Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | NFL Football Betting | College Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | College Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting
02/13/2012 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - There are FCS prospects not headed to the NFL Combine who figure to be drafted in April.
Last year, eight players were left on the sideline and still got the call on draft day.
But the 22 FCS players who have their bags packed for Indianapolis next week have a unique opportunity to impress all 32 NFL teams, and they don't want to waste it. They can rest easy that the pro personnel, not Gisele Bundchen, will be critiquing them.
FCS prospects, of course, face the stigma of coming from a small school. It's a label that will follow them even if they go on to enjoy significant success professionally.
At the Combine, though, they have an excellent chance to show they belong on the next level - mentally, physically and emotionally.
"Going and wowing will help your stock," said Josh Buchanan, who operates JB Scouting Inc., which is devoted to smaller-school player evaluation, "but if you go and you perform much worse than you expect, it will hurt you drastically."
At the Combine, where players will participate in different positional groups over four-day spans from Feb. 22-28, the evaluation includes medical exams, psychological testing and interviews with teams, and workouts (like timing, stations and skill drills). While some of the BCS talent will opt out of the workouts to perform them at pro days in the coming months, the FCS players generally are more willing to participate in the drills when healthy.
The FCS contingent is particularly strong in the secondary. Some of the better prospects are among the seven cornerbacks, including Furman's Ryan Steed and Coastal Carolina's Josh Norman. And then there are another four who are safeties, although Montana's Trumaine Johnson, at 6-foot-2, 200 pounds, might move to the position from cornerback.
"It just so happened that it lined up that you had so many in one year, but I think this is more a cycle thing," Buchanan said. "The corners, the DBs will be a little bit down next year because it's so strong this year. You're never going to see 11 (defensive backs) going to the Combine for five years in a row."
Appalachian State wide receiver Brian Quick is considered the FCS' top prospect, but he didn't wow scouts at the Senior Bowl and was never considered to be an academic whiz. The latter factors in when teams decide how he would be able to pick up their offense.
But Quick is so physically gifted at 6-4, 220 pounds that he likely would solidify himself as a second-round selection by having a lights-out Combine.
Buchanan believes Norman and Steed, third- or fourth-round prospects, helped themselves on the all-star game circuit more than Quick. He also felt Chattanooga quarterback B.J. Coleman, Tennessee Tech wide receiver Tim Benford and Quick's Appalachian State teammate, quarterback-turned-cornerback DeAndre Presley, improved their standing in the eyes of scouts.
"The sad thing is when you're coming from this level and you go to an all-star game, if you don't help yourself, you ultimately could slide a little bit," Buchanan said. "Not that your stock falls, but so many other guys helped themselves. You might still be a fifth-round grade, but you might end up in the early- to mid-sixth because several other guys by-passed you with fourth- round grades."
NFL teams select the list of Combine invites in early December, before the all-star games. All is not lost, however, for players like North Dakota State tight end Matt Veldman, Old Dominion defensive tackle Ronnie Cameron and William & Mary running back Jonathan Grimes, whom Buchanan had hoped would have graded high enough for the Combine. They still can impress teams at an upcoming pro day.
But for those players going under the microscope at the RCA Dome, it's a golden opportunity to create some buzz two months before the draft.
"The ones I've talked to say they're real focused on Indy," Buchanan said. "They're putting everything into Indy because they know if, 'I do well there, then I don't even need to do anything (exceptional) at my pro day.'"
<< Ballack out of Barca contest
Leverkusen, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Bayer Leverkusen midfielder Michael
Ballack will be unavailable for the first leg of the club's Champions League
round of 16 encounter with Barcelona on Tuesday.
The former Germany international i
<< Benfica's Garcia out for Zenit match
Lisbon, Portugal (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Benfica midfielder Javi Garcia has been
ruled out for the first leg of the club's Champions League round of 16
encounter with Zenit St Petersburg on Wednesday.
Garcia missed the club's 4-1 wi
<< Sandusky can have contact with grandchildren
Bellefonte, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former Penn State assistant coach Jerry
Sandusky can have contact with most of his grandchildren and will have a local
jury when his child sex abuse trial begins in May.
Sandusky is under electronic m
<< Udinese suffers double injury blow
Udine, Italy (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Udinese confirmed on Monday that midfielder
Mauricio Isla and striker Antonio Di Natale will both miss the next few weeks
after sustaining injuries in the club's 2-1 win over AC Milan.
Isla has tallied t
Jets, Ducks swap centers >>
Winnipeg, MB (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - The Winnipeg Jets have acquired center Maxime
Macenauer from the Anaheim Ducks in exchange for center Riley Holzapfel.
Macenauer appeared in 29 games for the Ducks this season and has picked up a
goal with
Tretschok, Covic take charge of Hertha temporarily >>
Berlin, Germany (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Former Hertha Berlin players Rene Tretschok
and Ante Covic have been named caretaker managers of the club following the
departure of manager Michael Skibbe on Sunday.
Skibbe took charge over the winte
Sa Pinto replaces Paciencia at Sporting >>
Lisbon, Portugal (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Sporting Lisbon fired manager Domingos
Paciencia on Monday and has replaced him with Ricardo Sa Pinto.
Sa Pinto has been promoted to manager from his role in Sporting's youth setup,
and the 39-year-ol
Korda cracks top 100 in women's rankings >>
Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Following her playoff victory at the
Women's Australian Open on Sunday, Jessica Korda jumped 203 places in this
week's women's world rankings.
Korda, who birdied the second playoff hole to def
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
To visit this internet sportsbook got to MySportsbook.com for all your sports betting needs and World Series odds.
NEW YORK (AP) -By staying away from the cupcakes, Southern California earned itself a slim new ranking.
No. 1 always seems to fit USC.
Southern California jumped two spots to No. 1 in The Associated Press Top 25 on Tuesday, rewarded by voters for opening the season with a dominant performance on the road against a BCS conference opponent.
Georgia and Ohio State, the preseason Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, started their seasons with glorified scrimmages at home against FCS (formerly I-AA) teams. USC, however, traveled across country to face Virginia and could not have been more impressive in a 52-7 victory.
Georgia fell to No. 2 and Ohio State to No 3.
"We realize that rankings so early in a season are certainly fluid. But rankings do help establish a pecking order for things later in the season," USC coach Pete Carroll said in a statement. "As for moving into the No. 1 spot, it's nice to know that people think highly of our team."
Since reaching No. 1 on Dec. 7, 2003, the final-regular season AP poll of that season, USC has been No. 1 in 39 polls, by far the most of any team during that time.
"Some have said the voters are taking our schedule into consideration," Carroll said. "Our philosophy has always been to schedule outstanding opponents. We need to play challenging games like we just did, traveling across the country to open the season at Virginia. Games like that bring out our best and make us stronger as a team."
The latest voting was close. USC received 21 first-place votes and 1,539 points from the 65-member media panel. Georgia had 20 first-place votes and 1,506 points. Ohio State got 15 first-place votes and 1,497 points.
"I'd say we've evolved as pollsters," said Stewart Mandel of SI.com, who moved USC up to No. 1. "In the past, voters just kind of automatically moved teams up and kept teams where they were if they won."
Georgia beat Georgia Southern 45-21 on Saturday and Ohio State opened with a 43-0 win over Youngstown State.
"There's a bit of a growing backlash for the amount of teams that open with I-AA cupcakes," said Mandel, whose book "Bowls, Polls and Tattered Souls" chronicles college football's controversies. "To see a team [USC] go on the road and play a New Year's Day bowl team from last season, and not only play them but destroy them, how could you not reward that team?"
USC also jumped past Georgia to No. 1 in the USA Today coaches' poll, which has the same top five as the AP poll.
"It's definitely a privilege to be No. 1. But it's not heartbreaking to me if we drop," Georgia offensive lineman Josh Davis said. "It doesn't matter right now what we're ranked. What matters is our next game and right now, that's Central Michigan. The only time the polls matter is in December. That's when the polls matter."
While the Bulldogs opened easy, their schedule ultimately should be as difficult as any team's. Georgia's big nonconference test is at No. 15 Arizona State on Sept. 20. The Bulldogs also face six Southeastern Conference rivals that've been ranked in the first two polls.
As for Ohio State, the Buckeyes play at USC on Sept. 13 before getting into the Big Ten schedule.
But of the teams in this week's top 10, USC and Texas are the only ones that don't play an FCS opponent, and the Trojans are the only team that doesn't play a team from a non-BCS conference.
Get the latest 2009 BCS Championship odds at MySportsbook.com.
The last team to drop from No. 1 after a victory was USC last season. LSU jumped from No. 2 to No. 1 when it beat Tulane 34-9, the same week the Trojans edged Washington 27-24 on the road.
The last preseason No. 1 team to lose the top spot after winning its opening game was Florida in 2001. The Gators beat Marshall 49-14, but preseason No. 2 Miami opened with a 33-7 victory over Penn State and the Hurricanes jumped to No. 1 with Florida slipping to second.
The next four teams in the new Top 25 stayed the same: No. 4 Oklahoma (two first-place votes), No. 5 Florida (five first-place votes), No. 6 Missouri (one first-place vote), No. 7 LSU (one first-place vote) and No. 8 West Virginia.
No. 9 Auburn and No. 10 Texas each moved up a spot, taking advantage of Clemson's big drop. Clemson, ninth in the preseason, fell out after losing 34-10 to Alabama on Saturday.
Also falling out after losses were Virginia Tech, Pittsburgh and Tennessee.
Moving into the rankings were No. 21 Fresno State, No. 22 Utah, No. 23 UCLA and No. 24 South Carolina.
Alabama moved up 11 spots after its big victory over Clemson.
The second 10 started with No. 11 Wisconsin, followed by Texas Tech, Alabama and Kansas. BYU and Arizona State were tied for 15th. Rivals BYU and Utah are both ranked for the first time since 1996.
South Florida was No. 17, ahead of Oregon, Penn State and Wake Forest at No. 20.
The final five were all the teams to move into the ranking, except for Illinois, which dropped four spots and tied South Carolina for No. 24.
Get free Sports Betting lines RSS feeds from top rated online sportsbook MySportsbook.com
Sports Betting News: NFL Team History | NFL Football Betting | College Football Betting | Baseball Betting | Basketball Betting | College Basketball Betting | Hockey Betting | Golf Betting | Tennis Betting | Auto Racing Betting | Horse Racing Betting | Soccer Betting