Phil Steele
By Mike Godsey
We have no compunction whatsoever giving attaboys to our competitors and have done so in previous
articles many times over. Another example is Phil Steele of Northcoast Sports. Their preseason publication is part of our research and a major reason
why GodsTips enters the football season as the most prepared sports service in the world.
They correctly state that a favorite source of ours, Stassen.com declared Phil Steele to have the most accurate publication in comparing preseason predictions to the end-of-season polls.
What is falsely presumed is that the other periodicals draw no distinction between “preseason polls” and “postseason predictions”.
This season is a perfect illustration. Though we rate no not rank teams, our preseason ratings agree with the USA Today preseason poll that has Georgia No. 1. Does this mean as per Stassen’scriterion, we are projecting that they will be No. 1 at the end of the season? Absolutely not. Just wait a Dawg gone minute.
In the dog eat Dawg world of the SEC, the Bulldogs schedule includes back-to-back games against two other serious BCS Championship contenders, Floridaand LSU. The game against the Tigers is in Baton Rouge and of course against the revenge-seeking Gators, it’s in the so-called “neutral” state of Florida.
They also travel cross country for a brutal non-conference test at No. 16 Arizona State, play at dangerous South Carolina (27thranked based on “others receiving votes”) and at cross-divisional Auburn. Even if by some miracle they go undefeated in SEC play, their reward would be giving rival Georgia Tech golden opportunity to play BCS spoiler, then a trip to the SEC Championship game, which would likely be a rematch to the Tigers of LSU or Auburn.
For 2008, if GodsTips converted our ratings to rankings, we would have Georgia our preseason No. 1. In looking at the Dawgs schedule however, Steele’s prediction that they will finish 9th is more likely.
Putting side by side one magazine’s preseason Top 25 to another publication’s projected post-bowl Top 25 is comparing apples to oranges. Or perhaps more accurately, it’s comparing Sugar, Rose, and Fiesta to Oranges.
GodsTips is smart enough to acknowledge the difference, just one of the many reasons why we are the football betting specialists and the anchor of OffshoreInsiders.com
August 3rd, 2008
God’s Tid-Bets, Vol. 26
By Mike Godsey
It’s been awhile since we authored a volume in this series.
However more anticipated than a Harry Potter novel, the Tid-Bets
return to take a look at various sports handicapping and betting issues.
How Do Handicappers Work Overtime?
CBS announcer Gary Danielson accurately observed how
college football overtimes can greatly distort statistics. From a handicapping
standpoint, this is certainly true for those who use deceptive rankings or
points per game statistics. Luckily sharp bettors do not or they are weighted
very lightly.
The main statistics that we use: yards per rush, yards per
pass, and yards per play on offense and defense compared to the cumulative
average of their opponents are not debased by overtime play.
Mike Godsey of GodsTips.com who utilizes
net yard advantage/disadvantage cumulative statistics.
We’ve explained in previous articles why straight up wins
and losses, point margin, and offensive and defensive rankings are the most
popular choices of square players planning their own sportsbook death sentence.
“If a team wins by eight points in four overtimes, it
looks the same as an eight-point win in regulation,” says Mike Godsey,
referring to those who use the above fatal stats.
“But if the losing team is stopped on the three-yard line
trying to tie the game, it is very much accounted for in our statistics,” brags
Godsey.
Godsey adds that while as a fan he despises the fact that
teams start 25 yards from pay dirt; it is built-in insurance that the more
reliable numbers don’t get too distorted in overtime.
Will the Pitching and Defense Cliché Ever
Die?
In 2007, no surprise, seven of the top eight offenses
based on a team’s on base percentage made the playoffs. Two of the three teams
that finished with 70 wins or less,
and
five in defense, ahead of six of the eight playoff teams. And six of the top 10
pitching teams missed the playoffs.
This is on the heels of
winning the World Series with Chris Carpenter and a cast of rejects on their
pitching staff. Their closer was a converted rookie starting pitcher. The year
before the White Sox had a good starting pitching staff and an abysmal bullpen.
In recent years,
Johnson and Schilling and the rest of the staff worth killing.
The Toronto Blue Jays this most recent campaign had the
best pitching staff in MLB with A.J. Burnett, Roy
Halladay, Dustin McGowan, Shaun Marcum and Jesse Litsch.
All they did was finish 13 games out of first place.
This year the Colorado Rockies enter the World Series
having won an historic 21-of-22 games. The ace of their staff is Jeff Francis,
a very solid pitcher indeed. Problem is, he’d be the No. 3 starter on the
Atlanta Braves, a team that the media said failed to
make the playoffs because of lack of pitching. But not to worry, rounding out
the
Jimenez and Franklin Morales. Combined,
they have seven career wins under their belt. Yes, combined they have seven
more wins at the Major League level than I do.
Pitching and defense wins in the media, but the teams with
the best clutch hitting are the squads that professional gamblers laugh with
all the way to the bank.
ESPN Fantasy Football Simulations a Tool for
Proposition Bettors
Over the last several years, online gamblers have been
able to bet on the production of individual players in their respective sports.
An elite gambler in fantasy football betting is Mike Snow of BettorsAdvice.com.
He says there is no better starting point than the ESPN
fantasy football projections. “We of course make adjustments for injuries, but
contrasting the player proposition odds to the ESPN simulations has proven to
be great foundation in fantasy NFL betting.”
Lower betting limits make it more challenging for sharp
players to clean house on the sportsbooks, but Snow says some of the highest
return on investments have been in betting NFL player propositions.
Joe Duffy’s sports betting selections are at
Freescoreboard scorephone network and CEO of OffshoreInsiders.com,
the premier hub of world-class handicappers.