LSU is nothing special when it comes to spread

Before the college football season began, Louisiana State Coach Les Miles gained notice when he questioned the schedule strength of USC and other teams in the Pacific 10 Conference.

But that criticism seems a little out of whack when looking at the odds for this weekend’s games, starting with the Tigers’ cream puff matchup against Louisiana Tech on Saturday.

LSU (8-1) is a 36 1/2 -point home favorite over the Bulldogs (4-5), who have lost 16 of the 17 meetings against the Tigers.

LSU has been favored in every game this season but has a 4-5 record against the spread. After the Tigers beat the odds for their first three games, they failed to cover against South Carolina (17 1/2 -point spread), Tulane (40 1/2 ), Florida (8), Kentucky (10) and Auburn (10 1/2 ).

Yet, oddsmakers figure to make LSU a favorite for every game the rest of the season. Now that’s betting power.

Even if the Tigers face No. 1 Ohio State in the Bowl Championship Series national title game, they probably would be favored because the game would be played a short drive from LSU’s campus at the Superdome.

It is a different story for USC (7-2), a four-point favorite at California (6-3) on Saturday. For the first time in years, the Trojans were an underdog in their loss at Oregon two weeks ago and they could be in that role again next week at Arizona State.

But that’s understandable when considering that since 2002, USC has been defeated only five times in the regular season and each loss was against a team from the Pac-10.

This fact has not gone unnoticed by oddsmakers, who have given the conference a great deal of respect since the start of the season.

Only once has one of the top five teams in the Pac-10 (Oregon, Arizona State, USC, UCLA and Cal) been an underdog in a non-conference game this season. The Ducks were eight-point underdogs at Michigan and won, 39-7.

The top teams in the Southeastern Conference (LSU, Auburn, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Florida) have been underdogs against non-conference team twice. The results? Both teams failed to cover. Tennessee was a seven-point underdog at Cal and the Bears won, 45-31. Alabama was a 2 1/2 -point underdog at Florida State and the Seminoles won, 21-14.

Accuscore.com, which simulates every game 10,000 times, put together several forecasts with LSU placed in the Pac-10 this season and the Tigers had mixed results.

When playing at home, LSU defeated USC (63.8% of the games) and Arizona State (65.8%) and held a slight edge over Oregon (58.4%). But when the Tigers played on the road, they fell short at USC (which won 58.6% of the games), Arizona State (59.4%) and Oregon (67.7%).

The average scores of the home/away matchups: Oregon 30, LSU 28; LSU 27, USC 25; and LSU 27, Arizona State 25.

Boxing

Shane Mosley (44-4 with 37 knockouts) will enter the ring as an underdog when he meets Miguel Cotto (30-0, 25 KOs) in a World Boxing Assn. welterweight title bout Saturday at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Mosley is listed as a money line underdog from +120 to +130, and Cotto is a -150 favorite. Beted.com has the over/under rounds bet at 10 1/2 rounds with over at -250 and under at +200.

lonnie.white@latimes.com