As many of you might recall, I provided comments in a thread during preseason regarding my familiarity with Northcoast Sports. This sports service has been in operation for 23 years and I have been familiar with their service for nearly that entire time. For the first 22 years, their College Game Of The Year is, in fact, 18-4. For those trying to figure out in advance what this week's GOY may be let me give you some guidelines from the past as best that I can recall.
1. Normally, the play is not a heavy favorite either home or road.
2. The play is usually a small to modest favorite or an underdog.
3. It is usually one of his "Major Moves" as given on his complimentary "Full Service Line" Button #7 on Friday.
4. Sometimes it is one of the teams that he has listed in Power Sweep that the Northcoast Line he shows should be the favorite but it is actually the dog.
With these guidelines, let's look at some possibilities:
Heavy favorites eliminated: Oklahoma State, Texas, Miami (Ohio), Utah, California, Oklahoma, Boise State, UTEP, USC, North Texas
Small to modest favorite or underdog: Many fall into this category.
Major Moves: Phil Steele defines this as where his line and the Vegas line differ by 6+ points or more. Currently from Power Sweep this would include: West Virginia, Georgia Tech, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Syracuse, Texas A&M, Texas, Arkansas, Utah, Notre Dame, BYU, Oregon, California, Oklahoma, Purdue, Virginia, Oregon State, Boise State, UTEP, SMU, USC
Northcoast Line shows favorite, Vegas line dog: Ohio, Kentucky, Oregon State
It is worth looking at the projected scores of games as shown in Power Sweep and find the games with the greatest difference taking the spread into consideration. A final note, as Hitman has mentioned, this play will be released at 11:00 a.m. EST and the lines will begin moving rapidly thereafter. Expect the line on this game to move 4 to 6 points unless there is some other large sports service on the opposite side. Futhermore, Millenium Sports holds the quoted release line until 11:35 a.m. EST for Northcoast customers that have opened an account and are either Power Sweep subscribers or Northcoast customers in some other manner. I know this personally as I have just such an account and weekly have seen the lines held for 35 minutes following the release of the late phones. Those that don't have such accounts, are neither given the held line or can see the line being held on the Millenium website.
One last comment. If one is capable of narrowing down the play to a few possibilities, the expected line movement can provide excellent opportunities to middle this game. Examples: Georgia +5 and SMU +7
Hope this helps provide additional information.
