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00:00 All right, coming down in three, two and one.
00:08 Welcome to week 12 of Behind the Points spread presented by Betfred Sports.
00:11 I'm Travis Justice.
00:12 Don't forget, if you're watching on YouTube right now, make sure to subscribe to the YouTube
00:15 channel as you'll get all the content that Dr. Rob Zadoski and I put out each and every
00:20 week.
00:21 Of course, you can check out the latest podcast and also check out the Doc's Diagnosis presented
00:24 by Centris Federal Credit Union.
00:27 Of course, we have four games to get to tonight, but let's bring in the stars of the show.
00:31 To my left, the one and only Scott Spreitzer, and owning all the space down below, the good
00:36 doctor, Dr. Rob Zadoski.
00:37 Hello, gentlemen.
00:38 Keep keeping me in the basement.
00:39 That's right.
00:40 Well, you know, the basement's a good place to be though, right?
00:43 Well, it's your house it is, I think.
00:46 That's true.
00:47 Lots of beer flowing through my house.
00:48 You know, I was going to save this till the end of the show.
00:50 Of course, this is a college football show, but Scott, you were mentioning that college
00:54 basketball is going crazy in Las Vegas, and I know Creighton is getting ready to go to
00:59 Las Vegas, and those tickets are sky high.
01:02 Yeah, I had to go the comp route, which I don't always like to do because I like to
01:06 save them for other things like, you know, Super Bowl.
01:09 So as much as I'm a huge, that's my two teams, Creighton and UNLV when it comes to college
01:14 basketball.
01:15 So yeah, a buddy of mine calls me and he goes, "I was just looking."
01:18 He goes, "Any chance you can get any tickets?"
01:20 He goes, "Cheapest one I've been able to find so far comes out to well over $175 for
01:27 one ticket to see Creighton and UNLV in a mid-December game when both teams have played
01:33 about what by then?
01:34 Seven games?"
01:35 You know, so I was like, "Yeah, let me get to work on this."
01:39 And you know, it's funny because he started out behind the basket, maybe four or five
01:43 rows from the floor.
01:45 That was a buck 85 each, I think it was.
01:47 And then he decided, "All right, well, I'll go what would be equivalent to like maybe
01:50 the 30-yard line about 10, 15 rows up."
01:53 That was about 160 bucks per ticket.
01:56 And you know, they're playing in Henderson.
01:58 There's the Dollar Lone Arena out in Henderson, which that houses the IHL, not IHL anymore,
02:04 the AHL hockey team.
02:07 And also, you know, some events like that and plus arena football, things like that.
02:12 New Stadium holds about maybe 10,000 people.
02:15 But this is crazy.
02:16 You know, Rob, I was telling Travis earlier, in Vegas, they build something new and you
02:22 better believe you're going to pay for it whether they tell you up front with your taxes
02:26 or not.
02:27 They built a AAA stadium a couple of years ago.
02:29 I think it was 2019.
02:31 I used to pay 10, 12 bucks to go to a AAA game and sit anywhere.
02:34 I have to pay 45, 50 bucks to sit behind home plate, five, six, seven rows from the field
02:39 to see a AAA base.
02:40 I pay almost as much as I do when I go to an Angels game in Anaheim or a Dodgers game.
02:45 It's nuts.
02:46 And so, yeah, this new arena, it's been up for a couple of years.
02:48 Oh, by the way, it's going to cost you 200 bucks a ticket to see a basketball game in
02:52 December.
02:53 How good is...
02:54 Rob, I was going to ask you real quick.
02:55 We keep interrupting.
02:56 I know.
02:57 I'm sorry.
02:58 That's my bad.
02:59 I interrupted.
03:00 Okay.
03:01 You keep going.
03:02 Tell me.
03:03 You've been to what?
03:04 One Husker game this year?
03:05 Yeah.
03:06 Yeah.
03:07 I mean, I've watched a lot of football.
03:10 Yeah.
03:11 We've watched...
03:12 What I'm hearing is I have an HDTV right there with really good sound, and I'm really starting
03:16 to appreciate just watching sports on television than being in person.
03:21 Yeah, but this is also why, I mean, at least for the Husker fans watching, this is also
03:27 why they're completely redoing the stadium, though.
03:29 True.
03:30 I mean, they're going to drop the seat numbers.
03:32 They're going to up the experience.
03:35 Right now, it's the experience is the thing.
03:37 It's going to be nice.
03:38 Yeah.
03:39 But they're going to have to do it.
03:43 There's going to be alcohol.
03:45 You're going for a three-hour party on Saturday afternoon is why you are going there, and
03:51 you're going to go in a palace.
03:53 To the tune of $500 million.
03:56 Exactly.
03:57 But it'll be worth it.
03:58 It'll be worth it.
03:59 Well, but that's what you're going to have to do to get people to decide that, "Hey,
04:02 you know what?
04:04 It's going to be worth it to go down to Lincoln and spend two-thirds, three-fourths of a day
04:09 in downtown Lincoln just to go to the game," as opposed to sitting at home, sitting with
04:16 your big screen, sitting with the beer in your fridge, with the bathroom right there.
04:20 It's way easier to sit at home and watch these games, whatever the sport is.
04:26 As much as anybody wants to bitch and moan about whatever streaming service, cable service,
04:33 Peacock, YouTube, Roku, Apple TV, whatever, the experience of sitting at home and watching
04:41 sports right now is the best it has ever been.
04:45 Sure.
04:46 Hands down.
04:47 And so to get people into these arenas, it better be good.
04:50 So that's why Nebraska is going to drop half a billion dollars to try and keep putting
04:56 what's going to drop down to now being essentially like 76 or 77,000 people in the seats again.
05:02 I was just going to ask you, every time I watch a game in Lincoln, it's like there's
05:06 one, I don't know if it's the South End Zone or whatever, there's got to be 7,000 empty
05:10 seats.
05:11 Yeah, there's one section.
05:12 I mean, technically, have they sold them?
05:15 Yeah.
05:16 Are people showing up?
05:17 Not really.
05:18 I mean, well, now I say that.
05:23 You're probably putting, so you've got a stadium that seats 90,000 basically right now.
05:30 You're probably putting 80,000 people in that place.
05:35 I will agree with anybody.
05:38 There's 10 or 12,000 empty seats in that place, most home games, unless it's kind of an interesting
05:45 opponent.
05:47 But I mean, yeah, there's a bunch of empty seats.
05:52 They're still selling them.
05:53 On the flip side, you can make the argument, hey, we're putting freaking 80,000 people
05:57 in the stadium to watch a horrible product most nights.
06:01 And you bring up a good point.
06:03 I talk about this with Iowa fans all the time.
06:07 You got to have a great experience, but you also have to have good entertainment.
06:10 I mean, entertainment has to be part of the factor because sports are no longer just winning
06:13 and losing X's and O's.
06:15 It's got to be an entertaining factor too.
06:17 So you've got to combine entertainment with an experience.
06:20 Is Iowa football entertaining?
06:22 No, it's not.
06:23 Well, it's entertaining on defense, but you can only watch so many good defensive football
06:27 games before you go.
06:29 You know, a little offense wouldn't be bad every now and then too.
06:32 And I think Husker fans are feeling the same way.
06:34 Hey, before we get started, don't forget you can work with Scott Spreitzer personally.
06:37 All you have to do is text the word Duck Talk to the number 29022 and get a free $60 trial
06:43 of the premium ever picks from Scott or visit ducksports.com and sign up for the free 60
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07:23 All right, here are the four games we're going to take a look at tonight.
07:27 We're staying pretty concentrated in the Midwest.
07:30 We're going to do two out of the big 12.
07:31 We're going to do two out of the big 10, starting with Kansas and Kansas State.
07:35 Moving on to the Texas Iowa State game that still has big 12 championship game implications
07:40 on it.
07:41 Iowa can wrap up the big 10 West division with a win over Illinois.
07:44 We'll take a look at that one and of course we'll wrap up the night with the Nebraska
07:49 and Wisconsin game.
07:51 Four pretty good games.
07:52 Scott, let's go ahead and start with the Kansas-Kansas State game.
07:56 This is intriguing because Kansas really surprised me last week getting beat by Texas Tech and
08:03 Kansas State role last week.
08:04 There's no love lost between these two schools.
08:06 Yeah, and it was one of those things where Kansas had problems of the quarterback position.
08:10 They've had bumps and bruises there for quite a bit of the season.
08:14 But K-State's won four in a row.
08:16 I'm checking my lines right now because I've got about 25 books on my line service on my
08:20 other computer.
08:22 It's sticking around.
08:23 There's a lot of seven and a halfs out there now and even a few eights.
08:27 The folks are betting on the Wildcats on this one.
08:30 This early in the week, as we talk, whether it's midweek, Wednesday night, you're talking
08:35 about a situation where until Friday it's really sharper money that's coming in on these
08:41 games and then the public starts getting active usually Friday night into Saturday morning.
08:47 But anyway, so it's more respected money on K-State.
08:49 They've won the last four in the series by about 28 and a half points per game.
08:54 It is a tough handicap because we don't know who's playing quarterback for the Jayhawks.
08:59 You've got their top two quarterbacks.
09:00 You've got Bean.
09:01 He leaves last week with a head injury.
09:02 You've got Jalen Daniels with a sore back.
09:05 They're both listed as questionable.
09:07 So they could very well be down to a third string quarterback.
09:12 Last week they combined 10 of 24 in that game against Texas Tech.
09:15 So it's a game where when I first was thinking about doing it, I thought, "Boy, if I can
09:19 get one of the top two quarterbacks, Bean or Daniels healthy, I'm going to grab the
09:22 points."
09:23 Then Sunday night I'm looking at the game and I'm like, "I just can't find anything
09:26 that tells me which one of these two players might play in this game and had to leave it
09:31 alone."
09:32 But looking at the last six games, guys, Kansas three and three, and they had a game-winning
09:36 touchdown against Oklahoma that happened with less than a minute to go.
09:40 Their defense has been run over for several weeks now.
09:42 They had the one good game against Iowa State, but the other five in the stretch, again,
09:48 in this three and three stretch, saw KU opponents rush for an average of 232 yards on 5.1 yards
09:55 per carry.
09:56 The defense is getting worse against the run as the season progresses.
10:00 And K-State, they're 14 points away from 10 and 0 on the season.
10:04 So I got a side with K-State here.
10:06 I know that number is getting up.
10:08 Again, they look like they're counting on injury problems going into Saturday for Kansas,
10:13 but I have to agree with the money thus far and say Kansas State's the way to go here.
10:17 There's an interesting stat here.
10:19 Chris Kleiman at Kansas State, 38-19 against the spread.
10:24 If you're bet on Kansas State with Chris Kleiman, you're winning some pretty good money.
10:28 Rob, you've always liked Chris Kleiman.
10:29 He did a great job at North Dakota State when he took over for Craig Bull.
10:34 Went to Kansas State.
10:37 It's no-nonsense football, but it's fun to watch.
10:41 His name's been kind of thrown around maybe for the Texas A&M job.
10:45 I think Kansas State, I think he's a Midwest guy.
10:48 He's an Iowa guy.
10:49 But you like Kleiman.
10:51 He's a hell of a coach.
10:52 Well, I mean, he's one of these guys that I don't think he really tried to rush anything
10:56 with his job at Kansas State.
10:59 He came in.
11:00 He kind of took a lot of the philosophy that they used up at North Dakota State in terms
11:04 of taking guys.
11:06 He's a big, big developmental guy.
11:10 I mean, he's not afraid to go to the portal.
11:11 He'll go to the JUCOs.
11:14 But he's a big fan of getting young guys in there and taking a lot of time to develop
11:18 them over two to three years.
11:20 And the place where it really shows, he's got one of the better offensive lines in the
11:25 Big 12 this year.
11:27 And so that's kind of one of these things that I've watched over the last few years.
11:31 His offensive lines have been really good.
11:34 It's been well-developed junior, senior heavy.
11:37 He's got lines with a lot of junior and senior guys on them.
11:42 And so that's the kind of thing that it pays dividends.
11:46 I mean, it's a little bit of a slow grind to get there.
11:49 But when you do, you see kind of this consistent success.
11:53 You start to see those six, seven win seasons turn into eight, nine, ten win seasons pretty
11:58 consistently when you use that model.
12:01 You don't have a lot of ups and downs.
12:04 So that's kind of what I always liked about him.
12:08 I mean, it's sort of this old school methodology.
12:10 But I mean, that's how those guys did it up at North Dakota State.
12:15 That's how Bull did it.
12:16 That's how Kleiman did it.
12:17 And that's how they're still trying to do it up there.
12:20 The interesting part about that, Kansas State at five and two in the league, still in the
12:23 mix for the Big 12 championship game.
12:26 They have Kansas this week, then Iowa State next week.
12:28 Iowa State just became bull eligible over the weekend as they beat BYU last week to
12:33 get their sixth win, but they're five and two in the Big 12.
12:36 They're also knocking at the door for the Big 12 championship game.
12:40 You got a primetime game on Fox taking on Texas, which is six and one in the Big 12.
12:46 We see Longhorn's a seven and a half point favorite, Scott, over under at 48.
12:50 I think the primetime aspect in home field makes this an intriguing, very intriguing
12:55 game for Cyclone fans.
12:57 Yeah, so do I.
12:58 I wanted to say one last thing about K-State and Kleiman, because I tell people all the
13:02 time if they're just getting into sports betting and they're doing it, whether it be for entertainment
13:06 purposes or eventually they want to make this part of their take-home money, their income
13:11 every year, don't overthink things.
13:13 Kleiman, as you mentioned, you showed that graphic, 38 and 19 against the spread.
13:18 If you have Travis Justice money and you're betting 10 dimes or $10,000 per game, I mean,
13:23 think about that though.
13:24 10K per game since Kleiman's been in Manhattan, that's $380,000 one.
13:29 You subtract 11,000 times 19 for the VIG, which I come out to about 210,000.
13:35 You're talking about 170 grand you've already made betting 10 dimes a game in 57 games.
13:40 So I tell people all the time, I won't bet against K-State.
13:42 I just won't do it.
13:43 I either bet on them or leave them alone.
13:45 Just no reason to do that.
13:46 I know, but that's one of those things where you, Scott, what you just said right there,
13:52 you've talked about it on this show a lot that, I mean, if you're going to be good at
13:55 this, and when I say good, what did you say?
13:59 Kind of like the good handicappers are hitting what?
14:03 Like 53, 54%?
14:05 A really good year is 55, 56%.
14:07 A really good year.
14:08 Yeah.
14:09 And if you look at what Kleiman's done, when you look at those numbers, that's the numbers
14:14 you're talking about.
14:15 I mean, that's the intelligent betting.
14:17 When you talk about this, you can't look at a game like that, like that K-State Kansas
14:21 game and let emotion come into play with it.
14:26 Yeah.
14:27 That's crazy.
14:28 I mean, he's better than the S&P 500.
14:29 I mean, right.
14:30 Cause I mean, that's how you got to look at it.
14:32 If you're looking at it like the stock market, hell he's, he, he, he, he's like a, he's
14:37 a lot better than the S&P 500.
14:39 I have a couple of biotech stocks that don't pay off like Kleiman.
14:43 I mean, there's no doubt about that.
14:44 How about this Texas Iowa State game?
14:47 Yeah.
14:48 You know, what's what?
14:49 Seven and a half at most joints now.
14:50 And you know, Texas has covered just one of the last five and they played several close
14:55 games.
14:56 The four of the last five games have been decided by one score.
14:58 They've struggled in the second half of those four games.
15:01 They've been outscored 67 to 39 in those four games in the second half.
15:06 When you look at Iowa State, decent defensive numbers, tough to trust the offense, but,
15:10 uh, well, that seems like a plague on the planes guys.
15:12 It's like what offense in the Northern Plains is going to show up, you know, from one week
15:16 to the next in a consistent manner.
15:18 But anyway, the power ratings I make a week in advance before last weekend's games were
15:22 played.
15:23 I already had power ratings on these two teams.
15:24 So you don't get influenced from a bust out game or a really bad off the norm game.
15:28 And it says Texas is 11 points better than Iowa State on a neutral field.
15:33 So this number is about right.
15:34 Sitting around seven and a half.
15:36 I think Texas wins by a touchdown, which, you know, I like K State so I can give that
15:40 out.
15:41 But as far as this game, as of right now, it's a stay away from me because I'm only
15:44 half a point away from the point spread on this game.
15:47 You know, and I think it was really hard to judge.
15:50 I mean, Iowa State went to Provo, gave BYU its first loss at home all year long, but
15:56 BYU is not a very good football team.
15:58 I mean, Iowa State was so much better than BYU.
16:01 I don't know if we could take anything away from that or not, because Texas is going to
16:04 come with a much better defense and obviously a much better, better offense than what BYU
16:09 had.
16:10 It is interesting though, Rob, it's like when you look at what's going on right now with
16:13 Texas, second half of the season, they're getting worked in the second half of these
16:17 games.
16:18 They are, which I mean, earlier in the year, I mean, that defense really played amazingly
16:23 well and I sometimes I kind of wonder, you look at some of these teams that really do
16:27 have a lot of really good athletes, at least in their starting lineups.
16:31 And that's one of the things I worry about Texas a little bit is how much, I mean, how
16:38 much depth is there really?
16:39 Do they have a bunch of five stars in their starting lineups and then that talent drops
16:43 off?
16:44 The other thing is, is I mean, how long has Quinn Ewer's been out now?
16:48 Has it been two weeks or just one week?
16:51 Right.
16:52 Did he come back last week or not?
16:53 I don't know if he played a bit last week.
16:54 Yeah, I think he played a little bit last week, but he's not a hundred percent by any
16:57 means.
16:58 But that's one of those things.
16:59 I mean, when you look at a situation like that at the quarterback, the offense is hampered
17:03 a little bit, the defense, which is really good, lives on the field a little bit more.
17:08 I haven't gone back and looked at the numbers in terms of time of possession for those,
17:13 for Texas and their opponents.
17:15 But the thing that I think would be interesting to do is go back and look at and see how much
17:19 longer is that defense living on the field now that the offense may not be producing
17:24 as much.
17:26 So again, Kansas State still alive for the Big 12 title game.
17:28 Iowa State still alive for the Big 12 title game.
17:31 Texas still right there leading the pack of the Big 12.
17:33 We're going to turn our attention to the Big 10 now where the Big 10 West can be wrapped
17:38 up this weekend.
17:39 I don't know if that's saying very much because no team in the Big 10 West is that good.
17:43 Iowa has a two game lead with two to play, but could still, if everything fell out right,
17:48 we could not make it to Indianapolis.
17:50 However, if the Hawks beat Illinois this weekend, then Iowa automatically wins the West and
17:57 would advance to the Big 10 title game.
17:59 The Hawks a three and a half point favorite right now.
18:02 30 and a half is the over under, which is a lot better than last week's 27 and a half.
18:07 This is interesting because Illinois has been playing decent football.
18:11 Brett Belem, a former Hawkeye, would love nothing more than to beat his former team
18:16 and they have been playing better, Scott, the last couple of weeks.
18:21 They look so bad against Nebraska, didn't they?
18:23 You know, I'm kind of surprised that they've been able to kind of turn things around as
18:27 far as their quality of play since then because they look like the worst team in the Big 10
18:31 in that particular game, especially in the offensive side of the ball.
18:34 You know, it's got a huge total here, guys.
18:37 We're talking about 30 and a half.
18:38 We got a couple of offenses that might have to score a couple touchdowns to get there,
18:42 but Hawkeyes defense, you know, they slammed the door on Rutgers last week.
18:45 We all saw that.
18:46 Less than 100 yards allowed passing, less than 100 yards allowed rushing.
18:50 I can't believe it's 2023 and we're seeing some of these numbers, but you know, they
18:54 themselves only managed two offensive touchdowns again, so defensively, they've faced three
18:59 straight opponents ranked outside the top 100 in passing offense.
19:03 And in fact, I was looking back a little bit earlier, they haven't faced a passing offense
19:07 ranked in the top 70 since the season opener against Utah State.
19:12 That's how bad it's been, the schedule that Iowa's been playing.
19:15 Now, Illinois 40th in passing yards per game, big step up for the defense, and I'm kind
19:19 of saying that tongue in cheek.
19:21 John Paddock did top 500 yards last week's win over Indiana.
19:24 That was shocking to me.
19:26 Before last week, he had thrown 25 passes all year, then he throws for 500 yards in
19:31 that game.
19:32 So, listen, they went into last week and power-rated, I went back and looked, power-rated one point
19:36 better than Iowa on a neutral field.
19:39 So this number's up over three.
19:41 Is Iowa's home field really worth four and a half points at this point, the way they're
19:45 playing offensively?
19:47 It seems like a smidge too high for me.
19:49 If Illinois can score two touchdowns in this game, they likely cover this spread.
19:54 Bottom line is, I think that, I should also mention, this line was six on Sunday when
19:59 it first came out in books offshore.
20:02 It's all the way down to three and a half.
20:03 I still think it's a smidge too high, but man, if you wanted that dog, you could have
20:07 got six full points with the Illini, which is ridiculous.
20:11 That's why it went like that, and people gobbled it up, because you don't know if Iowa can
20:16 score ten, and if they allow six, they don't cover the number.
20:20 So I thought that line was too high.
20:22 Three and a half, I still think it's just a smidge too high, but the value's gone, and
20:25 you see some ugly numbers there for Illinois on the screen.
20:28 You know, the interesting part about it is, Iowa actually had over 400 yards of total
20:32 offense last week.
20:33 A decent game from Deacon Hill, a really good rush game.
20:38 This offense may be starting to click, because Rutgers defense is not a slouch by any means,
20:43 at least statistically it's not.
20:44 I did get a buddy of mine, who I do a radio show with, his dad's a huge Hawkeye fan, and
20:50 he's in his 70s, Vietnam War vet.
20:53 He went outside, they watched a game in the garage every weekend, and he went outside
20:57 to have a smoke, right?
20:59 And the Suns go, "Hey," and this is when it was still pretty low scoring, said, "Hey,
21:03 let's switch the HDTV to standard def, because if we're going to watch football like it's
21:08 in 1975, we might as well watch it on a television that's not HD.
21:13 I mean, you might as well get the whole experience and watch it on standard def."
21:17 Pop top cans with the beer and all that good stuff.
21:20 Exactly.
21:21 Probably drinking hams, slits, a little Miller High Life.
21:25 Our final game tonight's going to be in Nebraska, Wisconsin.
21:28 The Huskers coming off a disappointing loss to Maryland.
21:32 Wisconsin, yet another loss, which was kind of surprising last week, as they got beat
21:36 at home by Northwestern.
21:38 This is a 6-30 game on Fox Sports 1.
21:40 I wish I had a clue.
21:42 I wish I had a clue on what was going to happen here.
21:45 I have nothing.
21:46 I have really nothing with these two teams.
21:48 I saw the title for a video you guys did after the Nebraska loss to Maryland, and it was
21:53 basically broken record.
21:56 We could be doing every game the same way.
21:59 If Nebraska had a Power Five quarterback, they would probably be 8-2 right now.
22:03 They would have lost to Michigan, no matter who they had at quarterback.
22:06 Even though it was 13-7 late in the fourth quarter, I mean, midway through the third
22:10 quarter against Colorado, I don't know that they could have won that game anyway, even
22:13 with a quarterback who doesn't commit turnovers and make mistakes.
22:17 So let's say they lose those two games, everybody else they would have beaten if they had.
22:21 Even a mediocre quarterback.
22:23 We were talking about Heinrich Harburg earlier in the season.
22:26 The good thing about him was that he wasn't making mistakes.
22:28 He's not accurate.
22:29 He was only hitting like 52, 53 percent, but he wasn't making mistakes.
22:34 And now something's in his head, and boy, they're just a mess.
22:37 Every quarterback threw at least one pick on Saturday, as you guys know.
22:41 So it's the same old, same old.
22:42 If Nebraska has a quarterback who can get through a game, limiting mistakes and turnovers,
22:47 turn it over no more than once, they can win this game against Wisconsin.
22:51 Because we talked about Wisconsin earlier this season.
22:54 You know, they decided they were going to change their identity.
22:56 I've got no problem with Luke Fickle.
22:58 I think he's a fantastic head coach, but he brought in an offensive coordinator that decided
23:03 we're going to junk what we've been doing all these years, and now we're going to start
23:06 throwing the football and playing a very quick, up-tempo game, and it hasn't fit with the
23:11 players that Wisconsin has.
23:12 Plus, they had the quarterback problems, the bumps and bruises.
23:15 Again, you cannot bet Nebraska.
23:18 You just can't.
23:19 You know, I did it a couple of times this year, got away with it once, lost another
23:22 one.
23:23 Until you find a quarterback who can actually go out there and direct an offense and not
23:27 make key mistakes, how can you bet on him?
23:29 I don't blame the sharp money for coming into Wisconsin, taking this from as low as four
23:33 and a half up to six, like in a matter of about eight hours, and it's because you can't
23:38 trust this Nebraska offense.
23:39 Which if you looked at, I mean, at Matt Ruhl's press conference today, he pointed out that
23:43 Heiner Carberg's ankle's pretty banged up.
23:46 So he may be questionable for the game, and then Purdy's got, what was it?
23:50 I think it's like a lingering groin injury.
23:54 That's got him tied up.
23:56 He said Jeff Simms is perfectly healthy.
23:59 So I mean, you've got Simms, at least right now, Simms is looking like the potential starter
24:06 in the game.
24:07 And so, I know Scott, you've talked about this before, that at least as far as Vegas
24:14 is concerned, Simms is a statistical guarantee for a couple of turnovers during every game.
24:21 So how do you bet on that?
24:25 I'm sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you.
24:26 I mean, he had three against Maryland.
24:28 He had two picks and a fumble.
24:29 I mean, he had three, and he didn't even start the game.
24:32 And you know what I was going to say is, when Sam finished the game, yeah, he didn't finish.
24:37 Purdy did his job.
24:38 He throws a pick.
24:39 But I'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm looking at what Wisconsin's done the last five games.
24:43 They're one and four.
24:44 And if you toss out that game against Indiana, they're giving up over 180 rushing yards per
24:49 game in those other four games out of the last five.
24:53 This is the perfect defense for Nebraska to be able to generate offense on the ground
24:57 and win this game, except for one key issue.
25:01 They don't have a quarterback.
25:02 They don't have a power five quarterback.
25:03 It's sad to see that a team with all this backing, financial backing, 85,000 people
25:09 in the seats every week, you know, they're certainly not hurting for money and they can't
25:13 find a power quarterback.
25:15 It just blows me away.
25:16 And of course, the offensive coordinator, you know, they're talking about, we got to
25:18 get rid of him.
25:19 I'd love to see what he can do with a real quarterback.
25:21 I mean, my gosh, I'm watching Division II games or FCS games where the quarterback room
25:26 is night and day better than Nebraska's not even close.
25:29 Yeah.
25:30 I mean, they gambled the Sims.
25:31 They thought that was going to be the safe bet.
25:33 Turns out it wasn't.
25:34 And that's going to happen in the portal sometime, but you're right.
25:37 I mean, none of the three are able to produce Rob.
25:41 We took some hits on, on, I think our docs diagnosis and even part of the podcast, which,
25:48 which Scott referenced, which is titled just a broken record that people like, sure you
25:51 can fire an OC after one season.
25:54 It's been done before.
25:55 But, but I, you and I can't call it a problem.
25:58 That's not the problem.
25:59 Yeah.
26:00 I mean, well, I mean, Scott taught Scott, you talked about the quarterback position
26:04 at Nebraska.
26:05 I mean, you've got this completely banged up like patchwork offensive line, which was
26:14 essentially, I mean, we asked you when they lost 60% of the offensive line to injuries
26:19 a few weeks ago, we asked you what effect is that going to have on this on the following
26:24 week's game.
26:25 And you're like, yeah, half a point.
26:26 And it was like, wait, how do you lose over 50% of your own line to injury?
26:33 And it's only worth half a point.
26:35 And you said, well, it was basically a bunch of backups getting replaced by backups.
26:39 That's only about half a point.
26:41 And you're right.
26:42 But I mean, they're also down to what, like a fourth and a fifth string running back as
26:47 well too.
26:48 Yeah.
26:49 Yeah.
26:50 And, and, and, and, and, and well, and then they're, well, wide receiver, do this for
26:56 every position group, right?
26:58 It's a completely depleted team.
27:01 We look at cluster injuries or into sports betting, because, you know, like I've said
27:04 before on this show and, and everybody pretty much knows if they're in a sports betting
27:08 that, you know, there's one player that matters a lot to the spread and that would be a starting
27:13 quarterback.
27:14 Well, he's gotta be better than what Nebraska has, but he's gotta be a legitimate power
27:17 five starting quarterback.
27:18 They might move the number six points off of one starting quarterback compared to a
27:23 backup.
27:24 But to find anything that moves it, you know, one, one and a half points from the spread,
27:27 there gotta be cluster injuries.
27:28 It's gotta be like an entire defensive starting backfield or three out of four.
27:33 With Nebraska, it's like cluster times 10, you know, like you said, every freaking unit
27:38 on this team has been hurt by injuries.
27:42 And if you're going to have a quarterback, who's going to throw 53% and going to have
27:46 one or two picks per game, you just aren't going to win games when you've got injuries
27:50 at every single unit.
27:52 And I see people that I keep in touch with back in the Omaha area and big Nebraska fans,
27:56 and I see them on social media and Facebook and God bless them.
27:59 They're friends.
28:00 We know each other for many, many years.
28:02 Fire this guy, fire that guy, run the football.
28:04 Why are you throwing the pass there?
28:05 Well, you can't run the ball between the tackles 98 times.
28:08 It just ain't going to work.
28:09 You're not going to win games that way.
28:11 So you're talking maybe Satterfield calls a pass and it gets picked off because the
28:15 kid throws it, he throws a bad pass, or maybe he's under pressure that he's not used to.
28:20 And so it's like, I don't know what you want out of an offensive coordinator who has nothing
28:24 to work with.
28:25 Rob, you were getting ready to say something.
28:27 You were like, you ran between the tackles 995 times.
28:32 We could have done that 98 times.
28:35 Oh yeah.
28:36 I mean, just to pull that off.
28:39 It's the firing season in college football.
28:41 Jimbo Fisher's been fired.
28:43 Mississippi State fires its coach.
28:44 Boise State has fired its coach.
28:47 Tom Allen may get fired at Indiana.
28:50 Dana Holgerson is probably going to be out at Houston.
28:53 There's going to be some pretty good jobs open.
28:56 This is always an interesting time of the year.
28:58 I'm going to ask both of you this money wise.
29:00 I get it.
29:01 But is Texas A&M a great job?
29:03 I mean, you hear the names like the guy from Washington and Oregon, and I'm like, you're
29:09 much safer and probably more respected and a lot less pressure and can win maybe easier
29:15 up there than you can at Texas A&M.
29:19 I saw when the Washington coach was mentioned Sunday night, Monday morning, whatever it
29:25 was, and I'm like, he's going to the Big Ten and he's got a great gig.
29:30 And Texas A&M is not going to beat Georgia, Alabama, anytime on a consistent basis.
29:36 Not going to happen.
29:37 Not with Kirby Smart at Georgia, not with Nick Saban.
29:39 You might pull off an upset once every couple of years.
29:42 You're not going to be the team, the team at that conference.
29:46 Washington's got a chance to come into the Big Ten or Oregon, more likely than Washington,
29:50 and make noise right out of the blocks.
29:52 I mean, they're better than every team, Oregon, for instance, then Michigan and maybe Ohio
29:58 State.
29:59 They're pretty close to those two teams, if not better than the Buckeyes.
30:01 I don't know why anybody would take that A&M job other than the fact that you can cash
30:04 out $75 million when they fire you a little bit too early.
30:08 Tough job.
30:10 Yeah, I mean, there's some places where, I mean, you can look at the money, you can look
30:16 at the infrastructure, the fan support.
30:20 I mean, unless you're a really, really good fit for that place, it's not a good job.
30:26 A&M is one of those places.
30:28 It's got the money, it's got the infrastructure, it's got the fan support.
30:33 So is Nebraska.
30:34 I mean, I kind of look at Nebraska in the sense of, man, unless that fit is there, it's
30:44 not a good job.
30:46 I mean, no, I'm not saying it's a good fit.
30:50 So far, I do as well, too.
30:52 I'm just saying, unless you're a guy that kind of has that fit and is willing to do,
31:00 kind of take his time, do the developmental thing, things like that.
31:05 Yeah, it's just some of these places aren't good jobs.
31:11 Now, I'll say the same thing as well.
31:13 Alabama, not a good job.
31:15 Georgia, not a good job.
31:17 Auburn, not a good job.
31:19 You've got these places.
31:20 Ohio State, not a good job.
31:24 Michigan, not a good job.
31:27 I'm sure somebody that can come in and do what Harbaugh's done or do what Ryan Day or
31:34 Urban Meyer's done or what Kirby Smart or Nick Saban has done, you'll find people who
31:41 can go into those places and win and have massive amounts of success.
31:46 It doesn't mean it's a good job.
31:48 I mean, let's talk about Michigan.
31:50 I mean, you're right.
31:51 Harbaugh was a good fit because I think he totally understood Michigan.
31:55 I mean, you can go back to the Brady Hoek time, the Rich Rodriguez time.
31:59 That just was not a good fit.
32:01 People forget Alabama before Nick Saban arrived.
32:05 Gene Stallings won there, but between Bear Bryant, Gene Stallings, and then Nick Saban,
32:11 it took some time.
32:12 Yeah, there was 15 years of horrible football at Alabama between Bear and Stallings and
32:20 about another 15 years of horrible football between Stallings and Saban.
32:27 Even at Michigan, it kind of took Harbaugh a little bit of time to sort of figure it
32:32 out.
32:33 It's interesting because you could say almost every job's a bad job, but everything's about
32:39 culture, it's about fit.
32:40 I do think Houston's an interesting job.
32:43 I thought Holgersen would be more successful there than what he is.
32:46 I'm actually shocked he's not.
32:48 So am I.
32:49 But Houston is like this.
32:51 It's going to take a couple years to get acclimated to a power five, a different level, but I
32:55 think that's a pretty darn good job being in what, the largest city in Texas, and then
33:01 you throw in the recruiting base of Texas and Oklahoma and that area.
33:05 I think Houston's a really good job for somebody who's out there.
33:09 If you're somebody who's a good recruiter and a decent coach, Houston's an outstanding
33:16 job.
33:17 I think Holgersen's, I actually think he's a better coach than he is a recruiter.
33:22 Might be.
33:23 Scott, from a betting perspective, when you see coaches that may be on the hot seat, does
33:29 that factor into your thinking at all, especially late in the season now, and we're in a different
33:35 world now?
33:36 I mean, you have coaches that are getting fired and the transfer portal opening up.
33:42 That's a different dynamic to take into account with everything, isn't it?
33:45 It's all coming, I mean, it's like, I know a lot of guys who are extremely sharp, who
33:50 are very inconsistent this season.
33:52 I am too at my college football and it's portal, it's nil money.
33:55 It's all that stuff that are changing the landscape from the foundation up of college
34:00 football.
34:01 It used to be we would sit there before the season and we would compile a list of 130
34:07 plus teams of how many starters are coming back, how many second stringers are coming
34:11 back that saw a decent amount of key playing time the year before, and we used to base
34:16 early season stuff on that.
34:18 You can't do it anymore.
34:19 I mean, you know, UNLV out here, they're like eight and two.
34:22 They had 50 new players on this year's team from last year.
34:25 Colorado, of course, the extreme, but you know, Reno two years ago, 40 players.
34:29 I mean, it's crazy.
34:31 So yeah, the fact that coach is on the hot seat late in the year doesn't really change
34:35 my handicap because it means he kind of stunk anyway.
34:39 And so you don't know if there's going to be enough emotion to carry over whatever's
34:42 not happening with the X's and O's.
34:45 But you know, it's like this nil stuff and this transfer portal is making life a little
34:49 bit tougher on guys who are betting money on college football.
34:52 For the reasons I mentioned, I'm really concerned right now because you mentioned Houston and
34:57 parting the ways of Holgerson, Houston and UNLV are like the same as far as their campuses
35:03 and everything.
35:04 It's a city college almost.
35:06 And it's almost like a commuter college.
35:08 And that would be a program that would be a step up for Barry Odom.
35:13 Barry Odom is doing an unbelievable, I mean, things we haven't seen in since Randall Cunningham
35:17 years in the eighties in his first season at UNLV.
35:21 So whenever I do these national shows, I've always met.
35:24 I love what Barry Odom is doing, but let's keep it quiet.
35:27 Man I love what his office coordinator, his office coordinator, Brennan Marion is doing
35:31 with his go-go office and he calls it, but let's, let's please keep it quiet.
35:35 His office coordinator is going to get a head coaching job somewhere in three years.
35:39 Houston could call Barry Odom tomorrow and say, we can offer you more money.
35:43 We love what you're doing at UNLV and maybe sway him away from here.
35:47 The only good thing that UNLV has now that they didn't have five years ago is that stadium
35:52 and the facilities that they have now that might be able to keep a guy around quicker.
35:56 But you look at the stands and there's 18,000 people at a 65,000 seat stadium.
36:01 How many wins this guy going to have to have before they can get 30,000 people out there?
36:05 Now, for the record, Dana Holgerson has not been fired.
36:08 We're making the assumption the guy's going to get canned.
36:10 The best thing that happened to UNLV was a Bobby Petrino took the job at Texas A&M and
36:16 you got to take the, the, the offensive coordinator that you have right now.
36:19 Hey, I want to tell you about the no sweat first bet offer from a bet.
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36:31 No, that's the wrong one.
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36:42 So ignore the sign.
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36:57 And if you want to work with Scott Spreitzer, text the word doc, talk to the number two
37:01 nine zero two two.
37:02 You get a free $60 trial.
37:03 The premium member picks from Scott or visit doc sports.com and sign up for the free 60
37:09 on the upper left hand of the website, man, week 12 Scott.
37:14 And I don't thank you enough.
37:16 I think Rob all the time because we drink beer each and every Sunday, but we've reached,
37:21 we've reached week 12.
37:22 We got a couple more weeks to go.
37:23 Of course, we've got the final regular season and then the championship game weekend.
37:28 But taking the time each and every week to talk with Dr. Rob and I, we, we really appreciate
37:32 it.
37:33 I hope you guys feel better too.
37:34 I have a couple of beers on Sundays.
37:35 Maybe we can start doing it from remote or something, you know, your basement to my place.
37:39 And you guys got me hooked on that purple Haze.
37:42 So I haven't tried their other products, but you guys got me hooked on that.
37:45 So yeah, the Abita beer out of new Orleans, that's some good, good stuff.
37:49 So you should, you should visit the, the Abita brewery if you ever get down to new Orleans.
37:53 Not a bad idea.
37:55 So, but yeah, I got to try their other products too.
37:57 Cause when I get hooked on something, I'm like, why do I need to try something else?
38:01 I can, I can run this and do it into the ground for about six weeks and then I'll make the
38:05 change.
38:06 See, I would like to get hooked on something, but Rob like drinks the fridge dry when he
38:11 gets here.
38:12 And then he, then my wife makes cookies and he eats all the cookies.
38:16 I have nothing left in my house after Rob leaves.
38:19 I mean, he, he, he, he devours everything.
38:21 I'm like one giant locust.
38:23 It's a good way to look at it.
38:26 Hey, make sure to follow Scott on Twitter @scottwins.
38:30 Follow Dr. Rob Zadisk on Twitter at doc talk sports.
38:33 He's been funny this week.
38:34 You've been funny this week, Rob Spencer Petrus went into the, uh, into the portal and I saw
38:39 the tweet you sent earlier this week.
38:40 They said, you know what?
38:41 Maybe Nebraska should pick him up that way.
38:43 The Huskers might beat Iowa with an Iowa quarterback.
38:46 That was a good one.
38:47 That was a good one.
38:48 Everybody's taking my stuff seriously.
38:51 Do they not know your sarcasm?
38:54 That's the funny thing.
38:55 I know you and I'm like, Oh, Rob's all sarcasm.
38:58 It's all sarcasm.
39:00 And that's, what's funny about this is that people take this all seriously and you have
39:04 to go back and explain to people that it was a joke.
39:08 People are losing their sense of humor.
39:09 I had a, I made a comment over an overtime winning basketball on Twitter and it was like
39:14 back and forth and they came from behind and regulation and covered by like a point in
39:18 overtime and I made a comment on Twitter and I said, you know, boy, that's about as easy
39:22 as they come.
39:23 Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
39:25 People are like, go, what do you mean?
39:26 You almost lost.
39:27 You're lucky.
39:28 And I'm like, Oh my gosh, folks, hiding here is a little bit too tight out there in Twitter
39:32 land.
39:33 You know, it's like I just see that stuff and I just shake my head.
39:35 I'm like, it's whatever.
39:36 I can't wait to lose it.
39:37 Lighten up, Francis.
39:38 That's what we're saying.
39:39 Lighten up, Francis.
39:40 For Scott Freitzer, for Dr. Rob Zadowski, I'm Travis Justice.
39:46 We will talk to you next week on Behind the Points, Fred, presented by Betfred Sports.
39:53 All right, hold on.