What Bettors Need To Know: The Senior Bowl
By PATRICK GARBIN
Line: South -4, over/under 45
The best college seniors from the North and South play in the 61st Senior Bowl at 4pm ET on Saturday. For nearly two weeks, Mobile, Alabama’s Ladd-Peebles Stadium (40,646) has been sold out for this game.
Florida quarterback Tim Tebow has been the bowl’s main attraction and the reason why the game is a sellout. Although you’d never know it by most of the media coverage, Tebow is only one of more than 100 players looking to impress pro scouts with April’s NFL Draft looming.
The Tebow show
At his first Senior Bowl practice Tebow was fumbling snaps and missing wide-open receivers. A few days later, his performance had reportedly gone from bad to horrendous.
“I just think [Tebow] is so far off the pace in terms of where [he] should be right now in development as a pro prospect,” said ESPN’s Todd McShay. “I think he’s hurt his draft stock [in practice] more than anything.”
Tebow’s agent said at mid-week that Tebow was admitted to the hospital on Monday with a temperature of 103 and strep throat. It should be noted also that Tebow struggled mostly with snaps from under center, which he isn't accustomed to at Florida. This, no doubt, has some NFL scouts worried.
Others under center
Perhaps the top three quarterbacks in this year’s draft - Sam Bradford, Jimmy Clausen, and Colt McCoy - are all missing this game.
Besides Tebow, quarterbacking the South are West Virginia’s Jarrett Brown and Oklahoma State’s Zac Robinson. While Robinson has struggled in recent practices, Brown has been one of the biggest surprises, displaying a good arm and tremendous accuracy.
Under center for the North are Sean Canfield of Oregon State, Central Michigan’s Dan LeFevour and the strong-armed Tony Pike of Cincinnati. Throughout the week, there has been inconsistency from all three quarterbacks.
If past Senior Bowls are any indication, look for at least one of these six to thoroughly impress the pro scouts and raise his draft status significantly.
Eleven of the game’s last 17 MVPs have been quarterbacks.
Turning heads
While each Senior Bowl quarterback has had mixed reviews, several others have turned executives’ heads in practice, in particular, the North’s Mike Iupati and South’s Dexter McCluster.
The 6-foot-five, 325-pound Iupati played offensive guard at Idaho but has great potential to play tackle at the next level. He has been punishing opposing defensive linemen in practices.
McCluster, a star all-purpose back at Ole Miss, has been recognized as not only one of the better outside ball carriers in Mobile but also maybe the fastest receiver.
"I couldn't wait to watch [McCluster]," said the NFL Network’s Mike Mayock. "His toughness in the SEC at the tailback position blew me away at 165 pounds."
Coaches
Similarly to the NFL preseason, the different coaching staffs—normally, from the two lowest-seeded NFL teams—are likely the primary factor to consider when wagering on the Senior Bowl.
Which head coach wants to win this game more: the North’s Jim Schwartz of the Lions or South’s Tony Soprano of the Dolphins? Will one coaching staff treat it as an all-star or exhibition competition while the other takes it as seriously as a regular-season game?
It was recently reported Miami's coaching staff was lackadaisical and taking it easy on the South’s players. A year ago, the same was said about Jack Del Rio of the Jaguars.
Del Rio’s South squad whipped the North by 17 points, easily covering the three-point spread.
For what it’s worth, Schwartz’s Lions were 2-2 ATS last season in the NFL preseason. Soprano is an impressive 6-1-1 ATS in two preseasons as Miami’s head coach.
Trends
Since the Senior Bowl returned to its original North-South arrangement in 1994 after three years featuring a NFC-AFC (from the NFL) format, the South holds a 9-7 series advantage.
Since 1996, the Senior Bowl’s average margin of victory has been by more than 14 points per game with just three of the 14 games settled by less than 10 points.
The South has won two games in a row; only once since 1978 has either team won three games in a row (North, 2005-2007).
Including last year’s 35-18 South win, only twice the last seven years has the total exceeded 38 points.