For all the hype and buzz surrounding the BCS title game between the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, about the only thing compelling about the actual game was how many points ‘Bama would paste on the mugs of the outmatched Irish. Five weeks worth of hype was squashed in one half after the Crimson Tide run to a 28-0 lead by halftime, crushing whatever suspense there would have been had Notre Dame just showed up.
But for all the broken hearts up in the South Bend and the all the drunken kids whooping it up in Tuscaloosa, a demographic over in Las Vegas are also toasting to Alabama rolling a tidal wave on Notre Dame. After a football season’s worth of beatdowns, Vegas sportsbooks finally had a reason to whoop it up after the Tide handily covered the 9.5-point spread, giving the books that coveted win they’d been looking for since the 2012 football season kicked off.
Jay Kornegay, the vice president of the LVH Super Book, told Sporting News that the results of the game couldn’t had gotten better for the books. “One of our best scenarios came through with Alabama covering and the game going OVER the total [40],” Kornegay said. “We had a lot of built up risk with Notre Dame on the money-line [+265] and had some big parlays from in-house players with Notre Dame taking the points and the UNDER.”
MGM Resorts sports book VP Jay Rood echoed those statements, telling Sporting News that Irish money came in droves over the weekend and despite Bama getting some backing leading up to the game, the worst case scenario would’ve been Notre Dame actually winning the game outright.
But after the first quarter, all those fears were squashed after ‘Bama proceeded to lay the smack down on a Notre Dame team that was completely outmatched from the get-go. Even the Irish’s besting linebacker, Manti Te’o, was rendered useless by an Alabama offensive line that just dominated the trenches. Heck, the highlight of Notre Dame’s defense came when they stuffed Bama back Eddie Lacy for a one-yard gain. And that was the first play of the game.
The unusually large spread – not so unusual after the annihilation we all just saw – also played in the books’ hands with the public taking the points with the number 1 ranked team in the country. Compound that with the weekend’s NFL wildcard action and the rest of the college bowl games, and it’s easy to understand why a lot was riding on Alabama not only winning, but more importantly, covering the spread.
Alabama’s dismantling of Notre Dame probably won’t get back all the losses the books took during the entire football season, but rest assured, they’ll take any plus side win they can get. They got one here, and not only did they dodge an enormous bullet with the parlays that didn’t hit, they also scored huge after riding the Crimson Tide to a winning night in the office.
