Anyone Surprised By This?

[SHOSS]

Anyone else surprised by this? Hard to assess what is shaping up to be the pillow fight of the year based on last week alone, but jeeze? smoo is favored by 16 to 17.5 points? Where would you set the line?

http://covers.usatoday.com/data/odds.aspx#ncf

I might be inclined to set the line at smo favored by 3 or 4 because it is a home game for them... 16 to 17.5? shocking to me anyway...

[GoMeanGreen1999]

Anyone else surprised by this? Hard to assess what is shaping up to be the pillow fight of the year based on last week alone, but jeeze? smoo is favored by 16 to 17.5 points? Where would you set the line?

http://covers.usatoday.com/data/odds.aspx#ncf

I might be inclined to set the line at smo favored by 3 or 4 because it is a home game for them... 16 to 17.5? shocking to me anyway...

It doesn't really shock me - I do wonder though what the line was on the game last year - does anyone remember?

[Smitty]

Anyone else surprised by this? Hard to assess what is shaping up to be the pillow fight of the year based on last week alone, but jeeze? smoo is favored by 16 to 17.5 points? Where would you set the line?

http://covers.usatoday.com/data/odds.aspx#ncf

I might be inclined to set the line at smo favored by 3 or 4 because it is a home game for them... 16 to 17.5? shocking to me anyway...

If you set the line at 3-4 points, the bets would flood in on SMU. After last week, SMU is still going to have a higher national profile than UNT. Whether that's right or wrong doesn't matter to the bookies. They want the same amount bet on UNT as on SMU. Hence, the line is set to make sure that happens.

Think about it this way: if you're not a fan of either team, all you know is that UNT got beat 79-10, they have a new coach who is using the former coach's players, and they're on the road. True, SMU got beat 49-9, but they're at home and they're considered a possible bowl team and a contender for their conference title. Right or wrong, Conference USA is considered a better conference than the Sun Belt. That all adds up to SMU being a strong favorite in the minds of a lot of gamblers - and that's where the bookies look to determine the line.

[DeepGreen]

It doesn't really shock me - I do wonder though what the line was on the game last year - does anyone remember?

I agree. Not shocking to me either. Face it, UNT got crushed. SMU got crushed too but had some simblance of an offense. Ever so slight though.

[TIgreen01]

Heck...even if they gave us 30 pts I'd still have to take dirty schmoo to cover. Our D needs to prove something this week. If we can't stop the quick WR screens (and I'm not convinced we can regardless of all the 'out-athleted' talk after OU), schmu is not going to try to 'stop scoring'....