While we here at TSIB do not condone gambling (that was for the auditor) we (read: I) thought it might be interesting to see what Vegas (Warning: links to a gambling website) thought of the chances our respective teams had of winning the 2009 BCS title. Here’s what they got for the SEC teams….
Alabama 40/1
Tennessee 100/1
Arkansas 100/1
Florida 6/1
Georgia 6/1
Kentucky 100/1
LSU 12/1
South Carolina 100/1
The rest of the SEC is part of the field at 25/1.
USC has the best odds at 3/1. Oklahoma and The OSU are with Florida and UGA @ 6/1. Vol fans, they even have Notre Dame at 55/1.
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Kentucky lost their all everything QB, top three WRs, the league’s best TE, top RB, best KR and never had a defense. With a major step back like that, I’d agree their odds of winning anything are the same as UT’s.
Notre Dame’s the one I can’t figure out. My only guess is that they would get more sucker bets with it that low.
It’s funny that UT has a lower chance — much lower — than Alabama. It’ll be fun to watch.
I’ll admit, I was puzzled by that as well. Maybe I’m just becoming a pessimist in my old age because Vegas tends to be smarter than me when it comes to predicting things like this.
I’m guessing one of the biggest reasons for Bama being 40/1 and UT being 100/1 is that the East is that much tougher than the West this season. Let’s face, it … the West doesn’t look very scary this fall, though I’ve said for months that Georgia is a paper champion that isn’t nearly as good as everyone in predicting. Florida, meanwhile, is hands-down the preseason favorite to win the SEC. A preseason vote for any other team is silly.
And don’t give me the “Georgia beat Florida last season” crap. A healthy Tebow = Georgia loss.
CO, until Florida’s secondary can prove they can cover and/or tackle someone, my preseason SEC favorite will be either Georgia or LSU, provided Perry-Lou is the QB.
And Bama plays UGA and UT on the road this season.
I agree that UGA is a bit overrated. They got stomped by a (sorry guys) mediocre UT team, barely beat a mediocre Alabama team, and were hanging their hats on a wins over a Florida team playing with an injured Tim Tebow Gators squad (which is approximately the same as trying to run a marathon with one leg asleep and the other one about two inches too short), and an Auburn team that only pretends to care about football before the Iron Bowl. And lo and behold both credible wins were pinned on coaching gimmicks that were uncharacteristic of Richt and would likely be less inspirational the second time (and in the case of the Florida game, would likely lead to mass ejections if they tried it again).
UF will win the East. LSU will not have Perriloux in the fall. No one who keeps surviving stupidity like he has so far can go that long without blowing it again.
It’s a good thing you’re not a gambling man crimson, unless of course those are odds for the SEC team most likely to land on probation for recruiting violations.
Tennessee wasn’t a great team last year, but it wasn’t “mediocre” at the end of the season. It was just flat-out bad when it played Florida, and I’d say that bad team emerged again against Bama.
But I think we’ll be very good this year. If we have a QB. I just wish we played Florida late in the year when Tebow is nursing five broken bones and sprains he’s not discussing.
And like I said, Georgia won’t scare me until they beat UT.
They pee a little down their leg when they see orange.
Gambling odds are not the same thing as expected odds of winning. They are set based on the willingness of people to place bets and where those bets are expected to go. Usually, they line up fairly well with expected odds, but they can drift when large numbers of choices are involved.
In cfb, there are always exceptional teams that get unusual numbers. Notre Dame is one. Because they have no conference affiliation, an extensive (and, quite frankly, irrelevant to the discussion) tradition, and favorable BCS rules, there are many people who are willing to place wagers on them.
Another artifact is the effect of conferences. When you have a couple teams in a conference (and in the SEC East, a division) who are perceived as strong shots to win everything, all other teams in that conference/division get a penalty due to association. (After all, it’s impossible for two SEC East teams to be in the title game, right? Well, at least it’s very unlikely.) UGA and UF are odds-on favorites to win the East, so all other East teams are necessarily hurt. UA does not suffer such a penalty in the West because the only true monster right now is LSU, who is losing a lot of players and apparently has no QB. Their path to Atlanta appears much easier, which makes the path to the BCS title appear much easier. So by virtue of the teams around them, UA will have more favorable odds this year, even if both teams were exactly identical in all possible regards.
A similar effect helps USC; the PAC-10 is usually considered a one-trick pony. By default, the expectation that USC will stomp their division into the ground gives them a huge edge in odds. It doesn’t hurt that the past few years mostly back that up, but the real surprise would be if they were significantly behind anybody else in the odds.
A weak effect you’ll see is the bandwaggoner who runs with the odds rather than against the odds. This is the guy who see Alabama at 40/1, says to himself, “Wow! Vegas knows something! They’re my dark horse!” Then he goes and gambles his life savings and lottery money on it. (Since the drive from his house in Birmingham to Vegas is too expensive at current gas rates, the oddsmakers don’t have to worry about him when he loses and throws a tantrum. But that’s not relevant here.)
But again, the numbers are set to maximize the betting, and particularly to maximize the profit that Vegas gets. When you get a huge pool to choose from like this, you’ll often see some whacky things because people are rather curious things when it comes to complicated (i.e. more than one choice) decisions. And setting my little humorous comments aside, these numbers make perfect sense to me. If you want to place a wager on UT or UA, you’re better off with UT; neither team has a practical shot at it due to various reasons and UT has a better payout. It’s much like buying a lotter ticket: would you rather buy one the week after it was just won, or when it hasn’t been won in 6 months? The odds are, in reality, the same; the payout is much different.
Money is definitely on UT, even as a Bama fan, because UT basically just has to beat UF and UGA to be the favorite in the league..I’m not undermining the difficulty of that task so much as just the perception of it. In Bama’s case, since pretty much the entire division is considered middle of the road in the SEC, that’s five games that have to be won before there is a clear picture and it’s entirely possible that we win all five, but in losing the three east games (we’ll beat UK, but for the purposes of this argument) still not win our division.
I’m not quite willing to call Ole Miss a middle-of-the-road team until Nutt gets a chance to recover the program, but I’ll certainly agree that the West doesn’t have the bottom end that the East does, a/k/a SoCar, Kentucky, and Vandy. An interesting argument for Bama’s road being more difficult.
But how dirty would that feel to have a few thousand dollars to spend because your hated rival won the BCS? I guess it’d be some consolation for having to deal with the fan base for the next few years.
Well, I’d never actually place a bet like that (money isn’t as important as the completely irrational seething guilt I would feel), but I’d agree that UT’s odds would be easier money. The reason being not that Bama has a harder schedule, but that Bama is a little closer to the level of the competition in our own division, meaning upsets are more likely. Basically it breaks down like this: UT will likely be underdogs in two games, and favored in six in the conference. Bama will be underdogs in four conference games (UGA, UT, LSU, Auburn–all but the last on the road) and favored in four (Arkansas, Ole Miss, Miss State, UK–only the first on the road and early in the season). Now, the favorite in the UT-UA game could flip-flop based on the course of each team’s season, but right now, I think UT is expected to be (and probably should be) the favorite.
You knew I’d be back (eventually), and as usual, I agree with TideFan. My husband (the Yank who knows bupkiss about the importance of SEC football) argued with me about how wonderful UGA was last year, but I basically said everything TideFan did in regards to Tennessee’s mediocrity, et al. I’m glad it’s not just me who had embraced reality where UGA was concerned.
As for the 100/1 odds, I’m not terribly surprised. And the Notre Dame odds are just for sh*ts n’ giggles - those ND fans will jump on any bandwagon that has them winning.
Ghost,
To be fair, Tennessee has won the SEC before in seasons when it peed down its leg at the sight of Florida.