Message Board Geniuses

Early last week, I put together an ‘Uneducated Big XII Prediction’ on Twitter. I was kindly, gracefully, and politely told by fans, mostly OU fans, that I needed to educate myself a little better on the conference. I have spent the last week or so getting up to speed on all that is Big XII football.

In this conference preview, I will identify the best bet, worst bet, dark horse and the fanbase most likely to make multiple appearances on messageboardgeniuses.com. For the purposes of this preview, I will be using the DraftKings Sportsbook odds in the image above for reference in addition to your wonderful message board content.

Comparing yourself to Clemson might be a bit premature, but the Oklahoma State Cowboys are my best bet to win the Big XII. Outside of Oklahoma, they have quietly been one of the most consistent teams in college football, not having a losing season since 2005. But understand that the best bet and most likely to win are not synonymous.

As the team with the third best odds, there is return value for this pick relative to the two favorites of the conference: Oklahoma and Texas. The truth is that Baylor is also a very solid bet here, as both Oklahoma State and Baylor should have a legitimate chance to meet twice against each other, like last year. However, I trust Oklahoma State’s consistency a bit more than Baylor’s.

I wrote about Texas being back a couple of weeks back, so I will spare that fanbase any more message board content. That said, Texas is almost certainly the worst bet here. At +280, they are actually favorites to at least make the conference championship game, which they’ve done once in the last decade. They have a new flashy QB (that has never taken a college snap) so I get the excitement, but winning the conference is a bit much

Look, maybe Texas surprises me and wins the Big XII, but I’d need better odds than +280 to see any sort of logic behind that bet.

Thank you again, to @steadyeddy, for the image.

Oh, well this is awkward. You, Kansas State, are my dark horse pick.

The OL needs to gel quickly and take some pressure off of former Nebraska QB, Adrian Martinez, but Martinez has never had someone as talented as Deuce Vaughn in the backfield with him. Kansas State should be in the upper echelon of Big XII teams this year and that could mean some excellent value at +1200.

You’ve got it. I know I gave y’all some grief last week, but the truth is that I don’t know what to make of OU right now. Could they win 10+ games? Absolutely. Is it equally possible that, with a head coach that has never coached a game as a head coach, there are some growing pains in a relatively balanced conference which results in 4 or 5 losses? Absolutely. For your sake, Sooner fans, I hope Venables does what, apparently, only two other OU coaches have done.

That’s the spirit Kansas football fan! Seriously though, I don’t think you’ll see odds like +25000 much. I know that we are talking about Kansas football here, but I believe casinos and bookies would prefer that a team with 250:1 odds does not win the conference.

Reminder: If you are actually using an article on messageboards.com for gambling advice, you probably belong on a message board.

For more insightful college football takes, follow me on Twitter @hawkguymatt.