The Wynn Las Vegas Race And Sports Book has set their opening lines for every bowl game this year and Virginia Tech has opened as the largest favorite. They have us as 14 point favorites vs Tulsa in the Independence Bowl. The next closest is Arkansas -13 vs Kansas State in the Liberty Bowl, followed by Arizona -11.5 vs New Mexico in the New Mexico Bowl.
http://www.vegasinsider.com/college-football/odds/las-vegas/
These are the very first lines from the very first sportsbook, so I expect all of these lines to fluctuate a good deal over the next month. But if this is an early indicator, we could be the biggest bowl favorite heading into our Independence Bowl matchup.
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In the 38th out of 40 bowls when one source ranked them by attraction to viewers...
http://www.cbssports.com/collegefootball/eye-on-college-football/2540426...
10 spots behind Akron vs Utah State in the Famous Idaho Potato Bowl...that's harsh.
I will be watching Tennessee/NW closely on Jan 1 at noon. If UT does well, could vault them into the top 15 or higher to start next year.
Time to pull out the purple...
If we don't beat UT next year it will damage my soul. Those who do not live amongst a sea of lame ass yellowish orange '98 NC sweatshirts just cannot understand. Please oh please.....
Lived in Knoxville for a year and was told too many times that I was wearing the wrong color orange. Oh n-n-no little UT fans. Yours is the wrong color orange. Tuck Fennessee!!!
"It's that puke-inside-a-pumpkin orange. And I don't like pumpkins."
I love this. But as much as I hate Tennessee, I hate Alabama sooooo much more. And it's all because I find their fans more insufferable than UT's. That's saying something.
Roll damn tide......
Baby puke orange is never the right orange
Tennessee very quietly had a good year, and of the 4 games they lost, they should have won 3 of those if it weren't for their coach's conservative game management. And they're only going to build on that.
Our only shot of winning against them is if the defense completely shuts down whatever Tennessee throws at them. And of course the offense will need to put some points on the board, because whoever scores more points will win the game. /madden
Yeah, they always frontload their schedule so it's easy for them to finish strong. I think UK and Vandy are always late in the year. They were 4-4 at one point and won their last 4 in rather convincing fashion I believe.
Good looking team for next year.
Vandy was in October this year but I always though they played later than that. But yeah, USCe and Mizzou flopped over so UT finished with 5 straight wins after they lost to Bama. Can't forget the decisive victory over North Texas in November.
If they could schedule Florida later in the season they might actually beat them again some day. Florida has started strong and gotten worse due to one reason or another in recent years.
The only reason I have any hope for Bristol is because I saw how Tennessee played against North Texas. Even though the score ended up being 24-0, Tennessee did not look good at all. A team that is 1-11 played them really well and Tennessee looked really bad. Tennessee only scored 17 points through the first three quarters against a team that had been allowing 45.6 points per game. Hopefully the coaches can come up with a good game plan for that game and either our defense shows up strong or their offense come out looking that bad again.
Ugh, I don't think Bristol can handle the ego of Tennessee fans if they beat NW and end up in the top-15 next year.
#maddenism
I never like when we're big favorites.
But, it's been awhile since we've been in this position so we got that going for us.
Which I don't know if that's nice or not
Last 2 times we were a favorite of over a TD vs an FBS team...East Carolina this year and Wake Forest last year.
Should this team be 2 TD favorites against anybody?
AHHHHHHHno!
Sure. I think our D can score 14.
I think it's interesting that early in the season Tulsa lost to Oklahoma (52-38) and Houston (38-24) by exactly 14 points!
Biggest favorites? What could possibly go wrong? /s
We always play our worst when we're favorites. That's not selective memory. That's years of empirical observation.
Your memory is selective. Over the past ten seasons Virginia Tech has been favored by 14 or more points 37 times. Tech's record against the point spread in those games was 19 - 15 -3 meaning that the Hokies did slightly better than Las Vegas expected. Tech's record straight up in those games was 34 -3, with one of the losses being the dread James Madison game.
WHEN IN THE HOLY HELL DID WE PLAY JAMES MADISON?!?!?!
Nope didn't happen. Forget it. Stop. Now.
After doing the above research I wondered how Tech has performed when it was a serious underdog. Starting with the 1994 season, the Hokies have been a 14 point or greater underdog only six times. Tech went 3 - 3 -0 against the spread, but the team lost all six games.
how much was OSU favored by last year?
10 I believe.
The line started out at +20, fell to +14, and then, after some Ohio State suspensions and injuries settled at +10 to +11.
It seems like big favorites go down all the time during in bowls. Sometimes it feels like bowl games aren't even part of the same season.
Maybe we should play Lawson and get some use out of that burnt redshirt.
If I gambled, I think I would consider taking Tulsa with that kind of spread considering all of the changes and emotion occurring this December. But, there is also a chance that the team rallies behind Beamer's last game and thumps them good. Of course, that's why I don't gamble.
I think the month off will do wonders for Brewer's accuracy as his ankle will have time to heal and we should have a good uptick in offensive production