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When my friend and longtime Vegas oddsmaker Tony Sinisi texted me the Penn State @ Ohio State line on Sunday evening, even I was a little surprised. I mean, I had an idea it would be a big number. But PSU, a 1-loss team in the penultimate week of the regular season, going off at +19? That, I thought, had to have some historical significance.

It wasn’t just the shock of seeing a very good team, ranked #9, from a well-regarded Power Five conference with a 9-1 overall record as nearly a 3-touchdown underdog to the #2 Buckeyes, but the idea of it being so at such a late date in the season.

Then, there’s the significance of any Penn State team this good at this late a date being such a large dog. That, we are pretty certain, is unprecedented. Though I have figures back through 1990, courtesy of Phil Steele, I cannot find a comparable spread so late in the year with a 1-loss PSU team.

In the recent past, about the closest we can come is the 2013 Nittany Lions who were +24 in the @Wisconsin game and famously won outright in Bill O’Brien’s last game. But that team was unranked with a 6-5 record.

As for the national scene, the only such comparable spreads have involved the Alabama Crimson Tide’s best teams against SEC or bowl competitors. And they don’t quite match this PSU@OSU game, either because of the size of the spread or the lateness of the season:

• #1 Alabama was -13 last year against #4 Oklahoma in the CFP semi at the Orange Bowl, winning 45-34.

• The 2016 #1 Tide went off at -18 against unbeaten #6 Texas A&M, winning 33-14. But that was on Oct. 22 before you could really say the Aggies had been vetted (and they finished 8-5).

• That same 2016 #1 Bama team was -14 against #4 Washington in the CFP semi at the Peach Bowl, winning 24-7.

• Led by Dak Prescott, #1 Mississippi State actually kicked as a +9 dog at #4 Bama in 2014 (losing 25-20) and it was just a week earlier in the season (Nov. 15) than PSU@OSU 2019. But again, the spread wasn’t nearly so garish.

“I was trying to think about this line and the one I came up with was the Oklahoma-Alabama game last year,” said Sinisi. “To me, it’s a similar world, where you have two quality teams, but the perception is that one is considerably better.”

This game was one of about four dozen that you could bet before the season even began. Sinisi said that, for so inclined bettors, it opened in the vicinity of -10 in August:

“It’s just kind of crept up during the season. Then, it was 13½, then 14½ and now it is what it is.”

Sinisi agrees, then, that a 9-1, #9-ranked PSU at +19 in late November, is of national historical magnitude from a Vegas spread standpoint. And the Altoona native is 65 years old and has been doing what he does for quite a while:

“I cannot ever remember a team of this quality – and this is a very good Penn State team – to be this big of a dog. I think it’s a reflection of Ohio State as just a machine."

Well, what about Ohio State’s history as a heavy favorite in November? Ahh, now we’re getting somewhere. And it’s pretty interesting stuff for fans of the underdogs:

• On Nov. 4, 2017, a once-beaten #3-ranked OSU team kicked as -18 favorites at unranked Iowa and were destroyed 55-24.

• On Nov. 7, 1998, John Cooper’s unbeaten, unchallenged and #1-ranked Buckeyes, winners of eight straight games by an average score of 33-9, were upended 28-24 by an unranked 4-4 Michigan State team that went off as +27 dogs, led by an anonymous head coach named Nick Saban.

• But the most similar scenario we could find to this one was on Nov, 21, 2015, when the unbeaten defending national champion #3 Buckeyes, riding a 23-game winning streak, went off as -14 favorites against #9 once-beaten Michigan State. And on a cold, rainy and windy day at the Shoe, missing injured starting quarterback Connor Cook, the Spartans pulled off a 17-14 stunner. Michael Geiger’s 41-yard field goal as time expired was the fatal shot to Ohio State’s repeat championship hopes and helped thrust Sparty into the College Football Playoff – where they were destroyed by Alabama, 38-0.

Realistically, this OSU team looks more impressive and hungry than that rather listless outfit four years ago. Although, that MSU team gave no more indication it was capable of a major upset than this PSU side. The Spartans had only two weeks before lost 39-38 at Nebraska, partly because of a horribly botched official’s call, and had struggled against pedestrian Rutgers and Purdue.

Sinisi referenced the current Nittany Lions’ similar struggles in the past month as rationale for the big number:

“I think there’s a sense of a vulnerability with Penn State that wasn’t there maybe four games ago. I think from the second half of the Michigan game on, that defense doesn’t look as formidable. And that Ohio State just rolls on. I think that’s how [the spread] got up to where you are.

“I mean, that’s a really good Penn State team. And they’re an 18-to-19-point dog? That’s a wow. Man, that’s a big spread. It’s just a reflection of how Ohio State’s viewed right now.”

Of course, the Buckeyes have been viewed that way before this time of year and it proved a mirage. Which is why they actually play the games.

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