The Sports Curmudgeon®

Earlier this week, I talked about some of the sorry-assed performances of last weekend. There just cannot be that many more of them coming, can there? Because I want to put at least a couple of positive things into these rants, I want to follow the Linfield College Wildcats through the season. Linfield College has the longest streak of winning seasons for any sport in North America. They have been winners for each of the last 53 years; Dwight David Eisenhower was President of the United States the last time they had a sub-.500 season.

Linfield lost their first game this season to Hardin-Simmons by a score of 29-22. They had the lead late in the fourth quarter, but Hardin-Simmons rallied to win the game late. That was an away game in Abilene Texas. The Wildcats have a week off before they host Southern Oregon next weekend. They are 0-1 at the moment; they only have 9 games on the schedule; they cannot afford another loss next week.

I do not want to lose my edge here by rooting for Linfield to continue its streak, so another thing I will try to do is to identify the worst teams in Division 1-A college football. There are 119 schools playing football at that level so finding the absolute worst one is not an easy proposition. Let me offer some contenders:

Idaho and Utah State are both bad football teams - - and they play each other this weekend. At least we ought to have an idea of who is the lesser power in this match up. Idaho has already lost one game 70-0 this year; Utah State has lost 12 of its last 13 home games.

North Texas, SMU and UTEP all look pretty bad. They are in the same “neighborhood”. If only they played each other, we might be able to sort out the worst of this lot.

North Texas plays Florida International later this year. FIU is pretty miserable too.

In fact, North Texas plays FIU, La-Lafayette and La-Monroe on successive weekends. That, folks, is Sun Belt Conference football for you. If you live near a Sun Belt school, you need to give thanks that you have the opportunity to watch real football on TV.

Do not leave Army, Syracuse, UAB or New Mexico State out of this conversation.

As the season unfolds, I will evolve an eight-team tournament – hypothetical of course – where teams would play and the winner is eliminated. Actually, the winner gets to go home and stop embarrassing itself on the field until a final game where one team would be identified as the Steaming Heap Of Excrement (SHOE) for 2008.

I want to be sure that anyone reading these Mythical Picks for the first time understands that they do not purport themselves to be authoritative. Anyone using any information herein as the basis for deciding to make a real wager on a football game – or worse yet to choose which side of a wagering proposition to support with real money – would be very dumb. How dumb, you say? Well, such a person just might name his pet zebra, Spot.

General Comments:

Last year, Michigan lost its first two games and the long-knives came out for Lloyd Carr’s scalp. Michigan then beat Notre Dame and went on to a pretty good season capped off with a bowl game win over Florida. Carr is gone and after a lot of soap opera nonsense, Rich Rodriguez is at the helm in Ann Arbor. Well, Michigan is once again 1-2 after its first three games but it got its lunch handed to it by Notre Dame last weekend. I believe the “new Michigan” turned the ball over six times last weekend; that’s an improvement! Please recall that was the same Notre Dame team that had to rally to beat San Diego State just a week before it clobbered Michigan. Somewhere, Lloyd Carr has his feet up on an ottoman relaxing with a refreshing adult beverage and smiling to himself about just how insightful his critics actually are…

I said last week that the Iowa/Iowa State games tend to be a lot closer on the field than they appear to be on paper. Once again, the game was close when many expected a blowout.

Duke beat Navy last weekend giving the Midshipmen their second loss of the year. I continue to root for Navy to be “bowl-ineligible” just to see the Congressional Bowl folks have to scramble at the end to find an available team to play the ninth place finisher in the ACC - - assuming that team gets 6 wins on the season. Next year, that bowl organizing committee will be in full “contingency planning mode” if current plans stay in place. For now, Army is supposed to be the host team for that mid-December bowl game in DC; Army may struggle to amass 6 wins total this year and next…

After the massive beat-down that BYU put on UCLA last Saturday, you have to think that BYU has a legitimate shot to be undefeated on November 22 when it plays Utah in one of the great rivalry games in the country. In addition, Utah has gotten past Michigan already and that seemed to be a big hurdle for them going into the season. Still ahead are games with Air Force (in Colorado Springs) and against Oregon State and TCU (both at home). Could it be that both of these teams will be undefeated when they meet? What an exclamation point that would be on that rivalry game… Oh, and if that were the case, the winner there would probably be a BCS party-crasher this season.

That last paragraph is not meant to demean East Carolina’s chances to be a BCS party-crasher. Their two opening wins against VaTech and WVU are impressive credentials indeed. ECU almost lost a “trap game” to Tulane last weekend [Tulane may make it to the SHOE Tournament by the end of the year.] but came back to win the game. ECU has North Carolina State this week; that is a winnable game for them.

Moreover, that raises the interesting question of why can’t there be more than one BCS party-crasher…? Oh, yeah, I forgot; it’s the money involved…

Fresno State probably had visions of being the BCS party-crasher this year but they lost a defensive battle to Wisconsin last weekend in Fresno so they may be out of the picture now.

Temple is an improved football team this year. It has lost twice but one was in OT in a monsoon and the other was because they gave up a Hail Mary TD pass with no time left in the game. Those two losses came at the hands of Buffalo and UConn. This week Temple travels to State College, PA to play Penn State. Temple is improved - - but not that much. In the last two games Temple and Penn State have played, the cumulative score is 78-0. To be clear, Temple is on the short end of that score.

Texas is at home against Rice this weekend. The last time Rice won at Texas was in 1965. The schools have met 38 times in the past; Texas has prevailed 37 times. I think there is a trend here…

Kansas lost to South Florida last weekend on a field goal in the final seconds of play. Kansas was one of last year’s Cinderella teams and I said before that it would be interesting to see if they caught lightening in a bottle last year of if they were announcing themselves as an emergent football program. This loss may be hard for them to overcome because part of their gaudy record last year might be attributed to a scheduling quirk. Last year, Kansas did not play Oklahoma, Texas or Texas Tech from the Big-12 South Division and they played no one nearly as good as South Florida out-of-conference. It would not be impossible for Kansas to lose four games in the Big-12 this year…

Some of the SEC “fanboys” are trying to argue that the SEC is so deep in really good teams that the BCS mavens might consider putting two SEC teams in the Championship Game. First of all, that is not going to happen; secondly, I think the SEC champion may have 2 losses at the end of the year given the teams they will have to play. For now, there are five SEC teams in the Top 10; that will not stay that way, but it does give you an idea how strong the SEC is.

Understand: I have no objection to putting two teams from one conference in a championship game. I seem to recall Villanova beating Georgetown in one of those championship match ups once upon a time…

Now retired DT, Warren Sapp, had harsh words for Florida coach, Urban Meyer after Meyer kicked a field goal in the final minute of a game against Miami when Florida was already up by 20 points. Sapp called Meyer a “classless dirtbag”. Remember the old playground adage that it takes one to know one? I recall Sapp being ejected from an NFL game after three or four unsportsmanlike conduct penalties in a single game. I think that was last year but it might have been two seasons ago. I also recall him almost starting a brawl during warm-ups when he went skipping through the other team’s calisthenics lines. And of course, those teams at Miami that Sapp played on never ran up a score on good old Vegetative State University - - did they?

Ponderosas:

The favorites went 6-2-1 last weekend in Ponderosa Spread Games. That makes the favorites in those games 15-7-1 for the season.

Favorites that covered were Alabama, Missouri, Nebraska, Penn State, Tennessee, Utah.

Favorites that did not cover were Illinois, LSU.

Texas Tech/SMU was a push. The spread was 36; the score was 43-7.

This week we have 6 Ponderosa Spread Games:

Temple at Penn State – 28 (55): Doubt this will be an interesting game for more than 20 minutes.

Buffalo at Missouri – 34 (71): Mizzou should score early and often here.

Wyoming at BYU – 28 (52): If you believe BYU will suffer a letdown after shellacking UCLA by 59 last weekend, take the points here. If you believe BYU is really one of the best teams in college football this year and can stay focused after that kind of a big win, lay the points here. Wyoming is a pretty ordinary team.

South Florida – 28.5 at Florida International (55.5): USF may be the best team in the Big East; they are certainly one of the top teams there. FIU may be the worst team in the country.

Rice at Texas – 30 (68): Rice will probably score 17-20 points here. In that case, can Texas score about 50 to beat the total? Rice’s defense is about that bad so taking this game OVER is not impossible.

TCU – 24 at SMU (51): Given the SMU offensive propensity to throw the ball all over the field and given the SMU defensive propensity to stop nothing, this is another game that could easily go OVER the total.

Games of Interest:

Troy at Ohio State – 21 (46.5): Actually, this game is not all that interesting except for the fact that it is not a Ponderosa Spread Game. After the USC debacle, the oddsmakers must feel there will be less interest in the public betting on Ohio State as a huge favorite. I would have predicted that this game would have been at 27 or 28 points a couple of weeks ago.

West Virginia – 3 at Colorado (56.5): Will the real WVU team please stand up? While we are at it, will the real Colorado team please stand up too? The only consistent thing about these teams so far seems to be that their defenses are not very good. So, if you must play a game with two inconsistent teams, take this one OVER.

Ohio at Northwestern – 10.5 (51.5): If Northwestern wins here, they will be 4-0.

Iowa at Pitt – 1 (41.5): Both teams have been disappointing so far. The loser of this game will spend a miserable week hearing from their fan base.

Alabama – 10 at Arkansas (46.5): Clearly one of the best games of the week; both teams are undefeated. This game begins a nightmarish schedule stretch for Arkansas. Their next three SEC foes are Alabama, Florida and Auburn (all in the top-Ten this week). Sandwiched into those three games is a trip to Texas (currently #7 in the country). Arkansas has not protected its QB all that well giving up 8 sacks to the likes of La-Monroe and Western Illinois. Alabama might get 8 sacks all by themselves. Alabama is probably 10 points better than Arkansas, but laying 10 points on the road in the SEC is not a success strategy.

Florida – 7.5 at Tennessee (51.5): Tim Tebow gets all the ink for Florida but the Gators’ defense has only allowed 13 points this year. Granted, the opponents have been Hawaii and Miami, but still… That half-point on top of the TD is not something I like here, but I think Florida can with this game by double digits.

Rutgers – 6 at Navy (60): Navy’s defense has not been very good so far this year; they give up yards and points. So far, opponents have averaged 325 yards per game passing against Navy. I like Rutgers to win and cover here and I like this game to go OVER.

Ball State at Indiana – 3.5 (60): Just a hunch here, but I like Ball State with the points.

LSU – 3 at Auburn (38): That total is a low one for an NFL game; for a college game, it is one of the lowest numbers I can recall. And I think the oddsmakers have it right. The LSU defense has looked really good against mediocre competition so far, but the Auburn offense has been miserable. This game will be won late; it will be low scoring; so, I’ll take Auburn with the points here. This is the best game of the weekend.

Georgia – 7.5 at Arizona State (50.5): This would have been a contender for the “best game of the weekend” label but ASU gagged away a win last week at home against UNLV. This is the first time Georgia has played an out-of-conference game outside the state of Georgia in 13 years. If they lose on Saturday, whoever made that scheduling decision will be looking for work. Remember less than a month ago, Georgia was considered the best football team in the country; now, they are playing a team that just lost to UNLV. I think Georgia has too much going for it here; I think they will win and cover.

VaTech at UNC – 2.5 (54.5): I said before the season started that UNC might be a breakout team this season. So far, they have been really good. At the same time, this is not the same caliber of team that VaTech has fielded recently so I think UNC at home can win and cover here.

Northeastern at Syracuse (no lines): Here we have a Division 1-AA team (Northeastern) which is not anywhere near dominant at that level playing a Division 1-AA team masquerading as a Division 1-A team (Syracuse). Syracuse has lost three games by an average of 25 points. This game will be “avert your eyes awful”.

Akron – 10.5 at Army (48): Here are a couple of bottom-feeders playing each other. Nevertheless, recall that Akron traveled to Syracuse (see description of Syracuse just above) and beat the Orange by 14 points. Army is not 3.5 points better than Syracuse, is it? Of course you should not wager on a horrid game like this, but if you do, lay the points.

Idaho at Utah State – 4.5 (63.5): Remember, Idaho has already suffered a shut-out once this year. Utah State has lost 12 of its last 13 home games. So, how can the total for this game be so high and how can Utah State give points away? This is a bottom-feeder game. Keep an eye on the score only to see which team will sink to the bottom of the Division 1-A rankings and get into the mythical SHOE Tournament.

Mew Mexico State at UTEP – 7 (58): Two more of the bottom-feeders playing each other in this one. Stay away from the betting windows on this one.

By the way, there is no line on the Texas Tech/UMass game but here is something to watch. Texas Tech can and does score a lot of points - - and they have been known to keep their foot on the gas pedal even when the outcome of a game is no longer in doubt. UMass is a Division 1-AA team stepping waay up in class. So far this year, UMASS has allowed 94 points to Holy Cross and James Madison. Texas Tech should comfortably make it into the 60s in this game and maybe into the 70s. Why was this game booked in the first place?

There is also no line on Washington State/Portland State this week. Washington State fans should be sad about that because given how awful the Cougars have looked so far, this would be the only game where Washington State would give points all year.

Good luck

But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…