Yahoo Sports’ Jason Fitz and Caroline Fenton are joined by Yahoo Sports senior sports betting analyst Ben Fawkes to break down the upcoming game between UNC and TCU.
UNC was initially favored in this one.
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Now they’re 3.5-point underdogs.
Explain this line movement to me.
Yeah, so unlike that Texas Ohio State game we just talked about in terms of sharp action pushing the line, a lot of sharp action on this game over the months in the offseason.
This is a game UNC opened anywhere from a 1.5 to 2-point favorite, maybe even 2.5 at some sportsbooks very early on.
And this has been pushed all the way to UNC now as a 3.5-point dog.
One oddsmaker basically told me off the respected action he’s taken, he’s lowered UNC’s power rating 4.5 points just based off of that action.
Again, this is just in week one.
UNC has a win total of 7.5.
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Initially, there was actually some over money.
I think people pay Belichick back to college, a little optimism, but really since the early summer.
And as we’ve gotten close to the season, it’s been all under money.
This is now juiced heavily to the under at 7.5.
So I think bettors are really fading Bill Belichick, especially in the first game.
This will be a really interesting game on Monday night.
It will be one of the higher handle games.
One sportsbook said maybe all season, right?
Standalone game Monday night on Labor Day.
It’s the only football game going on.
So it’s going to have a massive audience.
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It should be a spectacle, but the 7.5 as well, I will say sharp bettors split to a certain extent.
A lot of people like the under, but some told me they do have an easy schedule.
So there is a way that they get over that total, even if they don’t really have the season that maybe some are expecting with Belichick as his head coach debuting at UNC.
So Ben, educate me for a second.
If you’re just a casual bettor that’s listening to this entire conversation, when you see a massive movement on a line, like a line just starts to shift one way or the other right before the game, what should that tell you?
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So typically that’ll tell you in a game like this, that respected bettors, which are bets that move the line, the bookmakers respect their action, meaning that, hey, they bet, let’s say TCU at +1.5.
They’re gonna move that towards TCU because Those bets are going to be right more often than they’re going to be wrong.
So off of just a couple of bets, the line can move, whereas typically the public doesn’t move the lines that often.
Obviously, if there’s an overwhelming amount of action like we’ve seen in Ohio State, Texas, sometimes that will move a little bit.
But for a game to flip the favorites, that’s a lot of respected action on one side, and that’s what we’ve seen in the UNC TCU game.