Perhaps the BEST B1G Forum anywhere, here at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

Yeah, I highly question Ole Miss as being favored over everyone but OSU.  

The games often defy the odds, but the odds are one way to rank teams before any games.

Yes.  But when people say, X doesn't belong because how many teams would X actually be favored to beat?

I'm not suggesting who belongs, only that ONE WAY to rank teams is to use hypothetical matchup odds.  Would it be perfect?  Of course not.  Might it be better than what we do now?  I think probably so.

People dislike rankings generally.  This is just another variant.

I'd find it interesting.

I suspect it's closest to a prediction of how folks out there will bet.  I would guess ND gets more attention than "NIU", so they probably stick a few more points in anticipation of ND getting bets to win by fans.  I had a notion one could bet against Big Name teams and maybe break even after the vig.

I suspect if this were true, people with real money to throw down on wagering would be exploiting it to the point where Vegas would have to stop doing it. 

You don't think there are Wall Street quant types who could access 5+ years of Vegas line/result history and look for arbitrage opportunities like this? 

Hell, you don't think that the big sportsbooks EMPLOY Wall Street quant types who are analyzing their own line/result history looking to make sure that there aren't any "blind spots" in their own setting of the lines that are easily exploitable with a system like "bet against Big Name teams and you can't go wrong!"?

The point is that the betting line would be influenced by bettors who favored their team, say ND, in numbers sufficient to render the line unbalanced vs "reality".  I'm sure the Vegas boys understand this and set initial lines accordingly, if it's real.  Let's take ND-USC, MAYBE they know ND gets a preference with bettors, so the line would have been say -5, but they set it at -6 by understand that ND bettors over play their team.  Then when the excess bets come in on ND to win, they don't have to readjust much.

My point is not how Vegas judges real lines, but how bettors on certain teams MAY over populate betting on their team.

I do still think one can do OK betting the underdog in bowl games.

pointing out that the Texas schedule is not as strong as others does not mean Texas is a weak team

same goes for Indiana