Vegas Says USC-Oklahoma Are Better

Vegas still hates you. (AP)

Whew. As of last week, you might remember, Vegas (via Las Vegas Sports Consultants) wanted to see a West Virginia-Ohio State national championship game. WVU, obviously, is no longer in that position. But the thing I love about Vegas is, every piece of information will be fairly and intently examined to come up with the most accurate ratings possible, because that's Vegas's job. Ohio State is not owed an automatic move up the rankings, not if we've received additional information about the teams below the Buckeyes. And thus, your real national championship game is:

Southern Cal and Oklahoma. They're tied for first place in Vegas's final regular season rankings. Only percentage points ahead of No. 3 LSU and No. 4 Ohio State, but ahead they are. The BCS thus got it completely and totally wrong. This is the second year in a row the Vegas Top Two has differed from the BCS Top Two, although in fairness, last year Vegas wanted to exclude Florida in favor of Michigan. The BCS computers have Oklahoma and Southern Cal tied for sixth, and ninth, respectively. As for Hawaii, the Rainbow Whatevers failed to cover against a bad Washington team and remained mired at 19th.

Ah, whatever. I'm weary of BCS talk. Let's instead run a comparison of how Vegas and the AP voters saw the following 10 teams in the preseason, since all 10 of these teams finished in the Top 12 of Vegas, the AP and the BCS. I figure if I can just throw ungodly amounts of numbers and initials on the screen, it'll mean something eventually.

Team;AP Preseason/Vegas Preseason

Southern Cal 1/1
Oklahoma 8/5
LSU 2/2
Ohio State 11/12
Florida 6/6
West Virginia 3/8
Virginia Tech 9/13
Missouri 26/23
Georgia 13/27
Kansas NR/NR

Nope, still means nothing to me. The only dramatic thing here is that the AP did better on Georgia than Vegas did. Some of the preseason teams Vegas was highest on vis a vis the AP? How about Nebraska, Cal, UCLA, South Carolina, Georgia Tech, Miami, Arizona State and Oklahoma State. Not so great.

The BCS rankings Vegas believes to be most out of line: Tennessee (13 spots too high), South Florida (10 spots too low), Hawaii (nine spots too high), Michigan (at least eight spots too low), Florida (seven spots too low), BYU (seven spots too low).

Vegas's final rankings, with BCS ranking, after the jump.

1t. Southern Cal (7)
1t. Oklahoma (4)
3. LSU (2)
4. Ohio State (1)
5. Florida (12)
6. West Virginia (9)
7. Virginia Tech (3)
8. Missouri (6)
9. Georgia (5)
10. Brigham Young (17)
11t. Kansas (8)
11t. South Florida (21)
13t. Clemson (15)
13t. Boston College (14)
15. Arizona State (11)
16. Texas (19)
17. Illinois (13)
18. Michigan (NR)
19. Hawaii (10)
20t. Boise State (24)
20t. Texas Tech (NR)
22. Wisconsin (18)
23t. Arkansas (NR)
23t. California (NR)
23t. Arizona (NR)
26. Cincinnati (22)
27. Auburn (23)
28. Oregon State (NR)
29. Tennessee (16)
30. Kentucky (NR)

Not ranked by Vegas: Virginia (20th BCS), Connecticut (25th).

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Comments

Here's a fairly stupid question: what site can one use to get vegas odds like this? b/c I'd really like to see how Indiana/OK State looks, what with hell having frozen over and all.

Posted by: Eli | December 3, 2007 5:01 PM | Report abuse

Vegas is looking at who are the best teams right now. BCS looks at the whole season, a team's entire body of work over 13 games.

USC lost to one of the worst teams in Div I football. You can't do that and still expect to be a champion.

Football doesn't work the same way as basketball, where a team can lose early and come back to make the tournament and go on to win.

Posted by: slimkid | December 3, 2007 9:44 PM | Report abuse

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