Jeff Haney follows the money as college football opened its season

Monday, Sept. 4, 2006 | 7:45 a.m.

Score another one for the "squares."

Another one for those pesky "recreational gamblers," as they're also called, for their propensity to ignore the latest handicapping trends and base their football bets on a simple yet sometimes effective rationale: "They're gonna kill 'em!"

Even before the earliest preseason betting lines were issued, the point spread on the Week 1 game between Southern Cal and Arkansas was a hotly debated topic among serious college football bettors.

Would it come in as high as double digits, given USC's national title game appearance last season and the Trojans' 70-17 thrashing of the Razorbacks a year ago?

Or substantially lower, considering USC had lost some of its best players and an improving Arkansas team would be out for revenge?

The first sports books to post a line on the game installed USC as a nine-point favorite, and the betting action broke down along a familiar divide.

"Sharp," or professional, bettors relied on an axiom that advises playing against national championship game participants early in the next season. They took Arkansas and the nine points, then 8 1/2 points, then eight points as the point spread drifted down.

Nonprofessional bettors, sometimes called casual players (or "the rest of us") backed USC at the windows.

It was no contest. USC stymied the sharps as well as the Razorbacks, piling on in a 50-14 victory Saturday in a marquee game in college football's opening weekend. The line closed at 7 1/2 points at most major Las Vegas books.

Another trendy opening-week play, also driven by sharp money, went down in flames when Tennessee easily handled Cal, winning 35-18 after closing as a three-point underdog.

The Volunteers, a perennial "public" team, meaning they usually receive plenty of support at the betting counter, opened as high as a 2 1/2-point favorite on the early line.

They quickly became the preseason's most fashionable "play-against" team, however, going from favorite to decided underdog against a Cal team subsequently exposed as overhyped, at least for the first week.

Coming off a season in which they went 2-8-1 against the point spread, the Vols showed not only that their athleticism was better than expected but that Cal's defense appears overrated and its quarterback troubles are a real concern.

Another team entering the season with genuine national title hopes, West Virginia also covered the point spread after the line moved against it. The Mountaineers opened as high as a 23-point favorite against Marshall before bettors' sentiment against them drove the line as low as 21 by kickoff. West Virginia cruised to a 42-10 victory.

Score another one for the squares.

A year ago in the NFL, underdog bettors - many of them so-called "sharp" professional bettors - were befuddled when favorites covered the spread at a virtually unprecedented rate.

This probably does not qualify as a fundamental shift in the nature of sports betting that would somehow make playing favorites across the board a profitable venture. And pro gamblers certainly can still get the money by specializing in offbeat wagers such as over/unders or halftime bets.

But in other ways, as oddsmakers have been proclaiming for at least a couple of years now, those erstwhile square bettors are catching up to the pros. They have much of the same information, and they know how to process it.

If Week 1 in college football is an indication, blindly grabbing the points with voguish underdogs in headlining matchups looks like a questionable strategy at best.