Monday, Jan. 12, 2009 | 11:53 a.m.
In Kenny White’s estimation, Southern California went into the bowl season as the top team in college football and ended it as national champion.
The chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sports Consultants, which supplies the betting lines to most of Nevada’s sports books, had the Trojans atop his list of power ratings all season.
“They were No. 1 all year long, and there’s no reason to make any adjustments,” White said Monday morning. “There’s no adjustment I could make to push them to No. 2. I think they’re that good.”
Until there is a playoff system to determine the de facto national champion, who better to determine the top team than the group that’s responsible for setting the official point spreads?
The LVSC is impartial and unbiased, and the accuracy of its figures determines whether the casinos win or lose tens of millions of dollars every weekend.
White and his group can’t afford to be wrong, that’s why his and its numbers, player rankings and team ratings, must be on the money.
White had USC rated 2 1/2 points better than Florida going into the bowl games.
“And Southern California did nothing to disappoint,” he said. “Florida did well, too.”
USC (12-1) beat Penn State, 38-24, in the Rose Bowl. Florida (13-1) defeated Oklahoma (12-2), 24-14, in the BCS title game. White said USC should have played the Gators for the crown.
Texas (12-1) flattened Ohio State, 24-21, in the Fiesta Bowl to finish fourth in the final Associated Press poll. Florida, Utah and USC finished in the first three slots of that poll.
White said the 13-0 Utes — who beat Alabama, 31-17, in the Sugar Bowl — would have been fortunate to finish among his final top 20.
“Personally, I had them 19th going into the bowl season,” he said. “I’m not going to change. TCU is better than Utah. I don’t care that Utah went 13-0.
“The Utes could lose their next five games if they played five solid teams. TCU outplayed them the day they played in Utah. The Horned Frogs’ field-goal kicker let them down.”
White and his three colleagues who set the college football spreads are finalizing their figures today and releasing the LVSC’s overall final poll tonight.
He said he believes Florida will finish atop that poll.
“It’s probably going to be Florida one and SC two,” White said. “We just grabbed all of our stats and are putting it all together. Each one does his a little differently. Each guy has a set of power ratings, which are the primary source for the strength of each team.”
White talked about an e-mail he received last week to illustrate the weakness of the AP poll.
“Kudos on your top 30,” the man wrote. “Where you had a team ranked higher than the AP, those teams went 12-6, straight up, in the bowls. Where the AP had a team rated higher, they went 4-10.
“You guys definitely destroyed the AP in accuracy in selecting the strength of teams.”
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