Shockley's absence reverses betting line

[clevfan]

Shockley's absence reverses betting line

By CARTER STRICKLAND
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 10/26/05
ATHENS — Mike Seba had to wait right along the rest of the college football faithful this week.

Only for him, time is money. Lots of it.

Seba is a senior oddsmaker at Las Vegas Sports Consultants. Basically, he's in charge of setting the betting line in college football for 85 to 90 percent of the licensed sports books in Nevada.

So when Georgia quarterback D.J. Shockley went down, Seba was a little, excuse the expression, at odds about what to do.

With a healthy Shockley, Georgia is a 3 1/2- to four-point favorite, Seba said.

Without him Georgia has been pegged as a five-point underdog by Seba's company.

"I just don't know how you can bet a Georgia team with this quarterback [Joe Tereshinski III]," Seba said.

Injuries to other players on defense also influenced Seba's decision to turn Georgia from a favorite to a dog. Not that Seba is playing any favorites. For Seba's clients, it is all about getting even money on both sides of the line.

As for the line, Shockley might not have seen it, but he was well aware his absence has influenced it.

"I don't understand how people say that," Shockley said. "It's not like I can go out there and make the tackles and I can go out there and cover receivers and I can go out there and block and catch. I'm a part of the team, but at the same time we have other guys."

At least one other guy, Georgia cornerback DeMario Minter, understood perfectly why Vegas did what it did.

"He is worth that many points," Minter said. "Not taking anything away from Joe T, but there is just some stuff that Joe T can't do that Shock can do.

"Shock just does some stuff that is unbelievable. You think he is tackled, and he is out of a tackle. So we will be losing some points. But that's why we have running backs and other people and a depth chart."

Seba & Co. don't go that deep in their analysis. On some games, it takes all of three minutes to set the spread. Florida-Georgia this week took all of 20. Numbers are fed into a computer program, power ratings are analyzed, injuries digested and spreads debated among the staff. Then, once a spread is agreed upon, it is released to the clients — usually before Monday morning.

In the case of Georgia-Florida and because of Shockley's injury, the spread was not released by Las Vegas Sports Consultants until Tuesday.

And Seba expected to see heavy action on Florida to cover.

"We are a beat-up team," Minter said. "They are right for going with Florida, who had a week to be rested. Just hopefully we're going to get through it without any more injuries."

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I took Fla. -4, we will see.