Indiana
vs.
Bowling Green
College Football
Pick with Analysis
9/13/14
Bowling Green will host Indiana on Saturday in a Game that kicks off at 12 noon est. and can be seen on ESPNU. Bowling Green will be looking to avenge last years loss to Indiana, their worst defeat of the season, a 42-10 thumping. As of this writing on Tuesday, Indiana is a -7 point favorite at 5 dimes sportsbook.
We often quote betonline sportsbook’s openers in Our write ups because they are the first to post lines each week and so you can see just how drastically some of these numbers change. Betonline opened Bowling Green as a -3 point favorite on Sunday afternoon and bettors couldn’t get the money out of their pockets fast enough to bet Indiana. Within 10 minutes the Game was at pick em. Within a half hOur it was Indiana -3. It kept rising. Another prominent book opened the Game Indiana -4. Once again, the Hoosier money kept flowing. In fact, it went as high as -8 before settling in to where it now sits.
The move is understandable. After all, Indiana hammered Bowling Green last year and after the Bowling Green opener, it was announced that they lost QB Matt Johnson for the season. Matt Johnson was 2nd in the nation behind only Teddy Bridgewater in yards per attempt in 2013. Oh, and in that opener, the Falcons lost by 28 points, 59-31 to Western Kentucky. Hence, all the early Indiana money on this Game. 71% of the action as of Tuesday has come in on the Hoosiers.
The wiseguys will stop hammering a Game like that when the line reaches a point where there is no longer any value. Apparently, that point was -7. At that point, if you’re to look at this Game and consider betting it, you can only look one way and that’s with Bowling Green and +7 or more. That is now where the value lies. I’m not saying Bowling Green is the side. I’m saying you can’t consider laying more than -7 on a Game that has moved this drastically. It’s a square move, regardless of the final outcome and will cost you money in the long run.
So can there be any value in Bowling Green? Perhaps. This was a 10-4 team a year ago. Other than this Indiana Game, their other losses came by 1,3, and 3 and that was to Miss State, Toledo and Pitt. Oh, and they knocked off #16 and undefeated Northern Illinois in the MAC Championship, 47-27. (we used them as a key release!)
In fact, despite the blowout loss to Indiana early in the year, had they played that Game again at the end of the season, many handicappers would have had Bowling Green favored. My own numbers would have had Bowling Green -3, just like the betonline openers.
So, is having QB Matt Johnson go down, plus having a new coach (Dino Babers) and schemes worth a 10 point line swing? Ah, the guesses and assumptions that must be made when handicapping early season college football. We’ll simply leave it at this and repeat what’s been said already. If there’s any value to be had in this Game, it now lies with Bowling Green +7 or more.