11/19/2008 - Philadelphia, PA (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - From Maine to Montana, FCS teams will be playing on Saturday with the playoffs on their minds.
College basketball has its conference tournaments to determine bids and seeding in the NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament. In FCS this season, we have a final weekend that will offer similar suspense.
Instead of March Madness, welcome to the November Nail Biters.
Weber State of the Big Sky Conference, James Madison of the Colonial Athletic Association, Appalachian State of the Southern Conference and South Carolina State of the MEAC are already safely in the field as automatic bid winners. But there are still four of the eight automatic bids to be determined, two of which will be decided by de facto head-to-head league championship games.
Eastern Kentucky travels to Tennessee-Martin to decide the Ohio Valley Conference crown, while Holy Cross goes to Colgate to determine the Patriot League title.
In the Missouri Valley Football Conference, Southern Illinois wins the automatic bid with a victory at Illinois State and shares the league championship with Northern Iowa, which SIU beat earlier in the season. If the Salukis lose on Saturday, UNI earns the auto bid.
CONFERENCE CHAOS
The Southland Conference is still a mess to figure out and the key game of the day could be Southeastern Louisiana (5-6, 2-4) at Nicholls State (2-6, 2-4).
Central Arkansas leads the Southland with a 5-1 record, but was declared ineligible for the league title last week by the NCAA because of their transitional status. The Bears already knew they would not be eligible for the playoffs until completing the four-year process of transition.
The NCAA decision vaulted McNeese State and Texas State into a tie for first place. McNeese State faces Central Arkansas on the road, and Texas State is on the road at Sam Houston State.
If both win, Texas State earns the automatic bid on the basis of a 45-42 win over the Cowboys. If McNeese State wins and Texas State loses, McNeese State would have the best record and would get the berth.
If both the Cowboys and Bobcats lose and Northwestern State wins at Stephen F. Austin, that would send the Southland Conference race into a three-way tie and cause the league to dig deeper into tie-breaking procedures to determine the automatic bid. The next tie-breaker is head-to-head comparison against the rest of the league.
That's where the Southeastern Louisiana-Nicholls State game comes in. Coincidentally, this game was originally scheduled to be played on Thursday night, but due to the damage Hurricane Ike did to light standards at Nicholls State's Guidry Stadium, all home games were moved to the afternoon, including this contest, which was switched from Thursday to Saturday.
Should Southeastern Louisiana beat the Colonels in this scenario, McNeese State would capture the automatic qualifier as a results of wins against both Southeastern Louisiana and Nicholls State. Texas State and Northwestern State split their games against those opponents.
If Nicholls State beats Southeastern Louisiana, Northwestern State would win the tie-breaker thanks to its 2-0 mark against the Lions and Colonels. McNeese State and Texas State split against those two teams.
Did you follow all of that?
AT-LARGE ELIMINATION
The schedule makers did the NCAA Division I football committee a favor by setting up three other games that will likely serve as elimination contests for at-large berths.
Richmond and William & Mary go into their final regular season game with three losses a piece. The loser will pretty much be out of the playoffs with four defeats, while the winner will have likely impressed the committee enough for an at-large spot.
New Hampshire and Maine are in a similar position. The winner will have nine wins and lay claim to the CAA North Division title, an honor that has been a pathway to the playoffs every year since the old Atlantic 10 split into two divisions.
If Maine loses, it will almost certainly be out of the playoffs with four losses. If UNH falls, the Wildcats will have to hope that the committee has some mercy on a team that stumbled to two losses in their last three games and played one of the weakest schedules in the CAA.
New Hampshire would also likely be the fifth team considered from the CAA, a position it found itself in last season when the committee took some criticism for allowing the Wildcats into the field with a 7-4 record.
The committee insists it doesn't look at teams in terms of the conference they play in, but it would be hard to justify a fifth team this year coming from one conference when other leagues likely would receive no more than two bids.
On the positive side of the ledger is a New Hampshire victory in its season- opener at Army, one of just two FBS wins for the FCS ranks this year. Of course, Army is also one of the weaker teams in FBS.
Elon plays at Liberty in another potential elimination game for both teams.
The Phoenix have three losses to go with eight wins, but all three have been to teams in the Sportsbook Betting Lines top-10 - Richmond, Wofford and Appalachian State. Elon was two or three plays away from a possible win against Richmond in the season-opener, a game much closer than the 28-10 final score. The Phoenix was blown out by Wofford, but played three-time defending national champion Appalachian State to a tight 24-16 loss just last weekend in the tough environs of Kidd Brewer Stadium.
Liberty has an outside chance of a playoff berth and could at least work its way into the discussion by beating Elon for a 10th win. But a 10-2 record might not be enough for a talented Flames squad that won two Division II games and had a bad loss to a transitional Presbyterian squad.
Liberty's other loss was to a strong, underrated Lafayette team that is currently tied for third place in the Patriot League. The Flames also have a pair of road victories over teams from automatic bid leagues, Youngstown State of the MVFC and Western Carolina of the SoCon, and their second straight Big South Conference title to put on their playoff resume.
Still, the Flames would need to see everything fall into place to be considered, including wins by New Hampshire, Richmond and Lafayette in its 144th meeting with Lehigh.
ON THE OUTSIDE, LOOKING IN
Teams like Tennessee State, Jacksonville State, Florida A&M, Bethune-Cookman could work their way into the debate if any of them finish with three losses, but it is likely to be a short discussion.
When the committee overlooked Norfolk State with a 9-2 record last year, it pointed to the MEAC runner-up's weak schedule. That dynamic is likely to keep all of the above on the playoff sidelines.
Colgate, with a loss against Holy Cross, and Lafayette, with a win over Lehigh, could also finish at 8-3. Colgate would have a stronger case than Lafayette, with a 21-13 head-to-head win and a loss to a decent Furman squad. But the committee would have to factor in the Raiders' bad loss in the opening game against Stony Brook.
STRENGTHENING THEIR POSITION
Montana, Villanova and Northern Iowa all probably clinched at-large bids with wins last weekend, but all three remain in contention for a top-four seed and their performances this weekend could weigh heavily in the decision of which team to give the final seed.
Should all three lose in games against Montana State, Delaware and Southern Utah, respectively, Wofford and Southern Illinois could work their way into seed discussion. The Terriers can make a strong final impression by beating Furman, while Southern Illinois can do the same at Illinois State.
James Madison, Appalachian State and Weber State are likely to get the top- three seeds as champions of the CAA, the SoCon and the Big Sky. JMU and ASU are prohibitive favorites on the road at Towson and Western Carolina.
Weber State will have a tougher test against an underachieving and potentially dangerous Eastern Washington club, but a win should give the Wildcats a seed.
THE BCS FACTOR
Cal Poly knows the sting of being left at the playoff altar, and the Mustangs are in a weird position with an 8-1 record, the championship of the Great West Conference and one final game at Wisconsin. With a loss, Cal Poly is likely to travel to either Weber State or Montana for a first-round game.
But the Mustangs, who already have one FBS victory over San Diego State in their season-opener and whose only loss was a heartbreaking 30-28 loss to Montana on a missed chip-shot field goal in the final seconds, could hit the jackpot with a victory over the Badgers at Camp Randall Stadium.
Such a win, or even a quality loss, could cause the committee to consider making Cal Poly a top-four seed.
THE WACKY SWAC
Some readers asked me on Monday and Tuesday why I didn't include Prairie View in my last playoff scenario. Well, the SWAC answered that question this week when they announced a possible tie-breaking procedure for the crowded West Division race.
The winner of the West Division is obligated to play in the SWAC championship game against East Division winner Jackson State on Dec. 20 in Birmingham, AL. But the SWAC won't know who the champion will be until Southern and Grambling meet in the Bayou Classic on Nov. 29 in New Orleans, LA.
Should Grambling beat Texas Southern this weekend, and Southern (6-4 overall, 5-1 in the SWAC) in turn defeats Grambling (8-2, 5-0), the SWAC West Division would end in a three-way tie among Grambling, Prairie View and Southern, with all three being 1-1 against each other head-to-head.
A three-way coin toss would be held to break the tie. The odd man in the toss would be out, and another coin toss between the two winners would decide who would go to the championship game.
Unfortunately for Prairie View (9-1, 6-1), the coin toss will not be held until Nov. 30, the day after the playoffs start.
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Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
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Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
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