SLIPS: NASCAR, College Football Heavies Rule Weekend

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Brant James
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feature SLIPS: NASCAR, College Football Heavies Rule Weekend

College football and NASCAR teams are reaching the back ends of their seasons and have begun spitting out expected results. Good teams are doing what they are supposed to do.

The National Football League felt a bit more unsettled this weekend.

Maybe it's the parity.

Maybe it's still the kickers.

But when the Browns and Bills roll and the Patriots lose by double digits for just the second time in a decade, what can we believe in anymore?

No. 6 Oklahoma entered Bedlam as 21.5-point favorites at home over rival Oklahoma State and escaped with a one-point win on a failed Cowboys two-point conversion attempt.

A weighty 37.5-point line barely eluded Michigan in a 42-7 romp of Rutgers. And LSU couldn’t cover 13 in a 24-14 win over Arkansas, and that one deserves an asterisk. Otherwise, the Associated Press Top 10 took care of business.

Back to LSU and running back Nick Brossette, who Todd Gurley’d bettors who took the Tigers and the 13 points on Saturday night. With LSU leading, 24-17, with less than two minutes remaining, the running back appeared to intentionally down himself twice, at the 7- and 2-yard lines.

Then the Tigers ran another play instead of kneeling on the ball and couldn’t score.

Geaux figure.

Usually Trusty Patriots Bait and Switch Public

NFL favorite were much more tenuous as the Browns, Bill and Titans were the standard bearers of a sublime week.

The Browns beat the Falcons, 28-16, upending a 5.5-point Atlanta line.

The Bills mashed the Jets, 41-10, as 7-point under dogs and the Titans walloped New England, which was favored by 6.5 points, 34-10.

"The public was all over the Falcons," MGM sports director Jeff Stoneback told ESPN.com. "Then, we had a large player also bet on the Falcons, so the combination of him and the public made it a really good game for us."

At SugarHouse Online Sportsbook & Casino, the Titans win was the worst result for bettors as the Patriots fell to 6-4 versus the spread and 4-6 against the over/under.

“We saw heavy action on prime time games this week as we enter the busiest part of the season with NFL, NBA, NHL, and both major college sports in season. The players’ best result of the week was the Steelers beating the Panthers and going over the total on Thursday. We’re anticipating solid action tonight with the Giants playing on Monday Night Football, as well as an excellent betting matchup Thursday when the Packers visit the Seahawks,” said Mattias Stetz, COO of Rush Street Interactive, which manages SugarHouse.

Bettors now are afforded the chance to test - with their money - one of the great NFL truisms. Quarterback Tom Brady and coach Bill Belichick do not lose consecutive games very often. Since 2003, the Patriots are a league-best 45-8 after a defeat. Eighty-four. Point nine. Percent. Next-best is Pittsburgh at 56-29 (65.9).

The Patriots are 22-4 in that same span after a bye. Up next: the Jets in two weeks.

"New England after the bye has been just literally printing money," SugarHouse analyst David Tuchman told Gambling.com. "How reliable is that going forward as Tom Brady ages? Who knows? Past results are not indicative of what's going to happen in the future and we all know that, but what I like to look for is reliable teams that are well-coached, well-quarterbacked teams coming off a loss and coming off a bye. "Public sentiment might be down a little bit and you can get value there and the Patriots are ridiculous."

Logano Joins Three Champs in NASCAR Final Four

The Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series season has been distilled to one race, on Sunday at Homestead-Miami Speedway, with three drivers viable for the title. The formula is simple: the driver who finishes highest among them is the champion.

It's a distinguished group, with former champions in Kyle Busch (2015), Kevin Harvick (2014) and Martin Truex Jr. (2017) among them, but Team Penske's Joey Logano - who finished as runner-up, three points behind seven-time champion Jimmie Johnson in 2016 - enters as the top seed.

Busch (above) won at Phoenix on Sunday to assure his place in the championship.

Mickelson-Woods Match an In-Play Sports Betting Lab

As legal sports betting becomes more prevalent, its incursion into mainstream television sports programming has become so ubiquitous as to be less noticeable with each passing day.

Betting lines are evident in crawls displaying schedules and win-probability percentages are commonplace. NFL running backs answer post-game questions about ruining the point spread cover.

Turner Sports’ embrace of the new reality makes Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson match play event on Nov. 23 Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson match play event on Nov. 23 at Shadow Creek in North Las Vegas fascinating.

The pay-per-view showcase, which also promises to be spectacle of technical production given the level of technology Turner is marshaling, will specifically plumb the future of in-play wagering and how it can mesh with modern broadcast.

According to a Turner release, the broadcast will include:

  • Real-time, hole-by-hole statistics to forecast the probability of “certain outcomes during the match.”
  • Odds and moneyline updates delivered through a “proprietary data stream provided by the MGM Resorts Race & Sports Books in association with MGM/GVC Interactive Gaming Joint Venture.
  • Woods and Mickelson making “side challenges,” which sounds a lot like side bets against each other on certain holes.

Motorsports, Part II

Two-time Formula One champion Fernando Alonso announced this weekend that he will return for a second run in the Indianapolis 50 in May. His decision and bid to complete his own personal racing classics triple crown has been a source of great speculation among fans and bettors.

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