Penn State pays tribute to Paterno
NCAA Football Betting Lines
01/26/2012 - University Park, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - If there was a common thread for Thursday's public memorial service for Joe Paterno, it's that he was much more than a football coach.
He might have recorded 409 victories during a 46-year tenure as the Nittany Lions' head coach, but he was also a major proponent of academics and achieving success with honor, not merely winning.
Everybody who spoke -- former players from across the decades, the dean of Penn State's College of the Liberal Arts, students, Paterno's son Jay -- stressed the effect Paterno had on their lives off the football field, right up until he died Sunday from lung cancer at the age of 85.
The praise of Paterno's integrity ran counter to the criticism he faced in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child-sex abuse case -- that he didn't do enough to stop the alleged abuse. The school's trustees fired Paterno in November over the phone.
But most of the praise indirectly served as a reminder that Paterno was a man of generosity and integrity. Nike chairman Phil Knight, on the other hand, directly addressed and challenged criticism of Paterno, a man he said was his hero.
"In the year in question it turns out he gave full disclosure to his superiors, information that went up the chain to the head of the campus police and the president of the school," Knight said. "The matter was in the hands of a world-class university and by a president with an outstanding national reputation.
"Whatever the details of the investigation are, this much is clear to me: there is a villain in this tragedy, and it lies in that investigation, not in Joe Paterno's response to it."
Knight then received a standing ovation from the crowd at Penn State's Bryce Jordan Center. Jay Paterno later said his father left the world with a "clear conscience."
Paterno's firing was extremely controversial and polarizing, prompting some to staunchly defend the former head coach and blame the trustees for succumbing to pressure, while others saw the firing as justified. Still others saw Paterno as a good man who made a grave mistake.
Knight was referring to how Paterno, after being told in 2002 by an assistant that he saw Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the university showers, brought the matter to his Penn State bosses.
Paterno, in the Washington Post interview published January 14, said he didn't know how to handle hearing the report and wasn't sure he would have been able to comprehend the graphic details, if the assistant -- Mike McQueary -- had described them. Paterno said he was unsure of how to handle the information he had, and backed away after turning over the information.
Sandusky, an assistant coach at Penn State from 1969-99, faces more than 50 counts of charges that he sexually abused young boys, as recently as 2009.
The scandal changed how some judged his career and, coming so close to his death, affected Paterno's decades-old legacy as one of Pennsylvania's most admired public figures.
But Thursday's memorial was not only a chance for family and friends to remember Paterno, but to burnish his legacy.
Former players Kenny Jackson, Todd Blackledge, Charlie Pittman, Jimmy Cefalo, Chris Marrone and Michael Robinson were among the speakers, each representing a decade of Paterno's coaching career. Current linebacker Mike Mauti also spoke.
Each described the affect Paterno had on their lives. Pittman told a story about how Paterno once pushed him so hard he was in tears, and wanted to return home. But Pittman's father talked him out of it, and Pittman played for Penn State's undefeated teams in 1968 and '69.
"Joe wasn't trying to build perfection," said Pittman, whose son later went on to play for the Nittany Lions. "He was bit-by-bit building a habit of excellence. He was building a proud program for the school, the state, and the hundreds of men he looked over for a half century."
Paterno's program came to be known as the 'Grand Experiment,' which included the pursuit of athletic and academic success.
Cefalo, a Penn State receiver in the 1970s, told a story of how he finished his degree during his junior year, and was going to enjoy his senior year after finishing the football season.
He recalled Paterno saying, "Look at this class schedule! This is beneath you."
Each tribute described how Paterno changed people's lives for the better, and most featured a specific moment when the speakers realized Paterno's influence.
It was Blackledge being encouraged to stick with the team despite having a bad roommate, with whom he later won a national title. It was Cefalo walking into his parents' house to tell them he had decided to attend another school, only to see Paterno sitting there, eating pasta and drinking wine. It was Robinson not knowing much about Paterno before sitting down with the coach, and realizing Paterno wasn't lying to him, wasn't promising anything more than a chance to play and a quality education.
It was Susan Welch, dean of Penn State's College of Liberal Arts, recalling a breakfast when Paterno stressed the importance of the school's classics department. It was Lauren Perrotti, a Paterno fellow at Penn State, remembering how the former head coach thanked her after she thanked him for funding she received through the fellows program.
Jay Paterno gave the final speech of the service, an emotional tribute that went from describing Joe's love for his wife, Sue, to Joe's drive to make an impact on people's lives.
"Fame and power never touched his soul," Jay said, "In the end, he takes his integrity with him forever."
On Sunday, Jay Paterno kissed his father and whispered into his ear that he had won, he had done enough and could go home now.
And on Thursday afternoon, as a lone trumpeter closed the service by slowly playing 'Hail to the Lions' before tens of thousands of people in honor of Joe Paterno, it was clear where home was.
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How to bet pro football
There is little doubt that the NFL is where the sportsbooks see the most action and also make the most loot. The NFL possesses betting friendly attributes that are unlike any of the other major sports. First off, there are relatively few teams to keep track of in comparison to college football betting or college basketball. And second, these teams play only once a week which makes staying on top of the results much easier than it is in the daily leagues such as the NBA, NHL, and MLB.
These dynamics, along with the sheer excitement of watching and wagering on football, brings more square action to the table than any of the other sports. Almost every Tom, Dick and Harry in America is an NFL expert in their own mind and that is precisely what the oddsmakers prey upon.
Understanding who bets the games is just as important as understanding which teams are playing the games. The market at times will dictate price, which in the betting world means the oddsmakers cater to the public rather than reality.
Knowing the market inside and out is the basis of our NFL handicapping model. That is, our approach to NFL handicapping is of the contrarian or value seeking variety. We will at times place a higher premium on public sentiment than on the fundamentals. This strategy dictates playing dogs and/or lesser competent teams, or teams the public wants nothing to do with. Or better yet, fading the teams the oddsmakers want you to bet on.
Along these same lines, we carry a similar notion that the first week of the NFL season presents one of the ripest opportunities for the astute gambler. This conflicts with conventional wisdom and/or handicapping lore, as most would say it is better to watch a few games and assess each team before jumping in with both feet. That’s all fine and dandy, but there are some interesting trends to exploit in Week 1 and we’d be remiss to ignore them. Let us quickly explain.
Gone are the days of dynasties, where the same core players stay intact and dominate the league year after year. Free agency and player movements can completely transform teams from one season to the next. In today’s parity-driven NFL, poor teams typically don’t stay poor for all that long and excellent teams must constantly reinvent themselves to stay on top.
The temptation might be to assume prior year results are the best indicator of who is going to cover in Week 1. To Joe Public, playoff teams from the prior season, home teams, favorites, and so one, look even more enticing than usual since there is no current season performance to judge them against. But the question begs: are the oddsmakers setting a trap?
To find the answer, we culled five years worth of Week 1 NFL data. As always, all of our analysis is done from an ATS perspective. The purpose here is to share the most important angles we unearthed and try to explain the logic behind them. So strap on your helmet, throw on your shoulder pads, and follow our lead as we expose some rare holes in the oddsmakers’ line of defense.
Home vs. Away Teams
Over the past five seasons, NFL home teams in Week 1 are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). This of course implies that roadies are a 58 percent winning proposition during this time. The public at large has a tendency to overvalue home teams and this is especially true in Week 1 when there is no current season data to make predictions from. Consequently, the oddsmakers almost surely shade the home teams, by and large making road teams the choice for the value player.
Conclusion: Look long and hard at road teams first when handicapping the opening week.
Price ranges
Favorites are just 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent) in the opening week over the past five NFL seasons (Coincidentally, home teams hold the same ATS record as noted above). This means that underdogs bark at a 58 percent clip. Mid-range favorites performed the worst among our specified price ranges. In particular, favorites priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 are only 8-15 ATS (35 percent) during this time.
The same basic pattern holds true when looking at home favorites (road favorites gravitate towards a 50 percent mean). Home favorites indeed are just 21-32-3 ATS (40 percent) in the first week of NFL action since 1999. Again, mid-range favorites are similarly the poorest performers when we look at home teams. Consider that home teams priced between –3 1/2 and –6 1/2 have stumbled to a 6-13 ATS (32 percent) mark in Week 1 games the past five seasons.
Conclusion: Like home teams, favorites and particularly mid-range favorites are generally overvalued in Week 1.
Playoff teams
It might surprise you to learn that playoff teams from the prior year versus non-playoff teams from the prior year are a mere 16-23-3 (41 percent) ATS in NFL Week 1 games over the past five seasons. Home teams which made the playoffs versus teams which did not make the playoffs from the prior season drop to a meager 7-14-1 ATS (33 percent) during this time.
Why are playoff teams, and in particular those at home, such bad bets the past five openers? Just as the case with home teams and with favorites, oddsmakers intentionally overprice playoff teams in the opening week to compensate for the public’s propensity to over bet them.
This theory holds true just looking at straight-up records from the past season as well. That is, home teams with winning records from the prior season vs. road teams with losing records from the prior season are just 8-13 ATS in Week 1 NFL games since 1999.
Conclusion: Playoff teams from the prior year and in particular, home playoff teams, are overvalued in Week 1 NFL games.
Scoring defense and scoring offense
Do good defenses and for that matter good offenses from the prior season fare better against the number the following year in Week 1 games? Well, sort of. Generally speaking, teams with a solid offense or defense from the prior season tend to do well in the opening week so long as they are on the road. As a host, however, the best offenses and best defenses from the prior year tend to be overvalued in Week 1.
Consider that the top five scoring defenses (i.e. points allowed) from the prior season are a nice 8-4 ATS (66 percent) on the road in NFL openers the past five seasons. Meanwhile, the top five scoring defenses from the prior season are just 3-8-2 ATS (27 percent) as a host in Week 1 during the same time period.
There is no discernable advantage or disadvantage for teams with a top five scoring offense (i.e. points scored) in Week 1 games. However, when we look at scoring offenses from the bottom up (isolating the five worst offenses from the prior season), the results are rather interesting. In particular, teams ranked in the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are 9-4-1 ATS (69 percent) when on the road in Week 1.
The logic is simply that the public perception is a poor scoring offensive unit from the year prior will have little chance of winning on the road in Week 1. In turn, the oddsmakers compensate for this perception and these poor offensive teams from the year prior carry extra line value on the Week 1 trail.
Conclusion: Teams with top-ranked defenses from the previous season are good bets when playing on the road, but poor bets when playing at home. Also, teams ranked among the bottom five in scoring offense from the prior season are generally a good value in their Week 1 openers, provided they are playing on the road.
Scoring margin
An exceedingly straightforward way of measuring scoring offense and scoring defense together as a whole is to look at a team's “margin." Margin is simply scoring offense minus scoring defense, which is a fairly clear-cut measure of how a team does on both sides of the ball. Typically, the higher the margin, the better the team.
In this regard, it might seem counterintuitive that teams carrying the higher margin from the prior season in week one matchups are merely 31-42-7 ATS (42 percent). Furthermore, road teams with the higher margin are 14-20-6 ATS (41 percent), while home teams with the higher margin are 17-22-1 ATS (44 percent). Once again, these results line up with the theory that better teams from the prior year are overvalued come opening day of the following season.
Conclusion: “Better” teams, which often boast a higher margin than their opponent, are overvalued the following season in NFL openers.
In sum
Oddsmakers cater NFL betting lines to match public perception and also to bait the public into poor bets. The temptation to use the prior year’s success as a buy sign for how a team will perform against the spread in Week 1 of the following season is an enormous trap.
The fact is, isolating road teams, road dogs, non-playoff teams vs. playoff teams, teams with a losing record or low margin vs. playoff teams or ones with a high margin from the previous year is where the line value resides. Quite simply, taking the road less traveled is your surest path to NFL betting profits.
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