NCAA football betting players will tell you that the college game has gone through an interesting transformation in the last couple of years. The spread offense came through the NCAA and “spread” (pardon the pun) like wildfire, with everyone and their mother running some kind of wide-open offense. The spread is still very popular in the college game, but something had to be done to fight it, and the defenses of the country flexed their muscles in 2009. Look for that to continue.
Of the 10 BCS bowl teams from last year, six teams were in the top 10 (TCU, Alabama, Texas, Florida, Ohio State and Iowa) made it. The combatants in the BCS title game, Alabama and Texas, were second and third in the nation, respectively, while the team that top-ranked TCU lost to, Boise State, finished 14th. That’s probably while NFL betting players saw six defensive players go in the top 10 of last year’s draft, and the most intriguing pick may have been Eric Berry, a safety picked fifth by Kansas City.
Berry is part of an intriguing group of players that have emerged in the NCAA (former USC safety Taylor Mays, drafted by San Francisco, is another type), and he played a hybrid role in Tennessee’s defense last year. Former Tennessee coordinator Monte Kiffin (who NFL betting players will remember well from his Tampa Bay defenses) had the luxury of being able to put Berry back in coverage to counter the number of wide receivers that offenses were trotting out, but he could also put Berry up a bit closer to the line, because the physical Berry hits like a linebacker. You could maybe say that the late Sean Taylor, who was a force at Miami and in the NFL with Washington, was an inspiration behind this.
In the USA Today preseason top 25 poll, online football betting players will see that the entire top 10 ranked in the top 14 of last season’s defensive rankings, which means sportsbooks feel that this trend is going to continue. All of these teams should be competitive, and then betting players may feel like giving teams like North Carolina a shot as well as the Tar Heels figure to have one of the best defenses in the country, which makes them a big darkhorse in the ACC and national-title races. It was only a matter of time before defenses caught up to the spread, and the implementation of the hybrid player is the first weapon they’ve brought out. While you’ll see some shootouts this season, among the top teams, betting players shouldn’t expect a lot of points to be scored in 2010, and you can bet the BCs champion will be a top-five defensive team.
