Odds have officially been published for all the bowl games this holiday season, and the Stanford Cardinal open as a slim three point favorite over the Virginia Tech Hokies in the 2011 Orange Bowl. The over/under on the January 3 BCS Bowl game sits at approximately 58 1/2 points.
It’s no surprise the spread is so close and the over/under is relatively high (at least a little above the median I believe). The over/under is somewhat high because Stanford and Virginia Tech ranked No. 9 and No. 19 respectively in points per game. At the same time, the spread is relatively low because they both also rank fairly high in fewest points allowed per game, ranking No. 11 and No. 16 respectively.
I remain convinced that this will be one of the more entertaining bowl games this holiday season. We’ll keep an eye on the spread in the coming weeks, but barring injury or any eligibility issue, I don’t expect to see much change on this line. Of course, Stanford has a fairly affluent alumni fanbase and if they decide to throw down money on their Cardinal enough of it could potentially increase the point spread. I don’t know enough about the Hokies alumni to say what effect they could possible have on the point spread.