Gophers open up as 21 point favorites

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UNLV had some decent offensive players with Cornett, the QB, and the big WR. Can we expect NMST to be as good offensively?
 

Ogee Oglethorpe said:
No doubt. 21 points is also a lot to be favored for a team that had 8 games last year where it didn't score more than 17 points.

Hoping to see some long sustained drives Saturday by the Rodent offense. Seeing how Kill and Limegrover called the UNLV game, I don't know how anyone can really expect the Gophers to run up 40+ points on Saturday. They'll run it as vanilla as vanilla can get, try to get some rhythm on offense, but they won't show a single thing for future opponents like SJSU and Iowa, games they will be challenged but HAVE to win.

I mentioned it before, I don't think this staff gives one tiny crap about how impressive they are in these NC games. They have an agenda, a plan, on the way to preparing for the meat of the schedule. Win the game, get out healthy, play a lot of players, get ready for next week. That's what we'll see the next few weeks.
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Yep. Now throw in the reporting of the top Running Back(s) being unavailable, how the UNLV game was only won by Special Teams play, how UNLV dominated :rolleyes: on Offense and how obscure the game itself is. Makes some bettors believe that NMSU just can't be as bad as they were against Texas. It all adds-up to bettors taking a flyer on NMSU and the books wanting to encourage them a little more. Early regular season College Football and Basketball can be fun to bet. Lots of games where even the experts don't know much about one team playing maybe even both, how can the rest of us be expected to?

Makes for a fun Saturday in a Sports Book!
 


We've got a true sophomore QB who is making the 3rd or 4th road start of his career.
An O-line that won't start a single senior.
2 of our top 3 RB's won't suit up.
3 of our top 5 WRs as of 3 months ago won't be playing (DCT, McDonald, Harbison).
We lost to this team at home by 7 points a mere 2 years ago.

Yet the GH experts are going to demand that we put up 30-40 points on the board and roll them over "like a B1G team should." Patience....
 

21 point favorites

BleedGopher said:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Gophers&src=hash">#Gophers</a> open as a 21-point favorite at New Mexico State, according to the Vegas Wynn.</p>— Darren Wolfson (@DarrenWolfson) <a href="https://twitter.com/DarrenWolfson/statuses/374294483858231296">September 1, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Go Gophers!!
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The experts clearly are not paying attention. Based on what? Ohio State, Michigan State, Michigan, Northwestern, Wisconsin should be 21 pt favorites. Last year, there were only 2 games where we looked like a legimate team--Purdue and Texas Tech ( maybe Syracuse). Of the 6 wins, several were ugly. The offense could barely move the ball last week against UNLV. Until we actually start playing like a legitimate 7/5 to 9/3 Big 10 team, I would not favor us against anyone by more than 9 points.
 



John Galt said:
We've got a true sophomore QB who is making the 3rd or 4th road start of his career.
An O-line that won't start a single senior.
2 of our top 3 RB's won't suit up.
3 of our top 5 WRs as of 3 months ago won't be playing (DCT, McDonald, Harbison).
We lost to this team at home by 7 points a mere 2 years ago.

Yet the GH experts are going to demand that we put up 30-40 points on the board and roll them over "like a B1G team should." Patience....
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All valid points in terms of personnel but we still should be able to physically manhandle these guys and win comfortably. Doesn't have to be a blow out but it shouldn't be an adventure either. When they beat us 2 years ago it was because we were in year one with Kill and frankly I felt like the defense did a horrible job making adjustments during the game. We are in year three and the defense is leaps and bounds better than the unit that took the field in 2010.

Bottom line is this is the kind of game a Big Ten team should not lose. Doesn't mean it can't happen but in year 3 this is a game that the Gophers should expect to win if we are to believe this team is headed in the right direction. I said it before, a loss in either of the next two games would be a bad sign for the present and future of this team.
 

My online has Minnesota -14.5. Are we sure Doogie didn't mistype the -21? A 7 point swing is super ridiculous.....
 

MNVCGUY said:
All valid points in terms of personnel but we still should be able to physically manhandle these guys and win comfortably. Doesn't have to be a blow out but it shouldn't be an adventure either. When they beat us 2 years ago it was because we were in year one with Kill and frankly I felt like the defense did a horrible job making adjustments during the game. We are in year three and the defense is leaps and bounds better than the unit that took the field in 2010.

Bottom line is this is the kind of game a Big Ten team should not lose. Doesn't mean it can't happen but in year 3 this is a game that the Gophers should expect to win if we are to believe this team is headed in the right direction. I said it before, a loss in either of the next two games would be a bad sign for the present and future of this team.
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So which is it? Should we be able to win, or physically mandhandle NMSU and win comfortably?

I agree we should expect to win. I disagree that the program is at a point where anyone should expect us to beat a D-1 team on the road by 20-30 points. Winning by 14 points would still be a 21 point turnaround from 2 years ago, plus it's away instead of at home. I'd call that significant improvement if it happens.
 



FireDaveLee said:
My online has Minnesota -14.5. Are we sure Doogie didn't mistype the -21? A 7 point swing is super ridiculous.....
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He's right, I saw -21 at the beginning of the week too. It's definitely a huge swing. My guess is a lot of people took NMSU +21 since they played close with Texas for a half, the game is @NMSU, we didn't look great on offense against UNLV, and we're missing some weapons on offense.
 

John Galt said:
So which is it? Should we be able to win, or physically mandhandle NMSU and win comfortably?

I agree we should expect to win. I disagree that the program is at a point where anyone should expect us to beat a D-1 team on the road by 20-30 points. Winning by 14 points would still be a 21 point turnaround from 2 years ago, plus it's away instead of at home. I'd call that significant improvement if it happens.
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I think we are on the same page. In my opinion you can physically manhandle a team and win comfortably without winning by 20-30 points. My point is that we should not find ourselves on the edge of our seats late in the game praying the team can pull out the victory.
 

MNVCGUY said:
I think you are mostly right however I would disagree some with the very first part of your statement. The staff could care less if they blow out these opponents or wrack up a ton of style points, however they do want to see their team physically dominate inferior opponents and look like a team ready to compete in the Big Ten.
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I wouldn't expect the Gophers 5 O-Linemen to physically dominate the front 7-8 of UNLV's defense, and they didn't. UNLV sold out to stop the running game between the tackles, period. Instead of 12 carries for 83 yards, Nelson could have easily had 20 carries for about 150. There was just plain nobody on the edge. Ever.

I struggle a little bit with the notion of physically dominating inferior opponents. Yes, they should physically dominate a HS team, and even FCS teams. But it's not like UNLV, for example, was trotting out offensive and defensive linemen that were averaging 255 pounds. How dominating would you expect the Gophers 300-pounders over the UNLV or NMSU 300-pounders?

These next two weeks, think of it like this: Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson playing their final round on Sunday, the week BEFORE a major, and they're 10-12 shots back, no chance to win. They are hitting shots, working on swings and trajectories that they are going to use next week, because it just doesn't matter how they look THIS week. That's what I'm anticipating from Kill and Company these next two weeks; work on what you want to work on, regardless of opponent, win the game, don't get anyone hurt, play a lot of kids.
 

The move from -21 to -14 only means 1 thing. At -21 too much money was put on NMSU. The bookies needed to even the betting so the line dropped. Remember the bookies don't pay for those $Billion casinos by beating most bettors. That would be gambling. Casinos don't gamble. They make money on the vig. 10% off the top of all winning bets means they make 5% of the total bet if they can keep adjusting the line to get equal $$ on both sides. When $Billions are bet if you can take 5% of the gross you do not want to gamble, under ANY circumstance.
 



ncgo4 said:
The move from -21 to -14 only means 1 thing. At -21 too much money was put on NMSU. The bookies needed to even the betting so the line dropped. Remember the bookies don't pay for those $Billion casinos by beating most bettors. That would be gambling. Casinos don't gamble. They make money on the vig. 10% off the top of all winning bets means they make 5% of the total bet if they can keep adjusting the line to get equal $$ on both sides. When $Billions are bet if you can take 5% of the gross you do not want to gamble, under ANY circumstance.
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Yup! They don't care who wins. They only care that they win and they win when they are able to have half the money on both sides of the bet. A cynic would call it legalized robber. A business man would call it a business model without risk and a great return. P.T. Barnum would say "There's a sucker born every minute." I personally like the old English saying "A fool and his money is soon parted."
 

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