Ohio State covered the spread against Northwestern on Saturday night in Evanston on a miracle touchdown on the last play of the game, making for one of the most memorable bad beats in sports betting history. And of course the most point spread savvy broadcaster in the business (save for Al Michaels), Brent Musburger, was there to call it all. Naturally, Musburger gave a shoutout to all the gamblers who won or lost on the fluke play.
Let’s set the scene for what took place.
Northwestern was down 34-30 and had the ball at their 8-yard line for a 3rd and 18 with five seconds left. They essentially had one last play to try scoring a touchdown to give them the win. They decided to run a hook and lateral play, but it was busted up by the Buckeyes and the ball ended up loose after a few attempted laterals. The Buckeyes dove for the ball in the end zone and recovered with no time left on the clock to give them a touchdown and a 40-30 victory.
Ohio State was favored by anywhere from 6-7 points at most books, so the last-second defensive touchdown gave them the cover.
“And you know what? There are some folks who are celebrating and others who are saying ‘you’ve got to be kidding me,'” Musburger said immediately.
“There are some numbers crunchers … oh ho ho,” Musburger said with a laugh.
“Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness,” he said in disbelief.
Kirk Herbstreit knew what Musburger was talking about, but he avoided the subject. Brent was all over it.
According to RJ Bell of Pregame.com, 80 percent of bets were on Ohio State for the game, so that touchdown turned a ton of losers into winners. If you’re an LBS fan, hopefully you were on the winning side.
And if you liked that video, you’ll love this one from Al Michaels two years ago.
Video via The Big Lead
