Changes spice up SWAC competition

NCAA Football Betting Lines

07/20/2010 - Birmingham, AL (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - Prairie View A&M quarterback K.J. Black remembers - rather painfully, perhaps - some of the blitzes that came his way during Southwestern Athletic Conference play last season.

"It kind of woke me up," said the field general of the reigning SWAC champions, and the 2010 SWAC Preseason Offensive Player of the Year.

It's not just Black. Everybody has to be on his toes in the SWAC, because everyone is watching each other.

A lot has been changing in the conference in recent years, starting, of course, with Prairie View winning the SWAC title last year for the first time since 1964. The Panthers' emergence is part of a trend of improvement among the Texas schools, if Texas Southern can raise its play under coach Johnnie Cole the way Prairie View has done under Henry Frazier III.

Yet really what stood out Tuesday at the SWAC Football Kickoff Luncheon and Media Day was how the coaches have been changing around the conference. In decades past, you used to know many of the head coaches would be graduates of their school, or that Eddie Robinson would be collecting black national championships at Grambling State or John Merritt would be winning games at Jackson State.

The trend in the SWAC, and really across college football, is to go younger with the coaches and try to reach for former NFL players and assistant coaches. In the 10-team SWAC, only two head coaches are on the sidelines of their alma maters, Cole and Alabama State's Reggie Barlow. And the 37-year-old Barlow, the former wide receiver and returner with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Oakland Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, with whom he won a Super Bowl ring, could look across the room at former NFL player and assistant coach Stump Mitchell, the first-year head coach at Southern University.

Meanwhile, Alabama A&M's Anthony Jones, who is only his ninth season is the longest-tenured head coach in the SWAC, could look across the room to a former Super Bowl champion teammate, Arkansas-Pine Bluff head coach Monte Coleman, who, like Jones, played for the Washington Redskins.

Change, according to those in the know around the league, has been good.

"Put it this way," Jones said, "any time you make changes, you're making changes because you're expecting expectations to change. So when that happens, guys who are taking these jobs understand what they're walking into. Of course, their energy level will be different, their expectation level will be different.

"Any time you have guys who have played in the NFL, the best way to say it is they've been to the top. So they know what it's like to have some of the best facilities, they know what it's like to have some of the best equipment, some of the best people around, and so on. They know what it takes to win and be successful at a different level. So when that happens, they come into a situation, as they're coming into here, and they are requesting more resources into their programs."

Prairie View has seen what winning does for a program. Once a national laughingstock with a record 80 straight losses, the Panthers are 9-1 in each of the past two seasons and keep gaining national acclaim in the Football Championship Subdivision. They are the team to beat in the SWAC, not surprisingly anointed the preseason pick in the conference's preseason poll. Frazier, now in his seventh season with the Panthers, points to a win-now society for some of the changes across the conference.

The new coaches, Frazier said, are "bringing in their own philosophies and different things that may transcend what the universities have done in the past. It's one of those things that make for an interesting conference."

"The game's a young man's game for the most part because it's a grind," added Grambling State head coach Rod Broadway.

Naturally, the change in coaches brings a change in coaching styles, including more creativity - not the wing-T or options of yesteryear. The game is faster, with quarterbacks and wide receivers the ones to watch more so than the running backs. Defensively, it's all about being aggressive, as Black will attest from the blitzes he faced after he transferred to Prairie View from Western Kentucky of the Sun Belt Conference.

"In this league, which is really different from a lot of other places," Barlow said, "if you have a hundred-yard rusher, you don't turn the ball over, you control the clock, in this league you lose. In most leagues, that usually means you win."

The 51-year-old Mitchell, who spent 21 seasons in the NFL as a player and assistant coach, doesn't come aboard as a younger head coach, but his background is something that aids in recruiting. Mitchell is all business, and young players can see what that has done for him.

"It gives these players that we're coaching the opportunity to just work hard and just dream. That's the bottom line, they have to dream," Mitchell said. "Most of these coaches that have played in the NFL, you see why they played in the NFL because they're big. Now I'm one of the smaller ones. With my guys, they all feel like, well, 'Man, he played in the NFL? I think Google is wrong.' They Google me 10, 15 times to see if I'm the same guy. It just shows them that discipline is real; it can get you places that the undisciplined guy can't get regardless of how talented he is."

"I think it's a positive," Coleman added about the changes in the conference. "It helps the SWAC out, it shows the good brand of football that the SWAC is."

Prairie View, behind Black, led the SWAC with 10 selections on the preseason first and second teams, which were selected by coaches, sports information directors and selected media across the conference. In fact, the Panthers' eight first-team selections surpassed the number that any other school had on both teams.

Grambling senior defensive end Christian Anthony was named the SWAC Preseason Defensive Player of the Year and helped the Tigers to seven overall selections, which tied Texas Southern for the second most.

Alabama A&M was selected to repeat as the Eastern Division champion and to again face Prairie View in the SWAC Championship here at Legion Field on Dec. 11.

SWAC PRESEASON POLL (Coaches, Media, and selected Sports Information Directors)

Eastern Division 1. Alabama A&M (15 first-place votes), 98 points 2. Jackson State (5), 86 3. Alcorn State (2), 69 4. Alabama State, 50 5. Mississippi Valley State, 27

Western Division 1. Prairie View A&M (17), 104 2. Grambling State (2), 79 3. Texas Southern (2), 69 4. Southern, 42 5. Arkansas-Pine Bluff (1), 37

PRESEASON SWAC ALL-CONFERENCE TEAM

Offensive Player of the Year - K.J. Black, QB, Prairie View A&M Defensive Player of the Year - Christian Anthony, DE, Grambling State

First Team

Offense

OL- Russell Jackson, Alabama A&M; James Dekle, Prairie View A&M; Tim Tusey, Prairie View A&M; Ramon Chinyoung, Southern; Charles Smith, Texas Southern. RB- Frank Warren, Grambling State; Donald Babers, Prairie View A&M. WR- Nick Andrews, Alabama State; William Osbourn, Texas Southern; TE- Ryan Singleton, Alcorn State. QB- K.J. Black, Prairie View A&M

Defense DL- Frank Kearse, Alabama A&M; Christian Anthony, Grambling State; Donovan Robinson, Jackson State; Quinton Spears, Prairie View A&M. LB- Afu Okosun, Alabama A&M; Cliff Exama, Grambling State; Max Sencherey, Prairie View A&M. DB- Anthony Johnson, Jackson State; Kerry Hoskins, Jackson State; Chris Adingupu, Prairie View A&M; Jason House, Southern

Specialists PK- Ari Johnson, Grambling State; P- Pedro Ventura, Prairie View A&M; KR- Kiare Thompson, Grambling State

Second Team

Offense

OL- Anquez Jackson, Alabama A&M; Bruce Beal, Alabama State; Antonio Colston, Jackson State; Terrael Williams, Jackson State; Chris Browne, Southern. RB- Cornelius Walker, Grambling State; Martin Gilbert, Texas Southern. WR- Edward Johnson, Alcorn State; Shaun Stephens, Prairie View A&M. TE- Larry Donnell, Grambling State. QB- Arvell Nelson, Southern

Defense

DL- Kynjee Cotton, Alabama State; Malcolm Taylor, Alcorn State; Reginald Foster, Mississippi Valley State; Rolando Melancon, Texas Southern. LB- Ryan Rich, Jackson State; Rory Malone, Mississippi Valley State; Dejuan Fulgham, Texas Southern. DB- Korey Morrison, Alabama A&M; Donovan Masline, Alabama State; Markkus Davis, Mississippi Valley State; DB- De'Markus Washington, Texas Southern

Specialists

PK- Brady Faggard, Prairie View A&M. P- Josh Duran, Southern. KR- Mareo Howard, Arkansas-Pine Bluff

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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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