulane. By then people, including the national sports media, were saying we were a "team to be reckoned with" and it would be a "special season" for BYU. Of course, as we know, we got rolled - embarrassed really - by Florida State at home the following week. It can all come to an end real quick. If we pull out a win this Saturday, I'll be much more of a believer.

The 2009 team was pretty good when all was said and done: 11-2 and nationally ranked at the end of the year. That said, even good teams can get beat when facing an exceptional team like TCU that year, or against a team that is a very bad matchup like FSU was. I don't know for sure what will happen on Saturday, but if this week is a loss and we finish 11-2 like in 2009 I will take it! But I don't think this is a bad matchup in the way FSU was. I think we're considerably more athletic than we were then and even if UCLA's QB is good, I'm not sure he's Christian Ponder good yet. We could very well lose. But I don't believe right now that we'll be demolished.



Also, I think as a whole this team has already done better than the 2009 team going into the FSU game. Oklahoma ended up being ok that year, but not nearly as good as they were expected going into the game. Also, their Heisman winning QB went out early and we overwhelmed the young backup. Beating Nebraska on the road and a fired up and confident BSU team is nothing to sneeze at.

I'm sorry but I have higher expectations. We've done the 11-2/10-3 thing. And unfortunately, in our current situation, winning 10 or 11 games is the same as winning 6 or 7. The next step is a New Years bowl game. Anything less than that and we're just treading water or going backwards.]



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

KingCoug wrote:
in our current situation, winning 10 or 11 games is the same as winning 6 or 7. The next step is a New Years bowl game. Anything less than that and we're just treading water or going backwards.]

Disagree. It may still be too early to tell, but I'd bet that the SOS of this year at the end of the year is much better than those 10-11 win teams from a few years ago. This is a legit schedule and losing 2 games to potential top 10 teams is not a step back.



Again, it's too early to make apples/apples comparison.

BroncoBot wrote:

in our current situation, winning 10 or 11 games is the same as winning 6 or 7. The next step is a New Years bowl game. Anything less than that and we're just treading water or going backwards.]

Disagree. It may still be too early to tell, but I'd bet that the SOS of this year at the end of the year is much better than those 10-11 win teams from a few years ago. This is a legit schedule and losing 2 games to potential top 10 teams is not a step back.



Again, it's too early to make apples/apples comparison.

I don't think anything less than a 11-1 record would get us into a NY game. Maybe not even that.. We're getting publicity by beating big teams now. But even if we're 4-0 after Michigan, we have a stretch of mediocre opponents aside from Missouri. We could be yesterdays news fairly quickly and only a 12-0 record may not give the powers that be an excuse to keep us out.



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">



[ Post made via Mobile Device ] http://cougarcorner.com/images/mobile.png" alt="" loading="lazy" style="max-width:100%">

I'd be happy if we are just part of the discussion for ny6 at the end of the year. Even if we don't get the invite.