In yet another sign that the football season is rapidly approaching, the Las Vegas Hilton released its opening lines for the college football games of the year. Several Big East games, both conference and non-conference games, are on the list. Here are the opening lines of note for Big East teams.
- Louisville at Kentucky (-8)
- North Carolina State at Cincinnati (-3)
- LSU (-4) at West Virginia
- South Florida at Pittsburgh (-5)
- West Virginia (-7) at Syracuse
- South Florida (-1.5) at Syracuse
- Pittsburgh at West Virginia (-7)
- West Virginia (-3.5) at South Florida
My first reaction is that most of those lines make pretty good sense to me. I'm encouraged to see Cincinnati a favorite over NC State. They need that game, but a -3 line means it's basically a pick 'em on a neutral field. I'm surprised to see the Kentucky/Louisville line so high. I suspect you'll see that number come down to -3 or -4 well before kickoff. West Virginia is a home dog to LSU and I might be crazy but I just keep feeling they're going to win that game. They're favorites against Pitt at home and on the road at South Florida. Both of those make sense to me.
I would like to see some of the lines for the other meaningful Big East games like South Florida at Notre Dame, Louisville at North Carolina, Syracuse at USC, Cincinnati at Tennessee, or Pitt at Iowa. It would be nice to get a sense for how the betting world feels about the strength of the league. I guess we'll have to wait and see closer to game weeks for some of those numbers.