Columnist Dean Juipe: Sooners -53 yet that may not be enough

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2003 | 10:01 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

The purpose in posting a betting line is to provide the one number that will attract equal betting interest on both sides. It's an art, and savvy bettors will exploit any mistake that's made.

A sports book wants 100 people to look at a number and bet one way, and 100 people to see the same number and put their money on the other team. Under such ideal circumstances, the book collects the vig and profits no matter the outcome.

Rarely, if ever, will a book post a bad number. And, as we have all come to realize, the bigger the game, the more likely it is that the Las Vegas oddsmakers will have it pegged exactly.

Yet the nation's No. 1 college football team is testing the line setters' prowess. The Oklahoma Sooners have the boys in the back rooms in Vegas wondering how high is too high, how astronomical a number is needed to accurately reflect what is apt to happen on the field.

They decided to post this week's game, Baylor at Oklahoma, as the Sooners minus 53. From a betting standpoint, that's 53 points for Baylor before the first hot dog is sold.

It may not be enough.

Oklahoma -- which, we can safely predict, will win the national championship -- is coming off a game with a decent team, Texas A&M, in which it scored touchdowns on 11 of its first 12 possessions and led 77-0 after three quarters. The Sooners then shut down their attack and won by that same score, setting numerous records in the process while easily covering the (minus 32) spread.

Fifty-three sounds like a lot, yet it may not be if recent history is a guide and it flat out wouldn't be enough if Oklahoma coach Bob Stoops wasn't such a kindhearted guy. He called off the dogs in the game with A&M and the bookies are thinking he'll do it again against a Baylor team that is having its troubles.

Baylor is coming off a 62-14 loss to Texas Tech in which it was a plus 27. The Bears also surrendered 73 points to the same A&M team that was embarrassed last week by Oklahoma, plus they gave up 52 points to North Texas and 56 to Texas.

So they're not stopping anybody and it may take an abacus to keep track of the points the Sooners will score against them.

Fifty-three? Oklahoma gives the appearance it could run up 80, 90 or 100 points if need be.

And the Sooners might just do it, given the fact that Stoops has taken some mild heat for backing off against the Aggies. He had his offensive linemen and backs falling down rather than trying to add to the score in the final quarter against A&M, and there's an argument that such an approach isn't right and that it might be unfair to the reserves who are in the game and being asked to give less than their best efforts.

Oklahoma, 10-0, is averaging 45.1 points per game and is 6-3-1 against the spread this season. It has covered spreads of 32, 19, 21, 6, 15 and 32 points and has scored in excess of 50 points a school-record six times. It handed A&M its worst loss in 108 years and established a Big 12 record for margin of victory while holding the Aggies to more punts (12) than first downs (3).

The Sooners have the bookies nervous. That 53 number, the one they chose so studiously, looks to be entirely contingent on Stoops' sympathetic nature.

I don't know if I'd bet on that or not.