**VORP**

Utah backup QB Jon Hays will start Saturday in place of injured Jordan Wynn.

Many of the questions I get from clients that are new to the line/injury service revolve around how to use the injury information to know what games they should bet. I always tell them that there are several factors in this decision, many of which are more opinion based than fact based but that the easiest thing to do is to use an MLB term in VORP which stands for Value Over Replacement Player. I thought this game Saturday was a good example of what the oddsmakers are making Jordan Wynns VORP.

If we take a look at last week's game Utah was a 10-point favorite at home over a Washington team that had been very good on offense all season but not very good on defense. Washington had scored 30, 40, and 31 points in three home games and an impressive 38 points on the road at Nebraska. Yet they were 10-point underdogs to Utah. Using that game as a basis to help set this week's line I think it would be fair to assume that if Jordan Wynn was healthy the Arizona St/Utah game likely would have fallen somewhere between pk and Utah-1. Thus the oddsmakers are saying that Jordan Wynn has a VORP of 4.5 to 5.5 points.

Hays who will start Satruday, was 10-16 for 156 yards with a TD and an INT in 2+ quarters vs Washington last week. On the contrary Jordan Wynn was 12-17 for 149 yards with a TD and an INT. While he is misknown as a mobile QB Wynn has rushed for negative yards in 3-of-4 games this season and the only game he had a positive rushing mark was 9/17 vs BYU when he rushed 1 time for 4 yards.

Yet despite Wynn's average numbers this season and throughout his career this line opened around Arizona St -3 and had climbed as high as Arizona St -4 1/2 at some books before checking back to and settling at -3 1/2.

I thought this was a good example of the general public possibly overreacting to the loss of a starting QB and his worth to his team in a particular game and the "sharps" coming in behind them and scooping up the inflated numbers.

Anyway after speaking to this client this morning about VORP, I thought this game had some really good examples of a lot of things that both players and bookmakers have to be aware of when evaluating a situation.  I thought I would share some of my thoughts on this game with you all.

As always I will send breaking injury information emails when possible today. Have a great weekend everybody!