Nate Montana tries to make own name at Notre Dame
NCAA Football Betting Lines
08/14/2010 -
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (AP) -The questions about his famous dad don't come nearly as often these days for Nate Montana as he tries to carve out his own path of success at Notre Dame.
``It's old stuff now,'' Montana said after a recent steamy practice on the same campus where his father, Joe Montana, helped Notre Dame win a national title in 1977.
Joe, of course, was a third-round draft pick who went on to become a Hall of Famer, leading the 49ers to four Super Bowl wins. Nate came to South Bend two years ago as a preferred walk-on.
He wears his dad's No. 16 from his days in San Francisco - Joe wore No. 3 at Notre Dame and later No. 19 with the Kansas City Chiefs. And father and son talk daily.
``He just said, 'Study, study, study.' That's it,'' Nate Montana said. ``Like, learn your plays and make sure you're ready to go if they need you.''
That's the question for the younger Montana this season as he battles to be the backup to Dayne Crist. There are three promising freshmen also in the mix, with early enrollee Tommy Rees ahead of Andrew Hendrix and Luke Massa.
Montana, who at 6-foot-4 is two inches taller than dad, didn't participate in football until he was a freshman in high school. As a senior, he attempted only 19 passes. And after coming in as a walk-on at in 2008, he spent last season at Pasadena Community College, where he was a backup, before returning to South Bend.
In new coach Brian Kelly's no-huddle spread offense, Montana had a strong spring game, completing 18 of 30 passes for 223 yards and three touchdowns.
``Nate does some things really well, and then I'll lose him for a couple of plays,'' Kelly said. ``He hasn't played a lot of college football, obviously, and consistency is the one area that he has to show.''
That's exactly the point his dad has tried to make with his oldest son. Younger brother Nick is a freshman quarterback at Washington, and Nate's two sisters, Alexandra and Elizabeth, are Notre Dame graduates.
``It's great for him,'' Joe Montana said in a phone interview, adding that he and wife Jennifer were initially ``surprised he chose Notre Dame because of the extra pressure that would be there.''
But now Joe is a proud pop - his son says he is ``really excited'' - who has emphasized the qualities that made him so great over his NFL career.
``The fundamentals are an important part. It's what guides you through the tough times,'' Joe Montana said. ``If your fundamentals are sound, it will carry you.''
Nate is trying to find the rhythm he had last spring in Kelly's hurry-up system, knowing that if he does win the backup job, he's one play away, one injury away, from being the quarterback at Notre Dame.
``It's getting used to the tempo and picking it back up basically from where we left off in the spring,'' Nate Montana says. ``I think I'm starting to calm down and getting back in the groove. I need some more time. Purdue (the season opener) is not tomorrow so we got a little time.''
Kelly's offense also calls for the quarterback to be a ball carrier at times. That's OK with Nate.
``I like to run. I mean it's fun, but I'd like to throw touchdowns more. It's a good place to do that, too,'' he said.
And the pressure of being Joe Montana's son doesn't bother Nate.
``I don't think about it too much, so I try not to let it bug me,'' he said. ``I just try to do what I came to do and that's compete and play. So I don't think about outside things too much.''
Joe Montana plans to watch both of his sons play or at least suit up this season. That could be a lot of travel from California to the Northwest or to familiar grounds in the Midwest.
``We're trying to plan the first month of the season right now,'' Joe Montana said. ``We'll probably have a lot of frequent flier miles.''Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.
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Who Makes the Sportsbook Betting Lines?
Las Vegas Sports Consultants (LVSC) is the world’s premier oddsmaking company and the most respected authority on making the lines. Mike Seba is a Senior Oddsmaker at LVSC and has been making lines for the last six years. In our extended interview, Seba explained that there are 4-5 oddsmakers assigned to make lines for each of the major sports (pro & college football and basketball; MLB, NHL, boxing, golf). Each of these oddsmakers bring unique opinions, strengths and weaknesses to the process. Oddsmakers at LVSC are professional sports junkies who love what they do and would probably do it for nothing if you asked them, but they do get paid for it. By necessity their approach is very research-oriented and concise, since with millions of dollars at risk there is little margin for error.
“You either have a passion for it or you don’t,” Seba said.
“The #1 thing for us is to make a line for each game that creates good two-way action. We do this by drawing from past experiences and applying them to current situations. People think it’s much more complicated, but it’s not. “What are the Football Betting Lines Trying to Accomplish?
There is a common misconception that point spreads represent the oddsmakers’ prediction of how many points the favorite will win by. That is not the case at all – their intent is NOT to evenly split the ATS result between the teams; rather, their goal is to attract equal betting action on both sides. Stated another way, they want to create a line that half the people find appealing to bet one way while the other half find it appealing to bet the other way (known as ‘dividing the action’).Divided action means the sportsbook is guaranteed a profit on the game because of the fee charged to the bettor (called juice or vig – typically $11 bet to win $10).
How the Opening Line Is Made
The opening line is the first line created by the oddsmakers, which is then sent out to sportsbooks. Of course there is an entire method to the madness on how the opening line is created. Seba explained that it all starts with each oddsmaker creating a line on each game based upon their own personal approach. This usually includes having up-to-date power ratings on each team.Power ratings are the oddsmaker’s value of each team and are used as a guide to calculate a "preliminary" pointspread on an upcoming game. The power ratings are adjusted after each game a team plays. Examples of non-game factors that would require an adjustment to a team's power rating are key player injuries and player trades.
Once a game’s power rating based pointspread is determined, the oddsmaker will make adjustments to that line after considering each team's most recent games played and previous games played against that opponent. Also, adjustments are made after reading each team’s local newspapers to get a sense of what the coaches & players are thinking going into the game.Since the oddsmaker’s ultimate goal is equally dividing the sports betting action, public perception and sportsbook betting patterns must be taken into account. For example, the public might have heavy betting interest week after week on a popular college football betting team such as USC. If an oddsmaker comes up with a preliminary line of USC -7, then an adjustment up to -7.5 or -8 would be made in response to the public’s expected USC bias.
The last step in the line-making process for each oddsmaker is taking one final look to determine whether or not the line "feels right." This is where common sense and past experience with how games are bet enters into the picture.A round-table discussion among the 4-5 oddsmakers involved in making the line for each sport is then conducted and a consensus line is decided upon by the Odds Director before it is released to the sportsbooks. Of the 4-5 oddsmakers, generally the 2 most respected opinions are weighed more heavily by the Odds Director before he decides on the final line.
Why Sports Betting Lines Change
Once the opening line is released by LVSC, the individual sportsbooks decide if they want to make any adjustments before offering it to the public. Reasons for such adjustments include:Experts working for the individual books having a strong opinion on the game
Individual books having players who consistently bet with certain tendencies (such as an extreme bias toward favorites or toward a certain popular team like USC)The purpose of these adjustments, like all line adjustments, is to more equally divide the betting action.
Once betting begins, sportsbooks can adjust the line at any time. In doing so they attempt to make more attractive the team that is getting less action. By moving the line, sportsbooks can influence how the public bets on a particular game.For example, if the pointspread on a game is 7 and most of the money is coming in on the underdog (taking the +7), sportsbooks will then move the number down to 6 ½ to try and attract money on the favorite.
Moving the line is the oddsmaker's effort to balance betting action, and often times such moves can have a major impact on a bettor’s decision. Oddsmakers can also change the line depending on various event-related factors such as player injuries or weather. Obviously, if the line comes out a week ahead of the event (which is the case in football), there is much that could happen during the week leading up to the event that could affect the line. Oddsmakers have to determine if any changes are necessary and send out an "adjusted line."“The main objective is that our clients get equal action on both sides,” Seba said. “We’re not trying to pick the team that covers the spread, we’re trying to make it a coin flip, a tough decision (for the bettor). If we’ve done that, we’ve done our job.”
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