In last week’s Handicapper’s Notebook we mentioned that NFL favorites had covered an uncanny 58% of the games through Week 9 and predicted that it wouldn’t last.
Sure enough, as if on cue, underdogs came out barking in Week 10, going 10-4 ATS with nine outright victories. That had many sportsbook directors in Las Vegas and all over the world smiling, since public bettors and handicappers typically get buried on weeks that the dogs cover at that rate, but the sharpest handicapping team in the country here at Harry Bondi Sports not only avoided disaster, but turned in another profitable Sunday.
In fact, it would have been another NFL Sunday Sweep for us, if not for the idiocy of Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin, who pissed away the game for his team by electing to go for two after all four of Pittsburgh’s touchdowns and failing to convert all four times. While the “math guys” out there will try to tell you it’s “positive EV” to go for two more often than kicking the extra point, we don’t buy it. What those “genuines” don’t take into account is momentum and when the Steelers missed their first two conversions of the game, they led 12-3, instead of 14-3. It made a HUGE difference to the psychi of BOTH teams and, in the end, the Steelers were left chasing those missed points the entire game, eventually leading to a 35-30 loss.
Elsewhere in the NFL and college football
Upsets were also prevalent in college football last weekend, as referenced in this week’s Bondi Bulletin newsletter. Overall, six teams that were a dog of +300 or more on the money line won their games outright on Saturday, with the biggest upsets coming when Iowa (+1200) beat Michigan and Pittsburgh (+990) shocked Clemson. To put that in perspective and to drive home the point of just how unpredictable college football can be, there have now been 57 teams at a money line price of +300 or more to win their games outright this season. In the NFL, there have been just two all season and both involved the Arizona Cardinals, who lost to New England (+330) and the LA Rams (+355).
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With their unfathomable come-from-behind 20-17 win at Carolina last week, the KC Chiefs are now a mind-boggling 18-3 straight up in their last 21 games. But as we pointed out this week’s Bondi Bulletin newsletter winning games straight up doesn’t always translate into covering pointspreads. In fact, the Chiefs backers are a “perfect” 0-6 ATS when listed as a home favorite of more than 6 points during this streak. Nonetheless, a major reason for the team’s success is forcing turnovers and not making mistakes. Since the start of last season, the Chiefs are an amazing +28 in turnover differential. The win over Carolina gave Carolina a 2-1 record this season in games they trail by 17 points or more. The rest of the league is 2-52 this season when facing that big of a deficit.
Speaking of turnovers, Carolina led the league last year in turnover differential with a +20 as they went 15-1. This year, they rank No. 29 in the league at -7 (entering Thursday night’s game vs. New Orleans), and as a result the defending NFC champs will most likely be on the outside looking in when the playoffs begin.
While the NFL has become a quarterback league over the last decade, running the ball is still vital to ATS success. For the season, teams that rush for more than the league average in a game (107.5 yards) are now 68-36 (65%) against the spread this season, including 21-7 ATS the last three weeks.
Condolences if you bet over 89 in last week’s Texas Tech/Oklahoma State game last weekend. As expected, the game was a shootout, but failed to get over the 89 point barrier when Texas Tech scored with 1:44 left to make it 45-44, but then missed the extra-point attempt that would have likely forced overtime and guaranteed a winning “over” ticket.
The best running back in college football that you’ve never heard of is San Diego State’s Donnel Pumphrey (right). With his 198 rushing yards in last week’s 46-16 win for the Aztecs over Nevada, the 5-foot-9, 180-pound senior moved into 5th place all-time with 6,051 career rushing yards, just 31 behind Tony Dorsett, who is third all-time. He needs 346 yards to catch the all-time leader, Ron Dayne.
Tennessee may have appeared to get things back in order last week when it beat Kentucky, 49-36, as a 13-point favorite, but what has to concern Vols fans is the fact that the Wildcasts were able to gash the UT defense for 443 rushing yards in the loss. That marked the first time in 31 games this season in college football that a team failed to win a game after running for more than 400 yards.