Football Betting Bad Beats or November Miracles?

There were a couple of football games this past weekend that had football betting fans either crying foul or jumping for joy as the final gun went off. While every football bettor inevitably has some bad beats and lucky wins throughout the season, two of this past weekend’s games were much more extreme.

USC was a 24-point favorite last Saturday in Stanford, and was set to extract revenge from the Cardinal’s mammoth upset from a year ago (Stanford won in USC as a 41-point underdog). At halftime, it looked as if Stanford might upset the Trojans again, as the score was tied at 17-all. But USC came out of halftime fired up, and scored 28 straight points, meaning the Cardinal would have to march down the field and put the ball in the end zone to spoil USC backers out of a win.

With six seconds to go, after backup Stanford quarterback Alex Loukas was sacked, head coach Jim Harbough called a timeout, much to the dismay of USC coach Pete Carroll. After a 13-yard pass out of bounds, Stanford lined up for a 35-yard field goal with three seconds remaining, but Carroll apparently wanted a second-half shutout, so he called a timeout.

During that timeout, Loukas lobbied Harbough to go for the touchdown, to which he obliged. Loukas delivered with an 18-yard touchdown strike to Austin Gunder on the final play of the game, putting the final score at 45-23. USC backers just needed Pete Carroll to not call a timeout with three seconds remaining and a 28-point lead to get a win. As it turned out, Stanford backers got a November Miracle.

While the ATS verdict was put on the coach in that game, it’s much tougher to stomach a pointspread defeat because of bad officiating. That was the case in Sunday’s Pittsburgh vs. San Diego match.

European Bookmakers listed the Steelers as 4.5-point home favorites against the Chargers. Pittsburgh was making their winning drive with under a minute to play when Willie Parker found the end zone with a four-yard touchdown run, which would have put Pittsburgh ahead 15-10 with an extra point. The touchdown was called back on a holding penalty.

That was the thirteenth penalty called on the Steelers, with just two being called on San Diego. “"No, I have never seen a game ended with 13-to-1 in penalties [the official tally was 13 against the Steelers, two against the Chargers], but I am not answering questions about the officiating," said head coach Mike Tomlin.

After the touchdown was called back, Tomlin immediately put in his field goal unit, which came through and the Steelers had an 11-10 lead with a few seconds left to play. After the kickoff, San Diego tried one last gasp to reach the end zone via a number of laterals, but one of those tosses resulted in a fumble, which safety Troy Polamalu returned for a touchdown. But again, the officials overturned the score.

Official Scott Green admitted the mistake after the game ended, “"We should have let the play go through in the end, yes," Green said, "It was misinterpreted that instead of killing the play, we should have let the play go through."

While it was a tough pill to swallow for Steelers backers, it was a lucky win for San Diego supporters.