10 College Football Spreads Vegas Got Wrong for Week 8
Week 8 of the 2013 season is one that college football fans will not soon forget.
From the barrage of early upsets in the SEC East to Florida State's public execution of Clemson, the weekend provided a list of indelible images in a short period of time.
Vegas typically benefits from weekends like this one, where the underdogs reign supreme, since public bettors love to wager on favorites. There was definitely a bottle of champagne or two popped in the penthouse suite of a couple sportsbooks.
But that doesn't mean the oddsmakers were perfect.
Important Note
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There's a difference—albeit a subtle one—between "spreads Vegas got wrong" and "games that easily covered the spread."
Take, for example, the Florida State game. Clemson was the higher-ranked team and playing at home, but the Seminoles were giving 4.5 points.
Vegas thought Florida State was the much better team, so it didn't necessarily get that spread wrong. The number—in hindsight—was far too low, but the spirit of the line was correct. The same goes for Arizona State giving 3.5 to Washington.
This list was not as simple as looking at the final scores, comparing them with the spread and sorting the biggest differences. It's more of a detailed look at what Vegas tried to say with each number and why it ended up so wrong.
Just remember that before you start complaining.
UCF (+14) at Louisville
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Final Score: UCF 38, Louisville 35
UCF was giving two touchdowns to Louisville on the road, the same margin Rutgers lost by at Papa John's Cardinal Stadium the week before.
That ostensibly means that UCF and Rutgers were valued evenly by oddsmakers and that Blake Bortles was supposed to make the same dumb throws that Gary Nova did on a prime-time stage.
That wasn't at all what happened, and despite trailing by 21 points in the third quarter, UCF came storming back to eventually win straight up.
Vegas will not underrate the Knights again. It's actually more likely to overrate them.
Purdue (+28) at Michigan State
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Final Score: Michigan State 14, Purdue 0
Michigan State appeared to have found an offense at the start of Big Ten play, scoring 68 points in comfortable wins over Iowa and Indiana.
This number reflected that offensive renaissance, implying that Sparty would keep the train rolling against a woeful Purdue team that had allowed 140 points in its last three games.
Instead, MSU reverted back to its early season ways, struggling to move the ball and needing the defense to score half of its touchdowns.
Unless you were holding a Purdue ticket, this one was painful to watch.
Florida at Missouri (+3)
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Final Score: Missouri 36, Florida 17
This line said three things: (1) That Missouri's fast start was a fluke, (2) That Florida's defense was among the best in America, and (3) That redshirt freshman Maty Mauk would choke in his first career start.
Nos. 1 and 3 proved emphatically wrong.
Missouri looked every bit the part of a legitimate SEC title contender, and it did so on both sides of the ball. That included a near-perfect game from Mauk, who threw one ugly pick but otherwise earned a lot of faith in his abilities.
No. 2 is a tough one to pin on the bookmakers, since they likely didn't expect the barrage of defensive injuries and targeting ejections that depleted Florida's defense down to mostly backups.
Still, the fact remains that the wrong side was favored in this game.
South Carolina at Tennessee (+7.5)
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Final Score: Tennessee 23, South Carolina 21
The Gamecocks were inflated in the eyes of public bettors after laying a 50-spot at Arkansas. But as we saw in Week 8, the Razorbacks are pretty bad, and South Carolina has some pretty big holes.
This line was near a touchdown, which ostensibly said Tennessee might keep it close, but it was over the key number of seven, which explicitly said the Gamecocks would pull away toward the end.
Mike Davis was as good as advertised on the ground, but South Carolina could never get a passing game going and struggled to shut down Marquez North in the fourth quarter.
Who could have seen that coming?
Georgia at Vanderbilt (+7)
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Final Score: Vanderbilt 31, Georgia 27
The last of the early game SEC triad—where all East division road teams were favored but lost straight up—Georgia was the one Vegas got the least wrong.
Unlike South Carolina, the Bulldogs were not over the key number of seven, lying exactly on it. The books were giving Vanderbilt a chance.
Still, the chance it gave was not a very big one, and in a battle of Aaron Murray vs. Austyn Carta-Samuels, the oddsmakers expected Murray to win out.
Needless to say, he didn't.
Minnesota (+12.5) at Northwestern
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Final Score: Minnesota 20, Northwestern 17
Northwestern was supposed to rebound from its brutal two-game stretch—playing the Big Ten's two best teams in back-to-back weeks—by looking more like its early season self and scoring an easy win.
Minnesota, meanwhile, was supposed to look like Minnesota: a team that always does well out of conference then struggles to beat any Big Ten teams.
That script was flipped, though, when the Gophers went to Evanston, and with an inspired defensive effort, they were able to win straight up on Ryan Field.
They didn't even need the 12.5 points.
Maryland at Wake Forest (+4.5)
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Final Score: Wake Forest 34, Maryland 10
Vegas isn't clairvoyant, and obviously bookmakers couldn't have predicted the barrage of injuries Maryland would endure.
But even before its best players began dropping like flies, this line gave the Terps too much credit and Wake Forest far too little.
Maryland, on the road, should not be laying over a field goal to pretty much any BCS-conference team. Its only true road games of the year were an 11-point win over 0-6 UConn and a 63-point loss at Florida State.
Wake Forest took it to the Terps from the opening kickoff of this one, easily covering a line that existed solely on the basis of record—a number that inflates what UMD has done this season.
Easy money.
Auburn (+12.5) at Texas A&M
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Final Score: Auburn 45, Texas A&M 41
This line was under 14, which, whenever a team is playing Johnny Manziel at home, is actually a sign of respect. Vegas knew that Auburn was decent.
But Vegas didn't know that Auburn was good, and that a good team playing a defense as flawed as Texas A&M's probably shouldn't be getting double digits.
The Tigers' ground attack matched up very well with the Aggies rush defense on paper, and those numbers translated predictably onto the field. They marched the ball down the field and scored 21 points in the fourth quarter, despite a hostile environment, en route to a straight-up win.
This number should have been closer to 7.5.
Syracuse (+8) at Georgia Tech
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Final Score: Georgia Tech 56, Syracuse 0
This was a curious line when it came out, which made some handicappers think it might be a sucker bet. Why on earth would Syracuse be giving just eight points on the road?
Turns out it wasn't a sucker bet—Vegas was just wrong. The Orange are a very, very, very bad team, and the Jackets aren't as bad as they had shown in a couple of big games this year.
After losses against Virginia Tech, Miami and BYU, playing against 'Cuse must have felt like playing against air for Georgia Tech.
That's what it looked like, too.
LSU at Ole Miss (+10)
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Final Score: Ole Miss 27, LSU 24
This line made a big mistake, ignoring how well Ole Miss played LSU last year and buying into a little too much of the Zach Mettenberger hype.
It's hard to blame the books for that second part. Prior to this game, LSU's QB appeared to have turned the proverbial corner and become one of the nation's best.
But Mettenberger regressed on a national stage, throwing three picks against a Rebels team that was desperate to get its season back on track.
The Tigers went down 17-0 and never even flirted with covering the double-digit line.
