2005 Kansas State Wildcats Handicapping Review

 

By Tom Wilkinson

 

Entering the 2004 season, Kansas State had a well-earned and established reputation as a winner on the field and at the sportsbooks and online sportsbooks. K-State was coming off its greatest football achievement in 2003, a Big 12 Championship Game win over Oklahoma 35-7 as 14-point dogs in a shocker that blew apart many gambling bankrolls. It was Kansas State’s sixth win in their final nine regular season games of 2003. The Wildcats entered 2004 with a new quarterback and a lot of questions, but with Bill Snyder as head coach, many sports betting bloggers expected continued success.

Interestingly enough, it was an unlined game that started not only K State’s 2004 season, but warned of problems yet to come. K State had a well established reputation of running up the score in its non conference home games each September, in fact, it became a staple for many lists of football picks to take the Cats as big home chalks. But when they could only manage a 27-13 win over 1-AA Western Kentucky many observers were perplexed. K State confirmed that this team was definitely going to be a notch below in their very next game, a 21-45 loss to Fresno State as 12.5-point home dogs. Many sports betting bloggers proclaimed sock at this result. Still, Kansas State was installed as a massive 32-point home chalk in their next game against Louisiana Lafayette and won by only a 40-20 margin. This was followed by two more losses both straight up and against the sports betting line at Texas A&M and at Kansas. At this point Kansas State stood at 2-3 straight up and 0-4 against the odds as a significant sports handicapping market correction was taking place.

The tables were now completely turned on K State, thus, a mini sports handicapping market correction of the market correction took place. As a whopping and eye popping 19.5-point home dog against Oklahoma, K State got the money in a 21-31 loss. As 5-point home chalks against Nebraska, the Wildcats prevailed 45-21. K State looked appealing to many sports betting bloggers as small 2-point home chalks against Texas Tech but lost 25-35. K-State was back in the money in their next game at Missouri in a 35-24 win as 4-point dogs. Needing to win their final two games to maintain their streak of bowl seasons the Wildcats dropped both of those games both straight up and against the odds to Colorado and Iowa State to finish 4-7 straight up and 3-7 against the odds, the worst football season at Manhattan in over a decade.