Issue: Do college athletes pay attention to outside influences, i.e., point spreads?
Short Answer: Yes. They. Do.
Reasoning: First off, I played baseball in college, and there are no point spreads or people betting on the games, so I have no personal stories about this. I was, however, friends with plenty of basketball and football players in college, and I know point spreads were talked about: "You believe we are a 2 touchdown favorite Saturday?? We should be favored by 3 touchdowns! Haha!" I am not saying, for one second, that players pay attention to point spreads in order to fix games, or win bets, or keep from getting their legs broken. But, if you are a person who thinks this kind of thing NEVER happens, well, you're wrong. This post is not about implementing anyone in any kind of scandal. I'm not going to tell you anything provocative. This post won't be quoted by ESPN in some sort of groundbreaking news story. All I'm saying is, the players know exactly what is going on in the outside world. They know how many points they are favored by or how many points they are getting. Perhaps some coaches use it as motivation. Perhaps Idaho was paying attention to the point spread on Saturday night...
For those that don't know, I like to place an occasional wager on a sporting event, if, for no other reason than to make an otherwise uninteresting game, interesting. And, there may have been no less interesting game last Saturday than BYU vs. Idaho. Seriously, I'd rather watch bowling. Since the game started around 11 p.m. EST and I can't go to sleep before 2 a.m. EST, I decided I would make the game "interesting" and take BYU -40.5. Yes, that's right, I took the Cougars giving up almost 6 touchdowns. This would surely be interesting. As the game moved along, it actually started looking good for me. But, late in the game, BYU decided not to kick field goals, as to not run up the score, and got stopped on the goal line not once, but twice. I was in agony. After a late Idaho turnover, BYU drove down near the goal line again. At this point they were winning 49-10. A field goal and I cover, but they weren't going to kick, right? Wrong. Field goal good with less than 2 minutes to go. Fantastic way to end a pretty ugly Saturday in my college football world. Some of you may think the story ends there. BYU knew the spread and wanted to cover it. You would be wrong.
What happened next defies everything I have ever been a part of in sports. It's beyond comprehension. Idaho fields the kickoff and gets a decent return. They get a first down, and then their offense stalls (according to the score, their offense had pretty much stalled the whole game, but that's not the point). There are about 10 seconds left on the clock, and Idaho decides to punt, and why not? Let's get this game over with. Let's get into the locker room. It's freakin' cold out here. As the punt was in the air, I remember saying to myself "just don't muff this thing". So, guess what happens? That's right, he muffed it. Idaho recovers. Still, I thought, no big deal. They still have to chuck one into the end zone, in freezing temperatures, with 8 seconds left on the clock, in order for me not to cover the spread. Or...THEY COULD BRING ON THEIR FIELD GOAL TEAM AND KICK A FREAKIN' FIELD GOAL!?!? And, mother f#@ker, that's exactly what they did. Field goal good. Final score: BYU: 52, Idaho: 13. I lose.
What you didn't see, and what I can't show you (seriously, there is only one video out there, and it doesn't show you what I want you to see) is the way the kicker reacted when the kick went through the uprights. His arms were extended overhead. He was looking over at his bench like he had just won the Super Bowl. He was excited. I could even picture him screaming: "We covered the spread! We covered the spread!" I could also picture the whole Idaho team getting hammered drunk that night (the BYU team wasn't getting drunk, that's for sure) yelling across the room to each other: "YOU SHOULD HAVE BET ON THE VANDALS BABY!!!!" Even more likely is the head coach patting the kicker on the butt when he sent him out there to kick a field goal down 42 points, saying: "At least go out there and cover the spread." There is absolutely no other reason on this planet to kick a field goal down 42 points. None. Don't tell me they didn't know.
I saw one website who did a writeup on the game, and at the end of the story describing the massacre, stated: "Idaho kicked a field goal as time ran out to end the game on a positive note." Yeah, positive note my ass. They covered the spread, and that's what that field goal was about, plain and simple. I now hate Idaho as much as I hate UC and UGA.
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