Sportsbook Betting – Has Oregon Revolutionized Football?

Sportsbook bettors may not be asking themselves a question like this, but I’m wondering whether when the dust clears, the Oregon Ducks, who take part in the BCS title game on Monday night, may not have played a major role in revolutionizing college football.

The contest takes place at 8:30 PM ET at University of Phoenix Stadium (natural turf) in Glendale, AZ, and the Ducks are a 1.5-point underdog to the Auburn Tigers in the sportsbook odds, with a total on the game of 73 points.

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Sportsbook Betting

BCS Championship Game

Auburn Tigers (13-0 SU, 9-3 ATS) vs. Oregon Ducks (12-0 SU, 6-4-1 ATS)

Live at University of Phoenix Stadium

Glendale, AZ

Monday, January 10 — 8:30 PM ET

TV: ESPN

College Football Sportsbook Betting Lines:

Auburn -1.5

Oregon +1.5

Total 73

When I was a student at the University of Miami, I experienced the magical rise of that school’s rise to the top of the college football world.

The culmination of the team’s resurgence came on January 2, 1984, when the Hurricanes went into the Orange Bowl game as a heavy sportsbook underdog to the Nebraska Cornhuskers, who were big, strong considered by many to be one of the most awesome college football teams of all time.

What the people in attendance and watching on NBC witnessed that night was one of the more extraordinary evenings of college football they had ever seen. Miami seemed to play the role of Jimmy Young to Nebraska’s George Foreman, which is to say, this was a classic boxer-versus-puncher matchup that was demonstrating that there was a lot to be said for the boxer.

The ‘Canes got off to a 17-0 lead, then fought off two major Nebraska comeback attempts, then a failed two-point conversion in the end, to come away with a 31-30 win and capture the first of its national championships, shocking a lot of sportsbook followers along the way.

I really think that upset changed college football forever, because the game had more or less been dominated to that point by run-oriented offense, represented by a lot of brute strength, and when Miami won, they showed that a team that passed first could win on a large scale.

They reinforced it with four more titles over the years, but that first crown made teams think a lot more about speed, finesse, and "scheme," and a lot of them followed suit from there. Even teams like Nebraska realized that speed was what they needed.

College football is a copycat sport, and once something works, it tends to be emulated. We have seen the spread offense proliferate all over the landscape, after people like Urban Meyer won big with it. I’m sure a lot of teams will start to employ Nevada’s "Pistol" now that it has proven to be successful.

I wonder whether with the success of Oregon, and if that success results in a national title for the Ducks (a 1.5-point sportsbook underdog) on Monday night, whether you are going to see a whole lot of teams increasing the pace of play as something that in and of itself might give them a better chance to win.

Let’s face it – when you get plays off faster you are giving the defense less time to react. If you are not sending subs in the game, they can;t do it, and you are generally going to create confusion in a defense. That’s what Oregon does, and what they do beyond that is go so fast that they wear a defense down because there is no time to rest.

I’m sure a lot of sports book followers saw that interesting New York Times article back in late October, which explored the Ducks’ pace of play and asked whether it might be the "next great innovation." I would tend to think that it is, because it makes so much sense to keep a defense back on its heels.

The writer took a sample of plays and found that sometimes, Oregon was getting plays off less than ten seconds after the previous play ended. They had snapped an average of 23.2 seconds after the previous play, and that wasn’t even the fastest. Oklahoma is also doing it, with a pace of 21.3 seconds.

By the way, Auburn is not far behind Oregon at 27.4 seconds, so it’s a good bet that whoever wins, sportsbook regulars are likely to see this strategy spreading like wildfire next year.

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