Sports Betting Blog

The Oklahoma Sooners took an early lead against their conference archrival, the Texas Longhorns, and after scoring the first five times they had the ball in their head, and they never looked back. If we had learned something from the previous 20 or so games was that on this specific series, quarterbacks with previous experience in the Red River Rivalry tend to have the upper hand against inexperienced opponents. Perhaps that’s why by mid-week the handicappers had made the Oklahoma Sooners a 10-point favorite on the spread on NCAA Football betting sites. Now, with Landry Jones throwing for 3 touchdown passes and Dominique Whaley running 64 yards into the end-zone with 3 defensive players making their way into the end-zone too, it was not a surprise how lopsided the 55-17 victory was.

At the moment, many believed that such a performance was going to be enough to get the Sooners back atop of the AP Polls, but despite the overwhelming victory, it really wasn’t enough to impress the voters, who seemed more taken by the performance on LSU and Alabama. The Sooners were the favorite at the beginning of the season. They slipped to No. 2 after they struggle with Missouri while playing at home. They would eventually be outshined by the two SEC big names and remain at third, but their records are still 5-0 for the season and 2-0 in conference play.

With Landry Jones at the helm, completing 31 of 50 passes for 367 yards, 3 touchdowns and no interceptions; the Sooners worked their way pass the Longhorns defense and were tearing them apart early in the game. He is now 2-0 against the Longhorns, and, perhaps more significant, he proved that the Sooners are for real, and that the two big Schools from the SEC are going to get a fight for the National Championship.

The Texas Longhorns are trying to get back on their feet. The Longhorns had an awful time last season. They finished off with a devastating 5-7. Sure, so far this season, had coach Mack Brown has been spicing things up a bit, and so far the Longhorns are 4-1 overall and 1-1 on conference play. But one thing became clear at the Cotton Bowl: the Longhorns are not there yet. They are just not ready to play the big schools of their division, let alone of the country. They are getting there, but it still a long way till the Longhorns find in Case McCoy the glory day they once new with their older brother Colt as the starting quarterback.

Just as we had expected, the Longhorns followed the script and played with their two quarterbacks. Sophomore Case McCoy and freshman David Ash had their share of rookie mistakes at quarterback, such as McCoy losing two fumbles and Ash throwing two interceptions. It wasn’t really all their fault. The blame for Texas slow performance can certainly be shared. There were mistakes and silly errors coming from everyone, coaching staff included.

Oklahoma’s 55-17 win should be considered a good omen. This has been the most lopsided win over its Red River rival since 2003, when it won by a series-record 52 points on its way to its last acknowledged National Championship.

It´s no secret: the game of football is build around the quarterback. That’s why they make the fattest checks, that’s why they tend to become the MVP, and that’s why only a selected few can actually make it. Every year talented players emerge from the NCAA and work their way into the NFL draft searching for a break, for a chance to play on Sundays. The NFL is Americas most followed sport and this billion dollar industry is thirsty for talent.

Success while in college is no guarantee for credibility and achievements as a pro. Yes, certainly there have been many players who have made the transition effortlessly, but then again, there have been many players who haven’t been able to live up to their NCAA expectations once they hit the NFL. Well, the graduate from the University of Texas, the leader of the NCAA Championship winning Longhorns, Colt McCoy could be ready to go into the big leagues with a mad drive.

The kid is focused and talented and has a strong work ethic that on the long run could very well pay off. The Cleveland Browns are in a desperate need to find that one player upon they can build a talented team. Knowing that there was plenty to learn and not happy with the NFL extended lockout that kept him from training early in the preseason, Colt McCoy worked his way around the lockout to learn the West Coast system. So McCoy hit the road and began his work earlier then the rest.

That’s why he left in the middle of the summer for Hattiesburg, Mississippi to spent a few days with the three-time NFL MVP and the West Coast master Brett Favre. One of the finest quarterback to have played the game had learned the West Coast system while playing for Browns president Mike Holmgren, then the coach in Green Bay; now he is going to take under his wing one of the newest football promises: one Colt McCoy.

“Since I couldn’t get coached, it was a great opportunity to pick the brain of a guy who played in the system for 20 years,” McCoy said in a press release given out by the Cleveland Browns. “It was a chance for me to get a lot of questions answered. We worked on footwork, progressions, reads and things like that. It was definitely a positive trip.”

And truth be said, McCoy might had actually learned a few tricks and tips because he was looking quite phenomenal in his first preseason game. McCoy looked prepared and comfortable in Cleveland’s new West Coast offense Saturday night. He even managed to outplay Super Bowl star Aaron Rodgers of the Green Bay Packers and was nearly flawless in the Cleveland Browns 27-17 win. Cleveland’s rookie coach Pat Shurmur recorded a winner in his first NFL preseason game.

Now the big question is still out there: could McCoy play like he did on Saturday when the time comes and it really counts? The regular season is right around the corner, for all we know, if McCoy can keep up his numbers (he completed 9 of 10 passes for 135 yards, one touchdown and compiled a 152.1 passer’s rating against the Packers) in the regular season, McCoy could be exactly what the Browns have been longing for.

On a previous article we posted at our sports betting blog, we had mentioned that the NCAA was working on some sort of contingency plan to try to keep Division I sports at an amateur level. NCAA President Mark Emmert doesn’t believe colleges should pay athletes, and he wants university leaders to help him. Emmert announced he would hold a two-day retreat with about 50 school presidents or chancellors to discuss the future of Division I sports. The meeting is scheduled for Aug. 9-10.

Perhaps the main issue here is that every day it becomes more evident that college sports are not really as amateur as the organization that rules them all would like them (or at least make us believe) to be. Perhaps the only reason why we understand college sports as amateur is because of the fact that there are two bigger and professional leagues, the NFL and the NBA, that use this 4 year program as a filter to bring out the best of the best in a yearly multimillion dollar draft. That exclusion is in appearance the mayor distinction between both. Until you consider the money factor.

Truth is, that the educational component to College Football, and by extension we could add, College Basketball, is almost a non-factor. If we semantically consider amateur back in its original classical Latin, the word meant lover. Now its understood as something that is done for the love of it, and not for money. I can‘t help but to feel that the only thing that is left at an amateur level in college sports is that despite all the profit that it is been made by the schools, the coaches, the conferences and even the association in terms of ticket sale, advertising, sponsorship packages and television rights… it is the players, the guys who actually risk their health in the court or the field to make this such an entertaining commodity are the only ones who are not making a dime.

And yet, when if by one reason or another, a player manages to make a little extra cash for himself, he usually ends up having to deal with a big lot of trouble. And here is where it all get’s interesting. According to a researched made by the Associated Press, Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany was the highest paid, receiving total compensation valued at $1.6 million, followed by Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner John Swofford ($1.1 million), Southeastern Conference commissioner Mike Slive ($1 million) and Big 12 commissioner Dan Beebe ($997,000). The other two commissioners each started in July 2009, so their compensation figures are only for the last six months of the year: PAC-10′s Larry Scott ($735,000), and Big East’s John Marinatto ($366,000).

That’s certainly much more than what the average college president makes. I’m not interested in arguing whether the conference commissioners deserve such a salary, or if that money could better be used in funding other academic proyects, since at the end, Colleges are supposed to be a place to develop the most brilliant minds of generations to come, not the best athletes. But then, we would have to consider how much easier it is to find funding for the Oklahoma University football team then for the linguistics department that explores the native tongue of the natives that once lived where the institution now stands. But that’s a whole different story.

What we know as a fact is that the average annual pay of presidents of the United State’s largest research universities was $760,774 in 2008. I guess they could have been better off working for the Conferences. It is got to be a really hard task to enforce amateurism among college athletes when this is the kind of salaries that those in charge of keeping things amateur make.

Don’t even get me started on how much coaches make. Texas coach Mack Brown, for instance, makes around $5 million, while Alabama coach Nick Saban earns $4.7 million. That is a lot of scholarships if you ask me. But hey, on the other hand, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel and star QB Terrelle Pryor both left the school this spring in the wake of revelations that Pryor and other players sold memorabilia for cash and tattoos. Tressel was only trying to cover up for his players. He got fired anyway. Perhaps he felt a little guilty that he was picking up a 7 figure salary while his players weren’t making anything but a free education which is a big deal considering what it costs, but a meaningless fraction of what the schools and the football organization make out of their talents and efforts.

Derrick Williams was in charge of keeping the Arizona Wildcats alive throughout the first half of a very complicated game against the defending champions, the Duke Blue Devils in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tourney. Williams scored 25 of his career-high 32 points in the first half, recorded 13 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals and 1 block and guided the Wildcats into their first Elite Eight round since 2005. But that wasn’t really all.

If Williams was the man of the hour in the first half, the rest of the team was simply brilliant in the rest of the game. The Wildcats outscored the Blue Devils 55-33 in the second half and we a solid defense and an aggressive and swiftly paced offensive caught up with Duke with for the first time with 15:18 left in the second half to establish a 54-53 advantage that would only grow bigger as the game got closer to an end.

It was a magical 19-2 run that seemingly came out of nowhere. Five Wildcats where in charge of putting together this impeccable comeback, as Williams scored only 2 points during the run. Solomon Hill chipped in with 13 points for the Wildcats. Arizona shot for 54 percent and made 9 of 15 shots from the 3-point range, including five by Williams who proved he can not only shot from outside the perimeter but dunk like a pro.

The Blue Devils (32-5) were sent packing from a regional semifinal for the second time in three years. It really seems as if been the No. 1 seed is not the best thing to happen to Duke. As a matter of fact, no other team has lost more games in the Sweet 16 while been the No.1 seeded team in the tourney. This is Duke’s 5^th losing game under those circumstances.

Duke brought in their A-team, but it wasn’t enough. Kyrie Irving scored 28 points after missing 26 games with a toe injury. Kyle Singler added 18 points, but got in foul trouble very early in the second half. And the Wildcats made a phenomenal job slowing down the talented Nolan Smith who only chipped in for eight points, quite a subpar performance considering he has a 21-point per game average.