Hot Reads: Huskers Still Have Third-Best Odds in the Big Ten
Photo Credit: John S. Peterson

Hot Reads: Huskers Still Have Third-Best Odds in the Big Ten

April 30, 2019

I deemed this the Offseason of Crazy Odds. That was after Nebraska was given 25-1 odds to win the national title in the Westgate SuperBook's initial rollout in January. By February those odds were up to 33-1.

If you care to place a bet on the Huskers winning it all today, you'll get 40-1, which is a little less crazy.

That sort of move at this time of year isn't unusual. Those super early odds are part press release/PR move (a lot of people mentioned SuperBook back in January) and part market test. If you want to make a futures wager in January, you'll encounter a pretty low limit to reduce the book's exposure to being wildly wrong.

But nearly four months later, SuperBook has had people making a bunch of small bets against those odds and can get a sense of how the public feels about these teams. Then it adjusts the odds.

Nebraska, presumably, didn't get a ton of action at 25-1 so the odds are up to 40-1 now, which are the still the third-best odds in the conference. The only Big Ten team that has shorter odds from January to now is Ohio State. Here are the national-title odds for each team in the conference:

2019 National Title Odds – Superbook

SCHOOL JAN. 2019 APRIL 2019
Ohio State 10/1 8/1
Michigan 12/1 14/1
Nebraska 25/1 40/1
Wisconsin 50/1 80/1
Penn State 100/1 100/1
Iowa 100/1 100/1
Michigan State 200/1 200/1
Purdue 200/1 300/1
Northwestern 200/1 500/1
Maryland 1000/1 1000/1
Minnesota 1000/1 1000/1
Indiana 2000/1 2000/1
Rutgers 10000/1 10000/1
Illinois 10000/1 10000/1

Just for comparison, the Huskers were 300-1 in these same odds a year ago.

While the Big Ten doesn’t offer a ton of intersting moves, there were a few around the country. People are backing LSU (50-1 to 25-1), Georgia (12-1 to 7-1) and Texas A&M (80-1 to 40-1) and fading, at least a little bit, Texas (20-1 to 25-1), Washington (25-1 to 30-1), Florida (25-1 to 40-1) and Notre Dame (25-1 to 30-1).

Nebraska's odds did get shorter in one area, however. Adrian Martinez opened at 12-1 to win the Heisman Trophy, but is down to 8-1 now.

https://twitter.com/Brett_McMurphy/status/1123027184602497026

The Grab Bag

  • Michigan State is a run-stopping force, a tough enough challenge to handle in perfect conditions. But what do you do when the elements make passing even more difficult? Ian Boyd takes a look at the 2018 Nebraska-MSU game for Football Study Hall.
  • Jacob Padilla looks at Nebraska’s ongoing (and rapid so far) roster reconstruction.
  • Greg Smith looks at some recruiting trends two weeks into the evaluation period.

Today’s Song of Today

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