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Michigan State vs Notre Dame – Over or Under

1:45 pm in This Week's Over/Under Bet by ndpickem

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Michigan State vs Notre Dame, 8 PM E.S.T on ESPN

Michigan State vs Notre Dame [Over / Under] : 54

To boys in Vegas have the Total Points for Saturday Night’s game at Spartan Stadium at 54. All of the Notre Dame games in 2010 have had an over under very close to this number. When you take an Over / Under bet into consideration there are a few factors that can play a big role. Perhaps the biggest factor is mother nature. When the books in Vegas start a line out at a certain number they are doing so in hopes of “Splitting” the action. For those of you who don’t know how Sports Books operate we will use this week’s Over / Under Write up as an example.

When taking a typical Sports Bet the person betting will have a spread or over / under with a price of [-110]. So if you player was going to bet on the Notre Dame Over this week with a price of -110, they would be risking $110 to win $100. The extra 10% is what gives Vegas or “The House” the advantage. So for a Las Vegas Bookmaker’s perspective it is extremely important to pick a “Spread” or “Over / Under Total” that is going to split the players action. If the book takes bets all week with the Over / Under on the Michigan State vs Notre Dame game at 54 they are likely to get a decent amount of plays on each side. Even though these Bookmakers are absolutely incredible with the lines they come out with, hardly any game is split perfect for any one book. A perfect situation for the book would of course be $1 Million on the Michigan State vs Notre Dame Under and $1 Million on the Michigan State vs Notre Dame Over. With a situation like this the book has no chance of losing money and approximately a 99% change of profiting $100k. The worst thing with an Over / Under line that doesn’t have the “Half Point” or “The Hook” for a Las Vegas Book with balanced action is the slim chance that the final score of the game will land exactly on 54 and no money is lost or won. In this case the bet would be considered a “Push” and the player simply gets back whatever he risked on the game. If the game goes over or under the 54 total the book will end up paying out $1 Million to the winners, but collect $1.1 Million from the losers. Again while games are rarely balanced perfectly, they do a pretty darn good job at it.

So what to do this week, with a 54 Over at Michigan St? Well that is completely up to you, but once in a while we feel strong enough about something to make our opinion know. This week we are thinking the over for a few reasons:

1.) Sad to say, but don’t count on Notre Dame’s Defense limiting the Spartans too much. They looked “O.K.” in week 1 against Purdue and certainly were not anything special against Michigan last week.

2.) Spread / Hurry up Offense will be in full effect from Kelly. Anytime when you run a spread offense and your average huddle time is 5 seconds it is going to help with the possibility of scoring points while using very little clock.

3.) Michigan State’s Offense is going to bring everything they have at home in a Prime-time appearance against Notre Dame on ABC. I don’t see them playing it safe or conservative. They will do everything possible to blow them out. When you play aggressive football mistakes can be made and we are hoping that ND will capitalize on these. Some interceptions, fumbles, etc that could provide Dayne and his offense a short field!