Opening Line

[pelagius]

Looks like the opening line is Utah by 4.

http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-football/odds/las-vegas/

I think empirically a team favored by 4 wins between 55-60 percent of time (maybe closer to 60% than 55%). Certainly, the betting market isn't perfectly efficient but this is probably a resonable estimate of the probability that Utah wins. The initial spread is basically rating the teams as almost equal and Utah is deriving almost all of the ex ante advantage from home field

[Coach McGuirk]

I expected it to be a little higher than that. I wouldn't take it. I would need to see the line around 11 before I would bet on the cougars. Hopefully I get surprised.

[Surfah]

That's a more favorable line for the Cougars than I anticipated. Man I am getting amped for this game.

[pelagius]

I expected it to be a little higher than that. I wouldn't take it. I would need to see the line around 11 before I would bet on the cougars. Hopefully I get surprised.

I understand ... I was predicting 5 this morning. There are some known biases in Vegas spreads (at least for NFL betting, less is known empirically about college betting). Vegas often desn't try to equalize betting on each side (despite popular notions that this is exactly what they do). In fact, In 50% of all NFL games 2/3 of the bets (dollars) fall on oneside of the line. At least in the NFL the two big biases that Vegas tries to induce people to overbet are favorites and visitors (see levitt (2004)). The favorite bias is stronger than the visitor bias. If vegas sets college spreads like they do NFL spreads, then its is more likely that the spread is slightly too big in this case rather than slightly too small.

[Goatnapper'96]

I expected it to be a little higher than that. I wouldn't take it. I would need to see the line around 11 before I would bet on the cougars. Hopefully I get surprised.

I am with you. I think that Unga is less effective against the U this year than last. I think Hall and Collie will be more effective against the U. Overall, I think the offense will score 7-14 points more.

However, I expect Brian Johnson to systematically pick BYU's zone apart. Then I expect Utah to gets its run game rolling. If forced I would predict Utah by 10, 34-24 or something in that vicinity.

Saving graces for BYU would be Collie making some huge gamebreaking big plays and if Brian Johnson turns the ball over with stupid decisions. I don't see that because I struggle seeing BYU getting the pressure on him they got last year.

I am really hoping that Collie's halftime speech is turning this into Collie's team. I also hope he doesn't head to the pros after this year.

[New Mexican Disaster]

The thing that gives me the greatest hope for the Cougs to win is that the Utes do not have the freakish athleticism of TCU. The UTes have very good athleticism and better skill players than the Horny Toads. But we can deal with good skill position players.

So color me as optimistic that the 4 point line is not artificially low.

[pelagius]

The thing that gives me the greatest hope for the Cougs to win is that the Utes do not have the freakish athleticism of TCU. The UTes have very good athleticism and better skill players than the Horny Toads. But we can deal with good skill position players.

So color me as optimistic that the 4 point line is not artificially low.

Well, its moved to 6.0-6.5, but I hope so too.