Line opens at -7

[Leroy Jenkins]

Corndogs over the Bulldogs by a TD. Cant wait, the season starts this week!

[defiantdog]

Wow.... So the AP and Coaches poll don't respect us, but it seems Vegas does. -7 at Baton Rouge at night.... Interesting indeed

[MSUDawg4Life]

I'm surprised. I expected -13 or so.

[Leroy Jenkins]

We beat LSU and we will move into 1st place on the "others receiving votes" category.

Sad that the best team in the state is not ranked simply because of media perception.

[MSUDawg4Life]

How we're perceived and ranked at the end of the season is much more important to me.

Just win and everything will take care of itself.

[State82]

Wow.... So the AP and Coaches poll don't respect us, but it seems Vegas does. -7 at Baton Rouge at night.... Interesting indeed

Exactly. You want the ultimate respect? Look only to Las Vegas. Those guys make the polls look like backwoods hillbillies when it comes to actual knowledge. I am very surprised, however. I would have bet all my vcash that the line would open at double digits.

[Leroy Jenkins]

How we're perceived and ranked at the end of the season is much more important to me.

Just win and everything will take care of itself.

Sure. That's true..... but I also want the guys getting the recognition they deserve.

[PMDawg]

I said 5.5. Little surprised its that high. Should be a defensive battle. Whats the O/U? Around 40-45 I would guess.

[The Croom Diaries]

Earlier this summer it was LSU -12, so it moved 5 points in the last 3 months. http://maroonandwhitenation.com/2014/09/14/mississippi-state-vs-lsu-point-spread/

[engie]

We beat LSU and we will move into 1st place on the "others receiving votes" category.

Sad that the best team in the state is not ranked simply because of media perception.

What would you be willing to bet on this?

We beat LSU and we're comfortably in the top 20.

[DownwardDawg]

What would you be willing to bet on this?

We beat LSU and we're comfortably in the top 20.

You may want to turn on your sarcasm meter. It's apparently off.

[RougeDawg]

Sure. That's true..... but I also want the guys getting the recognition they deserve.

I'm so sick of this "winning will take care of the ranking" bullshit. I think of the expedia commercials with captain obvious when I see and hear people say this. Preseason rankings and getting in the polls earlier in the season creates a certain perception about a team for the remainder of the season. Teams ahead of us could lose, and us win this week and still be behind them. People tend not to admit they were wrong, especially people who are in the media and rely on readers/viewers. Human nature will make most of them out teams higher than they should be, because they originally predicted a team to be better. I know this is apparently a difficult concept to understand, but poll voters are going to vote on teams they "originally perceived the better team" over ones who "got lucky a few games" or "beat a couple teams in trap games".

My buddy AP voter has the bears highly ranked. I texted him this morning asking if he honestly thought OM was the 10-12th best team in nation. He didn't answer that but said they started off at 18 and haven't lost, so he cannot penalize them and bump them down. And they weren't on his preseason top 25 list. So now by default he is moving them up the polls every week for no reason except other teams losing. This happens across the nation and will stay in most voters minds all season because they only see headlines and box scores.

[starkvegasdawg]

Just goes to show what being ranked preseason can do for you. We've done the exact same thing they have but we're still not ranked and they're top 10. No way they're one of the top 10 teams in the nation.

[LeakyD]

As a gambler, -7 looks like Vegas is baiting the player to take LSU. I hope it turns out like it usually does when most of $$ is bet on the wrong side.

[ShotgunDawg]

Wow, an unranked team is only -7 to a top 10 LSU team at night in DV? HOW COULD THAT BE?

[BulldogDX55]

I wish Vegas could publicize their numbers and let that be the top 25. They know their stuff more than any of the polls.

[starkvegasdawg]

SDS saying LSU has opened -11. Who's right and who's smoking crack?

[Intramural All-American]

What recognition do we deserve at this point? We were a 6-6 team last year, and we have beaten three teams worse than the three teams Ole Miss has beaten. Some of you should take off the glasses and look at the big picture.

People that do these rankings don't follow our games as closely as we do. They don't see the details in the games that we see, like what subs we use and what schemes we test out. They just see what have beaten three really bad teams, and we only beat one of them by 13. If you step back and look at it, how can you truly claim for us to be ranked at this point? Is Ole Miss over-hyped? I think so, but that means nothing at this point, and it will work itself out very soon one way or the other

[RougeDawg]

What recognition do we deserve at this point? We were a 6-6 team last year, and we have beaten three teams worse than the three teams Ole Miss has beaten. Some of you should take off the glasses and look at the big picture.

People that do these rankings don't follow our games as closely as we do. They don't see the details in the games that we see, like what subs we use and what schemes we test out. They just see what have beaten three really bad teams, and we only beat one of them by 13. If you step back and look at it, how can you truly claim for us to be ranked at this point? Is Ole Miss over-hyped? I think so, but that means nothing at this point, and it will work itself out very soon one way or the other

UAB is probably the best team of all 6 opponents we either team has played. We do not deserved to be ranked where we are if they are ranked where they are. That is what we are saying. We beat them last year and had one less win in 2013. We have the same record this year and are 16 spots behind them like we were at the beginning of the season. No logical reason for this much discrepancy in the ranking, at all.

[HancockCountyDog]

UAB is probably the best team of all 6 opponents we either team has played. We do not deserved to be ranked where we are if they are ranked where they are. That is what we are saying. We beat them last year and had one less win in 2013. We have the same record this year and are 16 spots behind them like we were at the beginning of the season. No logical reason for this much discrepancy in the ranking, at all.

Anyone know what the hell has happened at ULL?

Freezus played, name the score against them, and from what I watched, the bears could have scored 70. They had 20 something starters returning from a decent squad.

Talk about disappointing.

[defiantdog]

Rankings mean about as much as recruiting it seems. So if we beat LSU, would we still be ranked behind OM?

[TheRef]

Rankings mean about as much as recruiting it seems. So if we beat LSU, would we still be ranked behind OM?

Yupp. And depending on how close the game was, we would be below LSU too.

[Intramural All-American]

UAB is probably the best team of all 6 opponents we either team has played. We do not deserved to be ranked where we are if they are ranked where they are. That is what we are saying. We beat them last year and had one less win in 2013. We have the same record this year and are 16 spots behind them like we were at the beginning of the season. No logical reason for this much discrepancy in the ranking, at all.

First off, why would you say that? UAB was a 2-10 team last year and were the only team USM beat the past 2 years. And we all know, that our score could have been much worse than a 13 point win. So they are better because they beat Troy and Alabama A&M badly? But I won't argue whether they are or aren't because they may very well be the best of the 6. However, Ole Miss has beaten an SEC team on the road, and 2 of the winningest programs in D1 football in the past 5 years. No matter what reality is, perception is that Ole Miss has played a much harder schedule than us, and I can't say that they haven't played a more difficult schedule.

Second, they had a better record than us last year, and they had very good players that were freshmen last year that are a year older now. I don't understand why people think they are so bad. Do I think they are the tenth best team in the nation? No. Do I think they are better than us? No. Do I understand why there is a good bit of hype surrounding them? Yes, I do. But complaining over rankings at this point in the season is just ridiculous. But I realize that people on message boards have to find something to complain about, otherwise there would be no convo.

[Bucky Dog]

Line has already jumped to 10

[HoopsDawg]

I would say LSU is worse at QB, RB, WR, and DT this year. We are better at every position from last year except for LG and now Safety since Cox is hurt. We played with them for 3 quarters. We can definitely keep this game close and maybe even win, if we win the TO battle.

[JScottDova]

LSU has proven that they are an elite team year in and year out. Beat them and State gets respect. I predicted #25 this week. I was wrong. State (at least under Mullen) has proven that they can beat who they are supposed to. That's not sexy enough for voters. Voters don't like looking stupid. Like when they did when the Rebels were voted preseason #4 and went on their spiral from hell. Even if they had recovered the next year, the Right Reverend wasn't going to earn them the benefit of the doubt. Ole Miss (at least under Freeze) has proven that they can beat the teams they are supposed to beat and play close to the elite teams and maybe even beat them (I.e. LSU last year). Therefore, the media likes Freeze. Ain't nothing we can do about it and bitching about it only makes State fans look like the obsessed "little brother."

[cheewgumm]

Lots of $$$ gonna be lost this week.

[Bear@Work]

SDS saying LSU has opened -11. Who's right and who's smoking crack?

Technically both right.

When everyone said it "opened" at 7, that was really the LVSC (Las Vegas Sports Consultants) open. These dudes come up with the preliminary line and send it out to the sportsbooks as their recommendation. Each sportsbook then makes an adjustment and opens the line up for betting on their books. This adjusted line is the really the true "open" and the first time money can actually be bet on the line.

So I take it for our game based on their power ratings, LSU was a 7 point favorite. The books take in to account public perception and bias and bumped it to 10 where it really opened and they began taking money. No one was ever able to bet on the LSU -7.

Read this if you're interested further:

http://pregame.com/EN/main/sports-betting-basics/gambling-rules-advice/12878.html