Defense comes up big for Mountaineers

NCAA Football Betting Lines

09/05/2010 -

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) -West Virginia is accustomed to scoring in bunches. What stood out after the season opener was an effort unseen from its defense in quite some time.

The Mountaineers earned their first home shutout win in 13 years on Saturday, giving up just 186 yards in a 31-0 victory over Coastal Carolina.

``Having a shutout is huge for this defense,'' senior defensive lineman Chris Neild said. ``This is the first shutout that I've been a part of since I've been playing here. We knew that we had to come out fast and make a statement and I think we did with this game.''

The Mountaineers returned nine starters on defense this season, led by a three-man front consisting of Neild, Julian Miller and Scooter Berry, so the result against an FCS opponent wasn't too surprising.

West Virginia also rolled out a new defensive formation with four linemen on passing downs that included junior college transfer Bruce Irvin. Coastal Carolina quarterback Zach MacDowall hurried many of his passes and often threw to spots where he didn't have any receivers.

``We put so much pressure on that quarterback on third down that he had a hard time releasing the ball,'' said West Virginia safeties coach Steve Dunlap. ``If we can continue to do that, it makes the secondary coaches look awfully smart.''

The pursuit to the ball also showed on running downs.

West Virginia was maligned for allowing six 100-yard individual rushing efforts last season, but eight different Coastal Carolina players combined for just 63 yards.

Safety Terence Garvin, a new starter, had 10 tackles to match his total for all of last season.

``We were flying around out there and I thought we looked real fast,'' Neild said.

Maybe not fast enough at times. The Mountaineers were unable to register any sacks and forced only two turnovers. They'll get the chance to improve on that Friday night at Marshall (0-1).

``I'm pleased with the way our defense played, reacted and took control of the game,'' said West Virginia coach Bill Stewart. ``The most important thing is that we played with reckless abandonment. There were collisions and not just contact.''

Some of the collisions came at a cost. Safety Robert Sands, the Big East's interception leader last season, hurt a thumb and his right shoulder on consecutive plays in the third quarter. His status for Friday's game wasn't immediately determined.

West Virginia earned its first shutout since a 38-0 win at Cincinnati in 2005 and its first home shutout win since beating Rutgers 48-0 in 1997.

The defense might be counted on for more such efforts until the offense can put together a complete game.

West Virginia led only 10-0 at halftime but scored on three of its first four drives of the second half. Geno Smith, making his first career start, completed 20 of 27 passes for 216 yards before taking a seat early in the fourth.

``I don't want to make excuses for Geno, but this was his first complete game and he's a sophomore,'' Stewart said. ``He'll get better and he's my guy.''

Noel Devine rushed for 111 yards, but the largest chunk of his yards came on a 39-yard run late in the game to set up West Virginia's final touchdown.

West Virginia has been looking for another offensive weapon to emerge to help out Devine and slot receiver Jock Sanders and the Mountaineers may have found that in sophomore Tavon Austin.

Austin, hoping to become more than just a return specialist for the Mountaineers, showed his speed at wide receiver against the Chanticleers, coming up with two nice runs after catches. He led the team with 90 yards on five receptions.

``The object was to get the ball in our playmakers' hands and I think that's something that we did today,'' Smith said.Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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Sportsbook Betting Lines

Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?

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. “

What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?

There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).

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).

How the Opening Line Is Made

The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.

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.

Why Sports Betting Lines Change

Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:

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.”

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