NCAA Wagers | The Sports Curmudgeon

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 11/21/15

Last week’s Mythical Picks were a whole lot better than they have been in previous weeks. The record for last week was 11-4-0 bringing the season record to 87-81-5. One of the successful picks from last week demonstrates the dynamic nature of sports wagering.

About an hour before kickoff, I checked the picks against the current lines because they often move a half-point or sometimes a full point. It does not change any of the Mythical Picks but I often check just for curiosity.

The Total Line for Ok St/Iowa St had dropped to 56.5 at many sportsbooks and to 57 at the other sportsbooks that I routinely scan.

The total score for the game was 66 points so the line change made no difference. If you took OVER you won; if you took UNDER you lost. However, it is interesting to note that large line changes can happen in short periods of time – particularly if your wagering is Real and not Mythical.

The “Best Pick” from last week was taking Kansas St/Texas Tech to go OVER 71.5. The total score was 103.

The “Worst Picks” last week were taking Temple/USF UNDER 44.5 (total was 67) and taking LSU and giving 7.5 points (they lost the game straight up).

Notwithstanding last week’s 73% success rate, no one should use any information here as the basis for making a real wager on a real college football game involving real money this weekend. You would have to be mighty stupid to do so. Here is how stupid you would need to be:

You would need two weeks training to learn the route to be an elevator operator.

General Comments:

The Linfield College Wildcats completed their regular season last week with a 38-10 victory over Pacific Lutheran. Linfield’s record was 9-0 and they have a place in the NCAA Division III football tournament which begins this weekend. A Selection Committee seeds the teams in this tournament and Linfield’s first opponent is Whitworth. Those two teams – both in the Northwest Conference – met back on October 24 and Linfield won that game 52-10. Go Wildcats!

I received an e-mail from an old friend telling me that I should check out the football record for Division II Cheyney University. He said it was a “curmudgeon’s dream”; of course, that sent me directly to Google.

The cumulative scoring for those 11 games was:

Cheyney lost 2 games by 62 points and another 2 games by 63 points.

Last year, Cheyney was also 0-11.

In 2013, Cheyney was 0-11.

In 2012, Cheyney was 1-10. Their last win was September 1, 2012 over Lincoln University. Cheyney has lost 43 consecutive games since then.

Yowza!

Last week, we had four of the teams ranked in the Top Ten by the CFP Selection Committee lose their games outright. Last week saw the Big 12 almost lose its last undefeated team and also saw the PAC-12 play its way out of any slot in the CFP barring a huge number of improbable events. I mention that only because it appears as if this week will be the best week of college football for the season. There are lots of important games on the menu.

I said last week that I was interested to see the rushing stats for Georgia Southern against Troy. Georgia Southern is the top rushing team in the country; Troy’s rush defense was not so good. As you might imagine, Georgia Southern won the game handily 45-10 despite spotting Troy a 10-0 lead in the first quarter; they ran the ball for 325 yards (slightly below their average for the season) and held the ball for 43 minutes in the game.

Baylor was ranked #6 going into last week’s game against Oklahoma and lost by 10 points to the Sooners. Truth be told, they had not played any top-shelf teams in their first 8 games of the year; they played the weaker teams in the Big 12 and an out of conference schedule that might only be weaker if they had scheduled Cheyney University. Given that super-weak out of conference schedule, I suspect that a 1-loss Baylor team will not be part of the CFP Tournament field.

Oklahoma State – ranked #8 last week – had to rally from way behind to beat a mediocre Iowa State team by 4 slim points. The Cowboys are now 10-0 and have their final two games at home in Stillwater albeit against two real opponents. This week, Baylor comes to town; next week, Oklahoma is the opponent. If the Cowboys can win out, they stand a very good chance to make the CFP tournament. The “playoff question” for the Big 12 as a conference is pretty simple:

Suppose the best record for a Big 12 team is 11-1. Can the conference still have a team in the CFP?

Let us look at the possibilities here:

TCU:

Baylor: Their schedule includes only a few quality opponents.

Oklahoma: They lost to Texas and that is a bad loss because Texas will have to win out “just to be bowl-eligible”, which is a positive way to say “just to be a .500 team.” However, recall that Ohio State had a “bad loss” on its record last year …

Oklahoma State: Their out of conference schedule is marginally better than Baylor’s but still embarrassing.

Utah was ranked #10 going into last week’s game against Arizona and proceeded to lose in double OT. That is Utah’s second loss for the year and it pretty much eliminates them from the CFP.

Stanford was ranked #7 last week and proceeded to lose at home to Oregon. That is Stanford’s second loss for the year too.

Looking at the PAC-12 standings, you can quickly see that Utah and Stanford are the only teams in the conference with only 2 losses. Those two teams could meet in the PAC-12 championship game meaning one of them would have to come out with 3 losses. I do not think there will be any teams from the PAC-12 in the CFP this year.

LSU was ranked #9 last week. They laid an egg at home against Arkansas losing by 17 points. At one point this season, Arkansas lost 4 out of 5 games including two out of conference games to Texas Tech and Toledo. [Aside: Perhaps the Razorbacks are allergic to the letter “T”…] With that win over LSU, Arkansas has a chance to finish 2nd in the SEC West. Is it fair to say that the SEC West – good as it has been for the last 5 years – may not be as good as it has been recently?

Alabama took care of business last week handling Mississippi State with ease. I said last week that the Front-7 for Alabama was REALLY good. Two weeks ago, they held Leonard Fournette to 31 yards rushing in a game; last week they sacked Dak Prescott – the best QB in the SEC – nine times.

Florida will be the SEC East team in the SEC Championship Game. Last week, the Gators beat South Carolina by 10 points to extend their record to 9-1. You cannot rule Florida out of the CFP completely. If Alabama is their opponent in the SEC Championship Game and the Gators win that game convincingly, it would be difficult to keep them out of the conversation especially since their only loss would be to LSU in Baton Rouge. That is not what one would call a “bad loss”…

Speaking of Florida, this is the first year on the job for Coach Jim McElwain. Last year, Florida finished the regular season at 6-5 and went to the Birmingham Bowl; this year, even with a loss in the SEC Championship Game, Florida will be in a major bowl game. By the way, 4 of those 6 regular season wins last year were against less-than-fearsome opponents such as E. Michigan, Kentucky, E. Kentucky and Vandy. You have to tip your hat to Jim McElwain and the job he has done this year.

In the Big 10 last week, Ohio State cruised to a 28-3 win over Illinois and Michigan State handled Maryland 24-7. It would be hard for you to convince me that both of those teams were looking over under around and through their second-tier opponents last week to their meeting this week.

Meanwhile, Nebraska went east to play Rutgers and won 31-14. That was Nebraska’s 5th win for the year meaning that they will need to win their final game of the season in order to be bowl-eligible. It will not be an easy undertaking; in their final game, the Cornhuskers have to play currently undefeated and fifth-ranked Iowa. Here is a comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha-World Herald to give you some perspective on what a 5-win season for the Huskers means out there in the Heartland:

“There is an apple pie fundraiser in Fremont on Saturday the same time as the Husker game. Remember when there was so much interest in Husker football no one would dare do this? Now, Nebraskans have to make the most difficult choice of their lives: Pie or football?”

Oh, and speaking of Iowa as Nebraska’s opponent next week, here is a cogent observation from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Easy street: Here’s an example of what I love – and by that, I mean hate – about power conferences with division races. Iowa, which somehow appeared at No. 5 in the football playoff rankings this week, can reach the Big Ten title game without playing Ohio State, Michigan State or Michigan.”

Michigan beat Indiana in double OT. Going into the game, Michigan’s rush defense was the third best in the country. Somehow, Indiana RB, Jordan Howard managed to run for 239 yards in that game. You tell me how that happened. That is not a good omen for the Wolverines considering that they still have to face Ohio State and Ezekiel Elliot later this year.

In the ACC, Clemson beat Syracuse 37-27 but there might be some concerns for the Tigers after that game. Syracuse had a backup QB for the game – he was fifth on the depth chart back in July/August – and they had no passing game at all. However, Syracuse ran the ball for 242 yards and 7 yards per carry in the game.

By the way, in 10 games this year, Syracuse has gone OVER in 9 of them. Just saying…

UNC beat Miami 59-21. That result is interesting from two perspectives:

2. Remember when Clemson beat Miami 58-0? That caused the school to fire Al Golden “on the spot”. Maybe the Miami defense just isn’t good enough to play top-shelf schools this year; maybe it wasn’t the coach…

In the American Athletic Conference, Houston handed Memphis its second consecutive loss despite trailing 34-14 in the 2nd half and having to go with a 2nd string QB. That sets up a game on the day after Thanksgiving when Navy goes to Houston as the one that will determine the West Division champion in the AAC. The winner of the West will play either Temple or USF for the conference championship and that winner will probably be in a New Year’s Day bowl game.

There were more than a few game last week that had impact on my SHOE Tournament teams but one of them bears mentioning by itself. La-Monroe lost at home to Arkansas St. 59-21; that was not the worst loss of the year for the Warhawks; twice they have lost by 37 points. Nonetheless, that was the last straw for the Athletic Director and the powers that be in Warhawk-land; they fired the coach “effective immediately”. The logical consequence of that decisive action is that the team needs an interim coach to finish out the season. To whom did that responsibility fall? Why of course, they gave the job to the defensive coordinator who has been doing such a great job with the defense that the team is 1-10 for the season.

Five times this year, La-Monroe has given up scores north of 50 points.

So, the defensive coordinator gets the “promotion”?

The Ponderosa Games:

Last week we had 6 Ponderosa Games and the favorites covered in only 1 of them.

San Diego St. covered.

Boise St, Clemson, Notre Dame, TCU and Tennessee did not cover.

TCU was a 45-point favorite over Kansas and won by only 6.

Last week’s 1-5-0 record brings the season total for favorites covering in Ponderosa Games to 33-43-1. This is shaping up to be one of the more lopsided seasons for Ponderosa Games; usually, the season record is within 3 or 4 games of .500 either way.

This week we have 8 Ponderosa Games:

UNC-Charlotte at Kentucky – 24.5 (56): It is not often that you see Kentucky as a Ponderosa favorite.

W. Virginia – 28 at Kansas (58.5): The Total Line opened the week at 64 and has been dropping all week long.

Wake Forest at Clemson – 29 (48): Clemson had a defensive hiccup last week against Syracuse (see above). They could hold Wake Forest to single digits this week.

N. Texas at Middle Tenn. St. – 24 (64): I cannot tell you how little I care about this game…

Fresno St. at BYU – 26 (56): This is BYU’s first appearance of the year as a Ponderosa favorite.

Florida Atlantic at Florida – 31 (46.5): Yes, both schools are in the State of Florida but this is hardly an intrastate rivalry…

Idaho at Auburn – 34 (64): This is a scrimmage for Auburn as they prepare for the Iron Bowl game against Alabama next week.

La-Tech – 25 at UTEP (55): I care about this game ever so slightly more than the N. Texas/Middle Tennessee St game above…

The SHOE Tournament:

There were games last week that had impact on the SHOE Team Selection Committee – that would be me.

La-Monroe

Army lost to Tulane by 3 points. Like Texas St. that gives Tulane 3 wins and probably takes them off the SHOE Tournament invitation list.

Florida Atlantic lost again last week leaving them with a 2-8 record and a game against Florida this week. They are still under consideration.

N Texas lost to Tennessee 24-0. After the game the coach and some players complained about the condition of the field at Tennessee. If that is their excuse for getting shut out, I would have to say “Shut up!”

Miami (OH) lost to Akron dropping their record to 2-9.

UNC-Charlotte lost to UT-San Antonio by 3 points. Both teams have 2-8 records now but UNC-Charlotte is not eligible for the SHOE Tournament because this is their first year playing Division 1-A football. Why is that? It’s my tournament and I make the rules.

E. Michigan lost to UMass 28-7. That is the 2nd win of the year for UMass and E. Michigan is 1-10. I am pretty sure that E. Michigan is IN the SHOE Tournament.

SMU lost to Navy 55-14. That makes SMU 1-9 on the year; I am pretty sure that SMU is IN the SHOE Tournament.

Wyoming lost to San Diego St 38-3. Wyoming is 1-10 for the year; I am pretty sure Wyoming is IN the SHOE Tournament.

I mentioned 3 teams above who are likely participants in the SHOE Tournament and it is highly likely that winless UCF and Kansas will join those three teams. So as of this week I am looking to fill 3 slots from this menu of bad teams:

Games of Interest:

Rutgers – 4.5 at Army (54.5): That is a surprisingly low spread for a “Big 10 team” taking on a potential SHOE Tournament team. That is the only reason this is a Game of Interest…

Miami (OH) at UMass – 9.5 (55): Winner here is likely eliminated from SHOE Tournament consideration…

LSU at Ole Miss – 6.5 (56.5): Reports this week said that Les Miles is “coaching for his job” in this game and the game next week at home against Texas A&M. I am not sure it would be a great idea to fire him unless the LSU braintrust already has a top-shelf replacement signed sealed and delivered. In any event, if LSU loses here and looks bad doing so, you can count on the long-knives coming out well honed. I think this will be more of a defensive game than the Total Line suggests so I’ll take the game to stay UNDER.

Memphis – 2 at Temple (58): Temple can ill-afford another loss if they want to be part of the AAC Championship picture. Memphis has lost 2 games in a row. This is probably the best offense that Temple’s very good defense has had to deal with all year long. This is also probably the best defense that Memphis’ very good offense has had to deal with all year long. Make this strictly a venue call; I’ll take Temple plus the points.

UNC – 5.5 at Va Tech (61): This will be Frank Beamer’s final game in Blacksburg after about 3 decades of building the Va Tech football program from abject obscurity to respectability. The Hokies should be sky-high for this game. UNC has gone north of 50 points 3 times this year including each of the last two weeks. Opponents have been able to run on UNC this year (206.1 yards per game) but UNC only gives up 18.8 points per game. Va Tech is not a great running team and I do not think the emotion of the game will turn them into one. I like UNC to win and cover even in this energized road environment.

Northwestern at Wisconsin – 10 (40): Northwestern is ranked #20 and Wisconsin is ranked #25 which might make you think this was an important game. It may be interesting, but it is not important. Northwestern’s last two wins have been unimpressive (by 2 points over Penn St at home and by 7 points over Purdue at home). Wisconsin took last week off to prep for this game and it is in Madison. I like Wisconsin to win and cover here.

Mississippi St at Arkansas – 4.5 (58): Arkansas is the “hot team” after beating LSU on the road last week and they are at home. Ergo, I’ll take Arkansas to win and cover.

Baylor at Oklahoma St. – 1 (77): This game is interesting AND important. Since Baylor lost its starting QB to a neck injury that required surgery, they have not been the sort of team that is always on the verge of scoring 70 points in a game. That is how Baylor tended to beat people because the Baylor defense was not the premier unit on the team. Oklahoma State can play decent defense for a Big 12 team – a conference in which “defense” is considered a dirty word. I think State’s defense will be able to keep Baylor’s offense from going nuts. I like Oklahoma St to win and cover.

Michigan St. at Ohio St. – 14 (53): This game is interesting AND important. Simply put, I think that line is fat. I’ll take Michigan St. plus the points.

TCU at Oklahoma (no lines): There is still some question regarding Trevon Boykin’s availability at QB for TCU. Until that is known, there will be no lines on this game. If Boykin cannot play, I think Oklahoma will win comfortably – say by 15 points. If Boykin can play – and play at something near his normal capability – this game might be in doubt until the final possession… If you look at the Total Line once one is posted, I would count on Oklahoma scoring in the “high-40s”.

Michigan – 3.5 at Penn State (41.5): This is a classic “trap game” for Michigan; they are on the road and they know that they play Ohio State next week. Penn St has had 2 weeks to get ready for the game. I expect a low scoring game so I’ll take Penn St. plus the points here.

Cal at Stanford – 11 (64): In terms of “Rivalry Games” this is the biggest one on the card this weekend. I expect an offensive outburst here so I like the game to go OVER. I also want to take Cal plus the points here; that is a fat line for such a rivalry game.

UCLA at Utah – 2 (55): UCLA averages 498 yards per game and 35.2 points per game. Utah averages 389 yards per game and 33.2 points per game. Why is Utah so much more efficient at points per yard of offense? The Utah defense is stingier giving the offense better field position. I think the Utah defense will prevail here; I like the game to stay UNDER.

Notre Dame – 15 vs BC (42.5) Game is in Fenway Park: The BC defense is the best in the country in terms of yards per game; they give up only 237 yards per game; the next best defense (Michigan) gives up 269 yards per game. BC is particularly strong against the run allowing only 71.7 yards per game. Looking at those stats, one has to wonder how that team can be a 15-point underdog. Well … The BC offense is the worst in the country in terms of yards per game; they only gain 277 yards per game and they score only 17.3 points per game. Moreover, those scoring stats are distorted by an early-season win over Howard by a score of 77-0. In the other 9 games this year, BC has only scored 96 points. Notre Dame does not have a great defense but it has one good enough to hold BC to somewhere between 7 and 14 points. With that as my estimate, I’ll take Notre Dame and lay the points.

USC at Oregon – 4 (71.5): This is nothing more than a hunch but it seems to me as if Oregon has put their offensive house in order over the past 3 games scoring a total of 143 points in those games. The defense continues to allow opponents to find the end zone but now the offense is alive and well. I like this game to go OVER.

Purdue at Iowa – 22.5 (57): Look, Iowa needs to impress the Selection Committee and Purdue is not a good football team. Purdue’s 2 wins have come over Indiana St and Nebraska; in 5 of their 10 games, they have scored 14 points or less. Nonetheless, that spread is too big to ignore. I’ll take Purdue plus the points.

Finally, here is comment from Brad Rock in the Deseret News on the subject of college football:

“A Tempe, Arizona city councilman is suing Arizona State University, saying he injured his back when the team’s mascot leaped on him during a stunt.

“In related news, Bronco Mendenhall is expected to sue BYU for making him carry a monkey on his back ever since the Cougars went independent.”

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend of 11/14/15

Last week’s Mythical Picks were a marvelous model of mediocrity. The record for the week was 9-10-1 bringing the season record to 76-77-5. If I post a “great week” (say something like 13-5-0) in the next two weeks, I will be well over .500 at the end of the year because it seems as if all I do in the normal weeks is flirt around the level of breaking even. On the other hand, if I have a “disastrous week” …

The “Best Pick” last week was taking Utah + 2 points and having Utah win the game by 11 points.

The “Worst Pick” last week was taking Clemson – 10.5 points and seeing them win by only 10 points. Arggghhh…

No one should use anything herein as the basis for making an actual wager on an actual college football game this weekend where actual money is involved in the wager. Anyone doing that would be this stupid:

You would be frustrated that you could not cheer up a blue whale.

General comments:

The Linfield College Wildcats destroyed the University of Puget Sound last week. Their opponent arrived with a 4-1 record in conference and a stingy defense. None of that mattered; Linfield won the game 72-3 elevating the Wildcats to 8-0 for the season. The record only tells part of the story about Linfield’s dominance this year.

The offense has only scored less than 40 points in one game.

The cumulative score the year is:

Linfield:

Opponents:

This week, the Wildcats finish their “regular season” with a trip to Puyallup, WA to face Pacific Lutheran. The Lutes bring a 2-6 record to the game. A win for the Wildcats would give them an undefeated season, a conference championship and a certain invitation to participate in the NCAA Division III national football playoff. Go Wildcats!

Frank Beamer announced last week that he will step down as the head coach at VA Tech where he has built that program from virtual obscurity to a program that gained a bit of national recognition. Naturally, the speculation about his successor began about 30 nanoseconds after the announcement of his retirement and not a lot of that speculation even rises to the level of interesting. Bob Molinaro had a cogent observation in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot on the subject:

“FUTUREWATCH: Frank Beamer’s replacement will be taking over a good job, not a great one. The Hokies, after all, are 26-22 the last four years. But among other things that make this a manageable rebuilding project is Tech’s position in the Coastal Division, the easier division in the Power 5’s weakest conference. Not having to compete against Clemson and Florida State each year is incentive for even the best candidate.”

Last week was not kind to several previously undefeated teams. Michigan State should probably feel the worst of all the teams tasting defeat for the first time because they were totally hosed by yet another atrocious call by game officials. I heard the explanation by the officials for the call; I saw the replay; here is my only conclusion:

Ray Charles must have beamed down from the spirit world and took over that official’s body for about 5 critical seconds. How he did not see what happened on the play when it was in plain sight is difficult to explain any other way.

Indeed, Michigan State got hosed. Nonetheless, Michigan State deserves a small measure of opprobrium here. Nebraska is not a good team and if Michigan State were truly a very good team, they would not have had Nebraska within striking distance at the end of the game. The Michigan State defense gave up the game-winning TD on the blown call; however it had also given up another TD in the final 2 minutes of the game. That game was a giant goat rodeo…

That bad call along with Michigan State’s allowing Nebraska to be within shouting distance at the end of the game took a lot of the luster off the upcoming Ohio State/Michigan State game. It may still be a good game and an interesting contest; however, it would have been a much bigger deal if both teams were undefeated at the kickoff.

LSU had been undefeated and lost to Alabama. This was not a fluke; Alabama simply was the better team on the field for just about the entire game.

[Aside: The Selection Committee looks pretty smart about now after they put Alabama at #4 last week ahead of a bunch of undefeated teams. All ‘Bama did was beat the team they had put at #2.]

Alabama had 434 yards of offense; LSU only managed 182. Leonard Fournette – who is the best RB I have seen play this year and who often gains more than 182 yards in a game by himself – carried the ball 19 times for a total of 31 yards. The Alabama Front 7 on defense is REALLY good. Derrick Henry carried the ball 38 times for Alabama and gained 210 yards. I mention that here because I want to say that I think Henry is an excellent RB who will play well for an NFL team very soon and that I still think Fournette is the better RB.

TCU lost to Oklahoma State; there had to be an undefeated team that lost for the first time here and the reason it was TCU is that their star QB, Trevone Boykin, had a really bad day. He threw 4 INTs. Rather than focus on TCU’s loss, perhaps the message here should be that Oklahoma State may be a really good team and might be the class of the Big 12. Consider:

Last week, they held TCU to only 29 points; two weeks ago, they scored 70 points against Texas Tech. Both offense and defense seem capable of big games.

Having said that, before I proclaim that Oklahoma State is the team that has been overlooked by all the commentators and that they will carry the banner of the Big 12 to the College Football Championship tournament, let me say that the schedule from here on out for the Cowboys is not easy:

Vs Baylor: Baylor is undefeated at the moment; this game should be a shoot-out.

Vs Oklahoma: OU has only 1 loss; they play Baylor this week; rivalry game.

I agree that Oklahoma State has not gotten the publicity that other teams with similar records have gotten. Therefore, let me give you some stats for the Cowboys:

They rank 7th in the country in scoring; they average 44.6 points per game

They rank 59th in the country in total defense; they give up 391 yards per game

They rank 48th in the country in scoring defense; they allow 23.8 points per game

Another undefeated team that took gas last week was Memphis. They lost to Navy 45-20 and they gave up 374 yards rushing to the Middies. In case you had not noticed, Navy is now 7-1 for the season and their only loss was to Notre Dame in South Bend. Navy has 4 games left and they should be favored in 3 of them. Navy should get a nice bowl invitation this year.

Toledo also entered last week with an unblemished record hosting a Northern Illinois team that had already lost 3 games this year. Toledo led after 3 quarters by a score of 24-19 but Northern Illinois dominated the 4th quarter to win the game 32-27.

UNC rolled over Duke 66-31 last week. You may not have noticed but UNC now carries an 8-1 record and that loss looks more astonishing as every week goes by. UNC lost the opening game of the season to South Carolina and I think it is fair to say that South Carolina is not a particularly good team this year. Marquise Williams threw for 404 yards and 3 TDs against Duke – – and he did that in the first half. Unless something catastrophic happens, the ACC Championship Game will be UNC versus Clemson.

Clemson looks like the Atlantic Division winner after beating Florida State 23-13 last week. The game was tied at 13 after 3 quarters and Clemson pulled away to win in the 4th quarter. The game was not really as close as the score might indicate:

Clemson 7-17 on 3rd down; Florida State 2-12 on 3rd down.

Clemson 3 penalties for 32 yards; Florida State 9 penalties for 65 yards.

Florida beat Vandy 9-7 last week and that makes Florida the SEC East Champion and one of the participants in the SEC Championship Game; at the moment, it looks as if they will play Alabama for the conference championship. The Gators trailed 7-6 at the end of the 3rd quarter against Vandy and won the game without scoring a TD. Florida is 8-1 for the season; the only loss was to LSU in Baton Rouge; there is no shame in losing to LSU there. The Florida defense is really good. Florida has held 5 SEC opponents to 10 points or less in games this year. In fact, Florida is 4th in the country in scoring defense allowing only 14.6 points per game this year.

Baylor has remained undefeated despite losing its starting QB to neck surgery earlier this year. Freshman Jarrett Stidham played very well last week against Kansas State throwing for 419 yards and 3 TDs. Looking ahead, Stidham and the rest of the Baylor squad is going to have to maintain their focus in the final games of the year. Here is what Baylor is looking at on the schedule:

As of this morning, only Texas has lost more than one game this year…

The Old Dominion Monarchs have some interesting player names on the roster this year:

Rashaad Coward

Blake LaRussa

Fellonte Misher

Mufu Talwo

Oshane Ximines

The Ponderosas:

Last week, we had 6 Ponderosa Games and the favorites covered in 4 of those games.

La Tech, Michigan, Oklahoma and Texas covered.

Ohio State and W. Kentucky did not cover.

The cumulative record for favorites covering in Ponderosa Games now stands at 32-38-1.

This week, we have 6 Ponderosa Games:

Clemson – 28 at Syracuse (57.5): This is a conference game not some form of pitty-pat scheduling. Nonetheless, it should be a rout.

Kansas at TCU – 45 (72): I could only find one Money Line posted for this game:

Wake Forest at Notre Dame – 26.5 (52): This spread opened at 28 points and dropped to this level almost immediately and then stayed at this level. If I were going to bet on this game – which I am not and I am not even making this a Mythical Pick – I would take the game to stay UNDER.

N. Texas at Tennessee – 41.5 (66.5): This win will make Tennessee bowl-eligible. It should make their fans very proud…

New Mexico at Boise St – 30.5 (57): A Mountain West Conference mismatch.

Wyoming at San Diego St. – 24.5 (51): Another Mountain West Conference mismatch.

The SHOE Teams:

Three of the underdogs in this week’s Ponderosa Games are under serious consideration for the SHOE Tournament this year. There is still time for teams to demonstrate significant ineptitude; therefore, it is only possible to identify the candidates for the 8 slots in that season-ending tournament. There is too much football left to play – games in which a team can lose by 8 TDS while giving up 600 yards – to say anyone is immune from inclusion. In alphabetical order:

Army:

E. Michigan:

Kansas:

La-Monroe:

Miami (Oh):

N. Texas:

SMU:

Tulane:

UCF:

UMass:

UT-San Antonio:

Wyoming:

By the way, Army and Tulane play each other this week and UMass takes on E. Michigan. If the SHOE Tournament were a real thing, those games might be meaningful…

Games of Interest:

UMass – 7 at E. Michigan (70): To give you an idea of how bad folks think E. Michigan is, UMass is a team with one win; they are on the road and they are a full TD favorite. Avert your eyes…

Michigan – 13.5 at Indiana (55.5): Purely a hunch here… Indiana needs to win 2 games to be bowl-eligible. That will not give them sufficient juice to beat Michigan but it might give them sufficient juice to keep it closer than 2 TDs. I’ll take Indiana plus the points.

Memphis at Houston – 7 (70.5): Memphis averages 547 yards per game on offense and Houston averages 525. Memphis gives up 437 yards per game while Houston only allows 368. I think offense dominates here so I’ll take the game to go OVER.

Ohio State – 16 at Illinois (55): Ohio State is a very good team but they are not blowing people out this year; they have been a Ponderosa favorite 5 times and have yet to cover. However, I think Illinois is simply outclassed here and Ohio State might just use this as the tune up for the rest of its schedule which will be Michigan State and Michigan. I’ll take Ohio State here to win and cover.

Tulane at Army – 2.5 (44): Another game in which you need to avert your eyes…

Temple – 2.5 at USF (44.5): Yes, Temple scored 60 points in a game last week but that was against SMU and if you look above you will see SMU on the SHOE list. These teams feature defense and not offense. I like this game to stay UNDER.

K-State at Texas Tech – 6 (71.5): Tech gives up 560 yards per game; only Kansas gives up more. On the other hand Tech gains 581 yards per game. Kansas State is not an offensive juggernaut by any stretch of the imagination, but against the matador defense that Tech puts on the field, State should surpass its average scoring for the season (27 points). I like this game to go OVER.

Kentucky at Vandy – 3.5 (40.5): Vandy averages 15 points per game. Kentucky averages 22. Both teams rely on defense. I like this game to stay UNDER.

Washington St. at UCLA – 10.5 (65.5): The spread opened at 7.5 and expanded to this number rather quickly. Both teams give up about 400 yards per game; UCLA is 20 yards per game better on defense here. Both teams gain about 500 yards per game; State is about 8 yards per game better on offense here. That is too evenly matched to justify a spread like this. I’ll take Washington State plus the points.

Texas at West Virginia – 9 (53): Texas has three games left and they need 2 wins to be bowl eligible. One of those remaining games is against Baylor and even Bevo the Longhorn is not counting on that game as a winner for Texas. Ergo… I’ll take Texas plus the points here just because I think they will be motivated here.

Alabama – 7.5 at Mississippi St. (51.5): Alabama impressed the Selection Committee last week beating LSU and they moved up to #2 in the CFP seeding this week. However, Alabama has a loss this year and there are teams not ranked in the Top 4 this week who are undefeated; Alabama has to continue to impress the Selection Committee. With a 7-2 record, State is a very good team but I think Alabama’s defense is good enough to dominate here. I like this game to stay UNDER.

SMU at Navy – 21 (61): SMU allows 259.6 rushing yards per game. Navy would prefer to run the ball on every play – and they might be able to do that here. Navy averages 326.5 yards per game rushing – 3rd in the country. SMU is a SHOE candidate and they are on the road and their defensive weakness goes against the opponent’s offensive strength. I’ll take Navy and lay the points.

Oklahoma State – 14 at Iowa State (61): Not to put too fine a point on it, I like this game to go OVER.

Arkansas at LSU – 7.5 (54): The question here is how LSU will react to getting thumped by Alabama last week. I think they will react positively. They have a good chance to be 10-1 on the season; if Alabama were to lose a game, LSU could slide into the SEC Championship Game. I like LSU at home to win and cover here.

Oklahoma at Baylor – 3 (76): The spread opened at 5 points and has been gradually declining during the week; it might go even lower by kickoff. If Baylor wins, the Selection Committee for the CFP will have to take notice. If Oklahoma wins, that will set up their game against Oklahoma State as one of the biggest games of the year. Baylor’s freshman QB looked good against K-State last week (see above) but his efforts only produced a 7 point win. Oklahoma is better than K-State; it is as simple as that. I like Oklahoma plus the points here.

Georgia Southern – 6 at Troy (56.5): How can this possibly be a “Game of Interest”? Georgia Southern leads the nation in rushing yards per game – 385.6 yards per game to be exact. Troy gives up 190.7 yards per game on the ground. This is a game of interest just because I want to see the rushing stats for the game!

Oregon at Stanford – 10 (69): If Stanford loses, the PAC-12 will not have a team in the CFP. If you are a conspiracy theory guy, you will be examining every call made by the officials (PAC-12 employees) in this game. That sort of thing does not interest me and I do not really care if the zebras affect the outcome here because I like the game to go OVER.

Minnesota at Iowa – 11.5 (45.5): Iowa fans have been playing the “disrespect card” all week long. Iowa is a good team but until they go and win the Big 10 Championship Game, I will continue to think of them as a “good team” but not one that belongs among the “best teams”. This is going to be a low-scoring game dominated by the two defenses (as the Total Line indicates) and that makes the line look awfully fat. I’ll take Minnesota plus the points.

Finally, here is a comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald regarding the Kansas football team:

“There has been a sudden spike in earthquakes in Kansas. Officials know there’s another earthquake every time the Kansas Jayhawks football offense actually moves forward.”

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 11/7/15

Last week’s Mythical Picks were a losing proposition. The record for the week was 5-8-0 taking the season record down to the .500 level at 67-67-4.

The “Best Picks” last week was taking Florida – 2 over Georgia then seeing Florida win by 24 and taking the Texas Tech/Oklahoma St game OVER 79 then seeing the total score hit 123.

The “Worst Pick” last week was the Stanford/Washington St. game. I took Stanford – 10 and that was a loser and I took the game OVER 61 but it stayed under.

If anyone were to look at those summary results above and think it might be a good idea to use any information here as the basis for making a real wager on a real college football game involving real money, that person would have to be mighty stupid. In fact, here is how stupid:

He might go to the library and ask the person at the reference desk where he might find Facebook.

General Comments:

The Linfield College Wildcats went on the road last week and beat conference foe, George Fox by a score of 24-0; that is the first time this year the Wildcats have been held to less than 44 points in a game. That gives Linfield a 7-0 record for the season and a 5-0 record in the Northwest Conference. This week, the Loggers of the University of Puget Sound come to McMinnville, OR to face the Wildcats in an important conference game. The Loggers have a 4-1 conference record with their only conference loss coming against Whitworth. Puget Sound has a stingy defense; in their 4 conference wins, they have only allowed more than 20 points one time. Go Wildcats!

Unless you just awoke from a weeklong coma, you have seen and heard all about the final play of the Miami/Duke game. Calling that play a “blunder” by the game officials is about as polite as one can be. The ACC has acknowledged that there were enough errors made by the officials while the play was in progress and subsequently during an interminable replay review that the conference has suspended that officiating crew. In my younger days, I officiated a lot of sporting events; when I watched that replay, I felt embarrassed for those officials because they got just about everything wrong they could get wrong.

[Aside: That last statement is not as hyperbolic as you might think at first glance. To get something else wrong, one or more of the officials would have to have returned from the replay review without pants and mooned the camera while the other officials crooned “Moon Over Miami”]

The ACC needs in the offseason to consider if they really want those officials ever to do any more games for them. I understand the pervasiveness of “human error” and I fully admit to fallibility in making calls. Nevertheless, the mistakes here were so numerous and so egregious that one has to wonder if the officials knew the rules they were supposed to enforce or if they recognized how badly they had botched the original call(s) and tried to find a way to squirm out of admitting how big a rock they pulled out of their asses.

Ohio State QB, JT Barrett, was arrested for DUI last week; reports had his blood alcohol level at 0.09. While that may seem to be only trivially over the legal limit, consider that Barrett is not yet 21 years old; this is a DUI by a minor. Here is the discipline handed out by Ohio State:

Oh, and his scholarship will be revoked for the summer academic session too.

No one will be shocked to learn that the decision authority for this discipline was head coach Urban Meyer. Not the Athletic Director … not the university official who handles student discipline for any other student on campus … not the President of THE Ohio State University. The head football coach decided on the discipline for this offense.

If THE Ohio State University – and its parent company the NCAA – really want to maintain the façade of the amateur student-athlete, how can one argue that revoking a scholarship for a semester is to the benefit of the “student”? If in fact, these players are really “students” first, then the punishment should be far more severe for the “athlete” part of the equation. After all, if the “student” is pursuing educational opportunities in the summer session, there is some chance he might come to recognize the anti-social nature of what he did. It is less likely that he will learn those kinds of lessons running the read-option right on the football field.

[Aside: Just to demonstrate that the punishment handed out here is meager at best, consider that Coach Meyer said specifically that Barrett would continue to be a captain for the team. I’ll drink to that.]

The Old Dominion Monarchs maintained their “perfect” against the spread record last week; in eight games, ODU has failed to cover each time. Last week they lost to W. Kentucky by 25 points and the spread was 24. This week, the Monarchs take their 3-5 record to San Antonio TX to play the Roadrunners of UT-San Antonio with their 1-7 record. I believe I am correct in saying:

This is a rivalry that goes all the way back to – – the Twelfth of Never.

Perhaps in 2050 when I am staring up at grass roots, fans will look back on this game in 2015 as the start of an intense and meaningful rivalry. On the other hand, fans may look back and see this as an eminently forgettable game between two teams that fall on the football spectrum somewhere between “bad” and “really bad”. My guess here is “eminently forgettable”…

Nebraska went into last week’s game against Purdue with a 3-5 record. On one hand, Husker fans could have been encouraged by the fact that all five losses had been very close games; in fact, those 5 losses came at the expense of a total of 13 points; the worst defeat had been by 5 points to BYU in the first game of the season caused by a Hail Mary pass on the final play of the game. On the other hand, Husker fans had to be a bit chagrined by the fact that one of those losses came at the hands of Illinois and it had been decades upon decades since Nebraska had lost to Illinois. Last week, the scales had to tip in favor of the “chagrined fans”.

Last week, Nebraska lost to a not-very-good Purdue team by a score of 55-45. The problem here is not that Nebraska allowed 55 points to a mediocre team – although that should not be a point of pride. The problem is that Nebraska rallied furiously in the 4th quarter scoring 29 points to make the score look far more respectable than it was. At the end of the 3rd quarter, Purdue led 42-16. You cannot put enough make-up and lipstick on that pig to make it anything but pure ugly.

Missouri has been struggling to score points with its starting QB on suspension for the last several weeks. Mizzou had last week off and announced that Maty Mauk had been reinstated to the team; no one had Mauk on their “Heisman Watch List” but Mizzou fans had to think this was a step forward. Not so fast my friend… [ /Lee Corso]

Days after his reinstatement Mauk was re-suspended – this time for the rest of the season.

Obviously, Coach Pinkel would not say what caused the second suspension. Was it a repeat of the original offense? Was it some new breach of the team rules?

Whatever the case, here is the problem faced by the Missouri offense in the last month:

Last night, they actually got a TD in a game against Mississippi St. but still lost 31-13.

The team is 4-5 on the season thanks to three pitty-pat opponents back in September and has BYU, Tennessee and Arkansas left on the schedule. A bowl game invitation will require Mizzou to win two of those three games. In any event, take the UNDER…

Florida just dominated Georgia last week. In a surprise move, Georgia started its 3rd string QB; no one expected that just as – – “No one expected the Spanish Inquisition!” [ /Monty Python] Neither of the QBs higher on the depth chart had been stars earlier this season so maybe the surprise factor Might have had value. Sadly for Georgia fans, it did not; the surprise factor earned Georgia exactly zero points for the first half and a total of 3 points for the game. That is the second game in a row where Georgia has failed to score a TD; the absence of RB, Nick Chubb, has rendered the Georgia offense feeble.

It looks now as if Florida will have to carefully take aim and shoot itself in the foot in such a way as to do maximum damage if it is to lose the SEC East title and play in the SEC Championship Game. Vandy and South Carolina are the only conference games left on the Gators’ schedule.

In the SEC West, Ole Miss beat Auburn last week. That assures Auburn of a losing record in SEC games for the 6th time in the last 8 seasons. Then again, one of those “winning seasons” was a national championship run with Cam Newton at the helm. Talk about feast or famine…

Iowa St. beat Texas last week 24-0; that was the Cyclones’ 3rd win of the year. Prior to shutting out Texas, Iowa St had beaten the University of Northern Iowa (Division 1-AA) and Kansas (a team that is miserable beyond measure). So their win last week poses a very important question for college football fans:

How on Earth – or even in the Milky Way Galaxy – did Texas beat Oklahoma?

Temple – ranked #21 in the country going into the game last week – lost in the final minutes to Notre Dame – ranked #9 in the country going into the game last week. Due to the loss, Temple dropped out of the Top 25 this week and that fact demonstrates the worthlessness of the polls. Think about this for a moment.

So, if that happens, why should Temple drop in the rankings?

Here is why … The folks voting in the polls are pulling their votes out of their ears. The polls mean nothing; the voters do not know which team is the #9 team in the country any more than a politician knows truth from falsehood.

Oklahoma State beat Texas Tech 70-53 last week. That is the second time this year that Texas Tech has scored more than 50 points in a game and lost the game. Maybe – just maybe – the recruiting mavens in Lubbock might go looking for someone who can tackle an opponent this year… The Red Raiders have lost 4 games this year; in those four loses they have given up 55 points (TCU), 63 points (Baylor), 63 points (Oklahoma) and 70 points (Oklahoma State).

In off-the-field college football happenings, USC Athletic Director Pat Haden resigned his position on the Selection Committee for the College Football Playoff. Many folks out west worry that this leaves the PAC-12 without a voice on the Committee; frankly, the only PAC-12 team that will have any prayer of making the College Football Playoff will be the winner of the Stanford/PAC-12 South Champion game; Haden’s presence or absence is not going to make much of difference.

The cynic in me wonders if Haden resigned that position so that he might have more time to focus on his decision as to the next football coach at USC. His last two major hiring decisions have been bad ones indeed:

He hired Andy Enfield as the basketball coach after Enfield caught lightening in a bottle at Florida Gulf Coast University and made the Sweet 16 with a bunch of guys who played “street ball”. Since taking his “street ball” message and style to USC, Enfield has gone 23-41 in two full seasons and only 5-31 in PAC-12 conference games.

Kentucky has a defensive tackle named Cory Johnson. His nickname is “Poop”. I do not know – nor do I want to know – how he came to acquire that nickname.

The Ponderosa Games:

Last week we had 8 Ponderosa Games and the favorites covered in 4 of them. That brings the cumulative record for favorites covering in Ponderosa Games to 28-36-1.

Cincy, Oklahoma, Utah St and W. Kentucky covered.

Appalachian St, Memphis, So. Mississippi and Utah did not cover.

This week we have 6 Ponderosa Games:

Florida Atlantic at W. Kentucky – 24 (68): For what it is worth, W. Kentucky received some votes as a Top 25 team this week. You may be assured that Florida Atlantic did not.

Rutgers at Michigan – 24.5 (51): This is merely a tune-up for Michigan as they look forward to the game against Ohio State on 28 November.

Kansas at Texas – 28.5 (53): Texas is wildly inconsistent from game to game; there is no way to know which Texas team will take the field. Kansas is extremely consistent; they stink every time out.

Iowa St. at Oklahoma – 25 (61): Iowa St. beat Texas; Texas beat Oklahoma. Ergo… The money line on this game has Iowa State as high as +2000.

N. Texas at La Tech – 30 (62.5): Words fail me to express the degree of meaningless here.

Minnesota at Ohio State – 24 (53.5): Guess the loss of the first string QB for Ohio State (see above) is not such a big deal for the oddsmakers…

The SHOE Teams:

The SHOE Tournament Selection Committee (me) was rocked by last week’s results. North Texas AND New Mexico State both won games in the same week. I have no idea when that happened last but I will assert that it has not happened more than a handful of times in this century. Notwithstanding, those shocking results, here are 12 teams (The Dirty Dozen?) under serious consideration for the SHOE Tournament:

E. Michigan

Kansas

La-Monroe:

Miami (OH):

New Mexico St.

North Texas:

SMU:

UCF

UMass:

UTEP:

UT-San Antonio:

Wyoming:

Games of Interest:

(Fri Nite) Temple – 13 at SMU (51.5): The Total Line opened at 58.5 and plummeted to this level. This is a long trip and a short week for a Temple team that will have to feel some let-down after losing to Notre Dame by 4 points last week in the final minutes. I think SMU is bad enough to lose the game here – see the SHOE considerations above – but that line looks fat. I’ll take SMU plus the points.

Illinois – 5 at Purdue (52.5): This game is interesting because the spread opened as a “pick ‘em game” and now is a 5 point spread. No, I cannot explain why…

Duke at UNC – 7.5 (58): Obviously a big rivalry game and a game that will test the focus and the resolve of the Duke team after last week’s hideous loss to Miami (see above). I do not consider either team to be a juggernaut here but I think UNC is the better team. I’ll take UNC at home to win and cover.

Texas Tech at W. Virginia – 8.5 (80.5): Tech is a horrid defensive team (see above). They rank last in the country in total defense allowing an average of 573 yards per game and 43.4 points per game. By comparison, West Virginia is downright stingy on defense only giving up 28.9 points per game. Offensively, the situation is reversed; Tech is the most prolific offense in the country gaining an average of 604 yards per game and producing 47.3 points per game. West Virginia cannot match that but the do score 32.6 points per game. All of that is prelude to say that I have to take Texas Tech plus points here; they are the best offensive team in the country and the spread gives me more than a TD.

Kentucky at Georgia – 14.5 (58.5): Both teams have lost their #1 RB this year; neither team has s top-shelf QB to change the focus of the offensive attack. Georgia has not scored an offensive TD since playing Tennessee on 10 October. I think this is a low scoring game so I’ll take the game to stay UNDER and I’ll take Kentucky plus the points.

Iowa – 7 at Indiana (60): Iowa has its eye on the Big 10 Championship Game; it is in a solid position in the West Division. Indiana is coming off a Bye Week and is seeking bowl-eligibility. I think there is enough offense here to take the game to go OVER.

Vandy at Florida – 21 (36.5): Florida is going to the SEC Championship Game unless lightning strikes. Vandy does not have the offensive firepower to make the Florida defense sweat. Then again, the Florida offense is not so dominant that it will overwhelm a solid Vandy defense (323 yards per game allowed and 18 points per game). I’ll take Vandy plus 3 TDs worth of points.

E. Michigan at Miami (OH) – 4 (63.5): Two SHOE team possibilities go head to head here. Of course it is a game of interest…

Army at Air Force – 17 (49.5): Short and simple here… That is an awful lot of points for an interservice rivalry game. I do not think Army is a good team by any means, but I’ll take Army plus 17 points here.

NC State – 4 at BC (39): BC can play defense; they give up only 224 yards per game and 13.3 points per game. NC State is without their starting RB for this game. NC State’s defense is good too giving up only 298 yards per game and 21.1 points per game; BC has no offensive players of note. Just for giggles, I’ll take this game to stay UNDER.

Penn State at Northwestern – 2.5 (41): I think this will be a defense-dominated game. I like the game to stay UNDER.

Utah at Washington – 2 (44): I think the wrong team is favored here. I like Utah plus the points.

Arizona at USC – 20 (67): Arizona gives up 453 yards per game on average and 34.2 points per game. This is not one of the great USC teams but they will be able to score points here. I like USC to win and cover at home.

TCU – 4.5 at Oklahoma State (76.5): This is one of the 3 best games of the weekend; both teams arrive with 8-0 records. TCU gains 616 yards per game; Ok St gains a mere 503 yards per game. I see lots of points here so I’ll take the game to go OVER.

Fla State at Clemson – 10.5 (55.5): This is another of the 3 best games of the weekend. These teams are the class of the ACC but only one can be in the ACC Championship Game. I think Clemson is the better team and they are at home. I’ll take Clemson and lay the points.

Navy at Memphis – 7.5 (63.5): I do not think Navy can contain the Memphis air game and I do not think Memphis can contain the Navy ground game. I like this game to go OVER and I like Memphis at home to win and cover.

Wisconsin – 11 at Maryland (48): Wisconsin is having a down year relative to recent Wisconsin teams; however, Maryland is purely awful. I like Wisconsin to win and cover despite being on the road.

LSU at Alabama – 7 (47): This is one of the 3 best games of the week; in fact, I think this is the best game on the card this week. The winner will probably take on Florida in the SEC Championship Game and that winner will be in the College Football Playoff. Leonard Fournette goes against the Alabama Front-7. Here is a stat/trend I ran across this week:

Alabama is 0-5 against the spread in Tuscaloosa this year.

I really think these are two VERY good football teams and I will succumb to temptation here. I’ll take LSU plus the points because I doubt I will see that many points attached to them again this year.

Old Dominion at Texas-San Antonio – 10 (55): Game is of interest for two reasons:

2. Texas-San Antonio is a 1-7 SHOE candidate and are favored by double-digits here. Say what?

Notre Dame – 9 at Pitt (54): Notre Dame cannot afford to lose here – or even to win on a fluke play – if they want to maintain their position as the team “ready to jump into the Top-4 for the CFP. Pitt lives on its defense giving up only 325 yards of offense and 22 points per game. However, the Notre Dame defense gives up only 361 yards of offense and also 22 points per game. So the difference here should come from the difference in the offensive units. Notre Dame averages 130 yards per game more than Pitt and scores 10.5 points per game more. I like Notre Dame to win and cover here.

Arkansas at Ole Miss – 10 (54.5): I do not know where the 55th point in this came will come from so I’ll take the game to stay UNDER.

Michigan St. – 6 at Nebraska (58): Nebraska is a mess; they lose close games and they lose to bad teams. Michigan State is not a bad team so I think they will dominate here. I’ll take State and lay the points.

Finally, here is a comment from Brad Dickson in the Omaha World-Herald relative to Nebraska football this year:

“A list was compiled of college football player arrests the past five years, and Nebraska is tied with Ohio State at 12 apiece. Look for the NU PR department to release the statement: ‘Huskers tied with Buckeyes!’ ”

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 10/31/15

Last week’s Mythical Picks were about as exciting as a plate of day-old mashed potatoes. The record for last weekend was 7-7-0 making the season cumulative record 62-59-4.

The “Best Pick” from last week was taking Oklahoma – 14 points; the Sooners crushed Texas Tech.

The “Worst Pick” from last week was taking Alabama – 15 points. ‘Bama did beat Tennessee but it was nip and tuck to the end.

Nothing in the 3 paragraphs above ought to inspire anyone to use anything here to influence a decision as to which side to back in any sort of real wager on a real NCAA football game involving real money. You would have to be this dumb to do so:

You think Tiger Woods is an Asian forest.

General Comments:

The Linfield College Wildcats extended their season record to 6-0 last week with a 52-10 win over Whitworth who brought their own 6-0 record to the game. Until last week, Whitworth had not given up more than 20 points in any game. The win puts Linfield on top of the Northwest Conference standings undefeated in conference play. This week the Wildcats take a short journey to play George Fox College in another conference game. George Fox is 1-3 in the conference games and 3-4 overall. Go Wildcats!

Last week, I wrote a “Memo to Self” here to check out Memphis QB, Paxton Lynch. Memphis played a Friday night game last week against Tulsa and I got to see it on the BIG screen at a sportsbook in Las Vegas. Here is the bottom line:

The kid can play. He can throw long and short. His mechanics need some fine tuning but he can play. He is big (6’7” and 245 lbs) and he moves very well for his size. I think he could be the 2nd QB taken in the draft based on what I have seen so far this year.

About a month ago, I mentioned in one of these Mythical Picks commentaries that fans at Mississippi State had set a record acknowledged in the Guinness Book of Records for the most people ringing cowbells at the same time. I guess the participants at the time are proud to be in that book and are glad to have taken the time to set that prestigious record. Last week, I ran across another Guinness record that seems marginally interesting as we approach Halloween this weekend:

Here is the link

Before anyone asks, I will not be checking the book out to find out how this record differs from whatever record may exist for “longest journey in a pumpkin boat (motorized).”

Vandy beat Missouri 10-3 last week. The Total Line for the game was a ridiculously low 34.5 points and these two teams never came close to threatening to take the game OVER that line. Somewhere in the cosmos, Bo Schembechler and Woody Hayes nodded in approval. Missouri has played 4 games in the month of October prior to this weekend. Back on October 3, they beat South Carolina 24-10 and they scored TDs in that game not 8 field goals to get to 24 points. I mention that because those are the only TDs Missouri has scored this month. In their last three games – all losses to be sure – here is the scoring output:

Starting QB, Maty Mauk has been suspended from the team for breaking unspecified team rules. Rather obviously, the backup QB still has a few things to learn. Mauk has been reinstated this week and “might start” against Mississippi St. on 5 November. Even if he has “lost his edge” or is a “tad rusty” he has to be able to do better than this, no?

Back in August when polls ranked the teams in the country before anyone had taken a real snap from center, lots of folks thought Auburn would be “a contenda” in the SEC. Surprisingly, Auburn is in last place in the SEC West as of this morning with a 1-3 record in the conference.

The most bizarre ending to a football game last weekend had to be the way Georgia Tech beat Florida State. With the score tied and only a few seconds left on the clock, Florida State lined up for a 56-yard field goal. Tech blocked the kick and a Tech defender chased the ball down as it bounced on the field of play; he then ran around and through the Florida State kicking team for a TD and the game was over. Nick Saban knows the feeling…

These sort of “Kick Six” situations are not as surprising as they are exciting. On a kicking team, you have the kicker and the holder who are generally not the best athletes/football players on the team. Usually, the other 9 guys are large offensive lineman there to keep the kicker safe while he sends the ball through the uprights – hopefully. Big offensive linemen are not the folks you want out there chasing down – or trying to chase down – a speedy “return guy”. That is what happened to Alabama last year and to Florida State last week…

Last weekend was a bad weekend for football in Utah. First, Utah State laid an egg in losing to San Diego St. by 34 points. This loss in conference puts Utah State in a three-way tie for first in the Mountain Division of the Mountain West Conference. Utah State, Air Force and Boise St. are all 3-1 in conference. In the West Division, San Diego State leads with a 4-0 conference record and all the other teams there have at least 2 conference losses.

Later, Utah suffered their first loss of the year to USC. Utah still leads the PAC-12 South by a full game over USC and UCLA but with their loss to USC, they lose out in a tie-breaker with the Trojans. However, Utah holds the advantage over UCLA. Therefore, you can be sure that Utah will be rooting for UCLA to beat USC when those two teams meet down the road.

Stanford dominates the PAC-12 North with a 5-0 conference record. Surprisingly, Washington State is second in the PAC-12 North with a 3-1 conference record and those two teams meet in Pullman WA this weekend. Last week Stanford beat Washington 31-14; that score was reflective of the game on the field. Two questions:

What defense in the upcoming games might hold Stanford under 30 points? Here are Stanford’s opponents:

If a time-traveler from the 1970s arrived here this morning and saw that Northwestern beat Nebraska last week giving Northwestern a 6-2 record for the year while dropping Nebraska to 3-5, he might wonder if his time machine had malfunctioned and sent him to a planet in another galaxy as well as to a different point on the time continuum…

Last week, Oklahoma pounded Texas Tech winning by 36 points and looking as if they were at least that much better than Tech. Meanwhile Oklahoma St. pummeled Kansas into submission by a score of 58-10. Oklahoma is 6-1 for the year; Oklahoma St. is 7-0 for the year; neither team is considered one of the top two teams in the Big 12.

Since I mentioned Kansas above, the team is in the midst of yet another miserable season. Demonstrating the Fundamental Premise of the Malevolent Universe – – no matter how bad things are, they can always be worse – – here is a disheartening reality for Kansas football fans, assuming of course that there are still some of that species around:

Kansas University is still paying off Charlie Weis on his contract.

Michigan St. beat Indiana 52-26 last week and just looking at the final score one might think this was a cake walk for State. It was not. At the end of the 3rd quarter, State led 28-26 and the game was still in doubt.

UMass led Toledo 14-3 after the first quarter and led 28-10 at the half. UMass was a 12.5 point underdog so folks who took the points had to be feeling pretty good at that point. Unfortunately, Toledo won the second half in a rout 41-7. That gave Toledo a 51-35 win and gave UMass backers a loss in a game they thought they had in the bag.

Speaking of wagering, Old Dominion University is 0-7 against the spread so far this year. From a wagering perspective, that can just as valuable as a team that is 7-0 – so long as the bettor has been regularly backing ODU’s opponents.

Bowling Green beat Kent St. 48-0. I am not at all surprised that Bowling Green scored 48 points here; they are a team that focuses on playing up-tempo offense. What does surprise me is that Bowling Green could shut out any Division 1-A team.

Temple came from behind to beat E. Carolina last week raising their record to 7-0 for the season. Temple has been winning by playing strong defense; the Owls rank 112th in the country in total offense. This week, Temple steps up in class from opponents such as E. Carolina, Cincy and UMass. This week the Owls host Notre Dame at Lincoln Financial Field in Philly. ESPN Game Day will be in Philly and the game will be nationally televised. Remember that time-traveler from the 1970s I conjured up earlier? This game and the focus on this game would convince him that he was somewhere on a planet in the Xygork Nebula…

I read a piece – – cannot find the reference now – – that said it was possible that Temple would play Marshall in the Miami Beach Bowl sometime before Christmas this year. Bowl projections in October are about as useless as pre-season rankings from polls but I do have two things to say about that projection:

2. If the Miami Beach Bowl features Temple and Marshall in the week before Christmas, the stands will be at most 30% full.

We are coming up to the point in the season where college football gets verrrrry interesting. [/ Arte Johnson] Coming up soon:

Baylor and TCU will meet and the winner will definitely be in consideration for the College Football Playoff. Baylor will have to make a go of it without starting QB, Seth Russell who broke a bone in his neck last week.

LSU and Alabama both take this week off to prepare for their game next week.

The Florida State/Clemson game next week will likely decide the ACC Atlantic Division champion.

Duke/UNC – a major rivalry game in any year – could decide the ACC Coastal Division champion.

Add to all of those game the bit rivalry games that happen all over the country in the late stages of the year. This is the time when college football fans get their adrenaline flowing.

Since I mentioned the Temple Notre Dame game above, here are some player names you might hear during that game:

Jager Gardner

Cole Luke – CB – Notre Dame (wish his middle name was “Hand”)

Praise Martin-Oguike – DL – Temple (wish his middle name was “The Lord”)

Prosper Mekoba – DL – Temple (live long, my man)

Equanimeous St. Brown – WR – Notre Dame (seriously…)

Drue Tranquill – S – Notre Dame (a big hit could be “The Tranquilizer”)

The Ponderosa Games:

Last week there were 6 Ponderosa Games. The record for favorites covering in those games was 1-4-1 bringing the season total for favorites covering to 24-32-1. I know the season is not over, but that is more “out-of-balance” than I recall seeing this late in most seasons.

Oklahoma State covered.

Baylor, Boise St., Marshall and W. Michigan did not cover.

N. Illinois played to a “push”.

This week, we have 8 Ponderosa Games.

(Fri Nite) Wyoming at Utah State – 26 (49): The spread here opened the week at 23.5 points and has climbed steadily to this level during the week. Wyoming is a bad team; Utah State is a good team but not a consistent team.

Troy at Appalachian St. – 24 (55): The spread here opened the week at 22 points and has climbed steadily to this level during the week. Troy is a bad team. Appalachian St. is a good team that is not widely recognized as such; they rank 5th in the country in total defense as of today.

Oklahoma – 39.5 at Kansas (61): The total Line here opened the week at 66.5 points and dropped quickly to 62 points and has continued easing down as the week progresses. Kansas ranks 123rd in the country in total defense and 102nd in the country in total offense. Yowza!!

Oregon St. at Utah – 24 (54): Utah needs the game to stay atop the PAC-12 South; they should be “upset” at their performance last week and Oregon St. is not very good…

UCF at Cincy – 27.5 (60): The spread here opened the week at 23.5 points and has risen steadily to this level. UCF is winless this year; if you think this is the week for them to get their first win you can find them at +2600 on the Money Line.

W. Kentucky – 24 at Old Dominion (66): Old Dominion is 0-7 ATS this year (see above)…

UTEP at So. Mississippi – 25.5 (58): So. Miss is 9th in the country in total offense averaging 506 yards per game. UTEP is 104th in the country in total defense allowing 477 yards per game. Ka-beesh…?

Tulane at Memphis – 32 (63): Tulane gives up about 240 yards per game passing. Memphis loves to throw the football averaging 358 yards per game. My guess is Memphis throws for 350 yards here.

The SHOE Teams:

As the season progresses, the fetid aromas wafting from various football teams gets stronger and more nauseating. Here are some highly odoriferous teams:

E. Michigan:

Kansas: 0-7: Losing by an average of 31.2 points per game.

Miami (Oh): 1-7: 125th in the country on defense giving up 444 yards per game

La-Monroe: 1-6: Losing by an average of 26.7 points per game

New Mexico St.: 0-7: Losing by an average of 26.6 points per game.

North Texas: 0-7: 111th in the country on offense and 118th in the country on defense.

Tulane: 2-5: Losing by 27.0 points per game

UCF: 0-8: Last in the country in total offense (258 yards per game)

Wyoming: 1-7: Lost to e. Michigan; 99th in the country in total defense.

These are merely 9 bad teams; there are others that I will omit here for the sake of brevity…

Games of Interest:

(Fri Nite) Louisville – 11 at Wake Forest (43): This game is interesting because it would appear to be a low-scoring defensive game. Wake plays solid defense; Louisville and BC slugged it out in a low scoring game last week. That is a fat line indeed. I like Wake Forest plus the points.

Clemson – 10 at NC State (51): Some folks think Clemson will be a tough out in the College Football Playoff come January – – assuming they beat Florida State next week. I do not know if I agree with that optimistic outlook, but I do think they are significantly better than NC State. I like Clemson to win and cover.

Maryland at Iowa – 17 (53): Iowa has its eye on the Big 10 Championship Game; Maryland has its eye on the sewer drain the season is rushing down. Maryland loses by an average of 15.3 points per game; Iowa is +17.7 in scoring margin. I like Iowa to win and cover.

Ole Miss – 7.5 at Auburn (57.5): Ole Miss needs the game to stay in contention for the SEC West title and a slot in the SEC Championship Game. Auburn needs the game just because they need a win badly. I think there will be plenty of scoring here so I’ll take the game to go OVER.

Arizona at Washington – 5 (58): Washington is 120th in the country on offense averaging only 334 yards per game. Arizona is 116th in the country on defense allowing 452 yards per game. With apologies to Frank Sinatra, Something’s Gotta Give here. I have no idea what will happen so I’ll just watch for general interest.

Stanford – 10.5 at Washington State (61): Lots of line movement here… The spread opened the week at 13.5 points; the Total Line opened the week at 66 points. Washington State has been a pleasant surprise for folks on the Palouse this year but I think Stanford is a couple of steps higher on the ladder than State. I like Stanford to win and cover here and I like this game to go OVER.

Georgia vs Florida – 2 (46) [Game is in Jax]: Without Nick Chubb, the Georgia offense went from a shotgun to a pop-gun. Florida has a solid defense and I have not seen QB play from any of the Georgia QBs that makes me think they can do business against the Florida defense. I’ll take Florida to win and cover.

USC – 5.5 at Cal (59.5): If USC can play this week the way they played against Utah last week, they will win this game handily. If the Trojans lose here, they can pretty much kiss any PAC-121 championship aspirations goodbye. I’ll take USC and lay the points.

Notre Dame – 11 at Temple (50): Temple is 9th in the country on defense allowing only 308 yards per game. However Notre Dame gains an average of 499 yards per game. Looking at this from the other end of the telescope, Notre Dame’s defense allows 370 yards per game while Temple’s offense generates only 346 yards per game (112th in the country). I think Temple is outclassed here. I’ll take Notre Dame to win and cover.

Ga Tech – 6 at UVa (54): Tech should run the ball well and score on Virginia; Virginia should score on a really mediocre Tech defense. I like the game to go OVER.

Oklahoma St. – 3 at Texas Tech (79): Texas Tech is a bad defensive football team ranking 127th in the country giving up an average of 562 yards per game. Tech can score so I think this game will end up with a score that resembles an NBA halftime score. I like this game to go OVER.

Tennessee – 9 at Kentucky (57): I think Tennessee left a lot on the field last week against Alabama and Kentucky’s defense is pretty good. Make this a venue call; I like Kentucky plus the points.

Texas-San Antonio – 7 at North Texas (56): Game is interesting because both teams are bad…

Idaho – 7 at New Mexico State (63.5): Game is interesting because both teams are bad…

Va Tech – 2 at BC (38): Game is interesting because neither team has a propensity to score but both play good defense. I’ll take the game to stay UNDER.

Miami (FL) at Duke – 13 (48.5): With a new coach in Miami, I think the team rebounds enough here to cover that fat line. I’ll take Miami plus the points.

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 10/24/15

Last week’s mythical picks were ever so slightly in positive mythical profitability territory. The results were 9-8-1 and that brings the season cumulative record to 55-52-4. The cumulative record is better than .500 and yet it would be in the red against the vig. This is an important lesson for novice sports gamblers to understand and internalize.

The “Best Pick” from last week was the Missouri/Georgia game. I liked Mizzou +15 and I liked the game to stay UNDER 46. Georgia won the game 9-6…

The “Worst Pick” from last week was the Notre Dame/USC game. I liked USC +6.5 and the game to stay UNDER 61. Neither of those outcomes actually happened…

Obviously, no one should consider anything that follows as information worthy of influencing the side to take in a real wager on a real NCAA football game involving real money. Anyone stupid enough to miss that point is also likely to miss this point:

Fleetwood Mac is not a new breakfast sandwich at McDonalds.

General Comments:

The Linfield College Wildcats secured a winning season last week with a 49-7 win over Willamette last week. Division III schools play a 9-game regular season schedule; that was Linfield’s 5th win this year. The last time Linfield had a losing season in football was in 1956. This week, the Wildcats host Whitworth University in an important Northwest Conference game. Whitworth brings a 6-0 record to the contest; in only 1 game have they given up more than 14 points. The winner of this game has the inside tract to be the conference champion. Go Wildcats!

The challenge of finding a Division III football team as a mirror image to Linfield in terms of success is more work than it is worth. First, Finlandia went out and won a game; then I checked on Maranatha Bible College since they lost to Finlandia; last week Maranatha beat Trinity College. Enough, I shall simply track Linfield’s successes…

Surely you have seen the replay of the final play of the Michigan St./Michigan game from last week. As they lined up, I said to myself that the punter should be sure to send the ball out of bounds because the only way to lose here would be on a punt return for a TD. Well, there was indeed another way for Michigan to lose the game… Michigan State won its 7th game of the year and they “won-ugly” once again.

That was the first time this year that Michigan State covered a spread despite winning every game. The reason they covered is that Michigan was a 7-point favorite and they would have covered even without the miracle punt block/return for a TD.

Iowa dominated Northwestern last weekend and would appear to be on their way to winning the Big 10 West Division and a place in the Big 10 Championship Game. That raises a question in my mind:

Did that division used to be the Legends or the Leaders?

Northwestern has lost 2 in a row now; Michigan shut them out 2 weeks ago. Nevertheless, there has to be some wellspring of talent there. Recall that Northwestern beat Stanford 16-6 in the opening game of the year. Since that game, Stanford has won 5 in a row and has averaged 40 points per game in those 5 wins.

Utah St. beat Boise St 52-26 last week. If something could have gone wrong for Boise St., it did. Utah State recovered 5 fumbles and picked off 3 errant passes in the game. Seven of those eight turnovers came in the first half and it is virtually impossible to beat any team better than Disco Tech when you give the ball away that often. I would love to hear a recording of the halftime speech in the Boise St. locker room after those 30 minutes of football. I imagine it may have peeled the paint off the walls.

Utah St. had lost 12 games in a row to Boise St. prior to last week. With that win, it would seem as if Utah St. could win the Mountain Division of the Mountain West Conference. Here is what Brad Rock of the Deseret News had to say about that game:

“USU forced seven turnovers, made a 51-yard field goal, and completed a 51-yard pass against BSU — in the first half.

“Analysts say the only trick the Aggies left out was deflating the footballs.”

Oklahoma had difficulty getting to the stadium for the game against Kansas State. Mechanical problems with more than one aircraft kept the team cooped up in an airport for more than 8 hours before they could get to Manhattan KS. According to Google Maps, that is a 308 mile trip; had the team chosen to take a bus to the game, they would have been there in less time even if the bus had a flat tire along the way.

The delay seemed not to have had any lingering negative effects on the team; there seemed to be no “hangover” for the Sooners from their surprising loss to Texas two weeks ago. They went out and beat K-State 55-0. In last week’s Mythical Picks, I took that game to go OVER 54 which it did. I must say, however, that was not one of the scenarios I envisioned by which the game would go OVER…

Memphis rallied from a 14-0 deficit to beat Ole Miss 37-24. Memphis QB, Paxton Lynch, was 39-53 for 384 yards and 3 TDs. Until last week, I had never heard of Paxton Lynch so I went to the Memphis football website to see if I could learn something about him. One thing that is clear is that Lynch is a large man; he is listed at 6’ 7” and 245 lbs. He has been the QB at Memphis for two-and-a-half seasons now; and for his career, he has completed just over 60% of his passes. For this season in 6 games, he is averaging 9.6 yards per pass attempt.

Memo to Self:

It was only a month ago that Ole Miss beat Alabama 43-37 and ascended to #2 in the polls. Looking at the Ole Miss schedule, it might just be that the win over Alabama was a bolt from the blue. Here are the teams Ole Miss has beaten this year:

Here are the teams Ole Miss has lost to:

Let me be polite and say that is not exactly a murderous strength of schedule.

Speaking of teams not playing a murderous strength of schedule, Temple is undefeated at 6-0 meaning they are bowl eligible and it is not yet Halloween. Let me just say that is not a common circumstance on the Temple campus in North Philadelphia…

Alabama beat Texas A&M 41-23. Two Pick Sixes by Alabama dominated the first half but other than those plays, they just ran the ball down the Aggies’ throat for most of the game. Earlier this year, the Aggies surrendered 250 yards rushing to Arkansas but still came away with a win; last week they gave Alabama 232 yards on the ground but could not threaten to win this game at any point in the second half. They do need to find a way to shore up that run defense a bit…

The Alabama special teams seem to have come down with whatever it is that has afflicted the Texas special teams this year. In last week’s game Alabama had:

Nonetheless, Alabama won the game handily…

The Florida defense “held” Leonard Fournette to 180 yards rushing but LSU still won the game by a TD. The loss for Florida puts them 1 full game up on Georgia in the SEC East and 1.5 games ahead of Kentucky. Georgia and Florida play next week; that game just took on even more importance than the rivalry provides. Should Georgia win that game, the Bulldogs would still have to play Kentucky down the road. The SEC East has loads of possibilities…

In the SEC West, it looks as if it will come down to the LSU/Alabama game on November 7 at Alabama even though Texas A&M and Ole Miss are close enough to pick up the pieces should either Alabama or LSU fall apart. Both Alabama and LSU have next week off to prepare for the game; the fact that neither will play next week also assures that fans will get two full weeks of hype for that game instead of just one.

Washington State completed its sweep of Oregon’s Division 1-A teams last week beating Oregon State 52-31. In the PAC-12 North, Stanford is in charge with a 4-0 conference record but Washington State and Cal only have 1 conference loss. Washington State has a loud and rabid fanbase and I do not want to throw ice water on exuberance but in this case it may be irrational exuberance [/ Alan Greenspan].

Looking at the schedule and results to date:

Washington State lost to Division 1-AA Portland State at home. Not good…

Washington State has already lost to Cal so they lose any tie-breaker situation head-to-head with Cal.

The rest of the schedule for Washington St is harder than what they have played to date:

Home against Stanford, Arizona State and Colorado.

Yes, Washington State has a path to the PAC-12 title game, but it is a narrow path indeed with no margin for a misstep.

The Ponderosa Games:

Last week we had 4 Ponderosa Games and the favorite covered in 1 of them.

Toledo covered.

Georgia Southern, Texas Tech and Wisconsin did not cover.

That brings the cumulative record for favorites covering in Ponderosa games to 23-28-0.

This week we have 6 Ponderosa Games:

E. Michigan at N. Illinois – 28 (69.5): MAC games with spreads like this are monumentally uninteresting.

Miami (Oh) at W. Michigan – 26 (54): MAC games with spreads like this are monumentally uninteresting. Is there an echo in here…?

Wyoming at Boise St. – 35 (56.5): Boise St. coughed up a hairball last week against Utah St. (see above). This could get very ugly very quickly; Wyoming is a bad football team.

N. Texas at Marshall – 29 (60.5): Surprisingly low spread given that N. Texas lost to Division 1-AA Portland State by more than 50 points just a couple weeks ago.

Iowa St. at Baylor – 37 (81): Baylor needs to win big to stay firmly in the discussion for the College Football Playoff. Baylor cannot point to “strength of schedule” as a reason to get into the bracket so they have to pummel the weak opponents on the schedule.

Kansas at Oklahoma St. – 34 (61): That is a lot of points to expect a good but not great team to cover. Then again, they need only to cover against a bad football team…

The SHOE Teams:

Who is on the Watch List this week? Here are 15 SHOE Tournament possibilities…

E. Michigan

Fresno St

Idaho

Kansas

La-Monroe

Miami (Oh)

New Mexico St.

North Texas

Troy

Tulane

UCF

UMass

UTEP

UTSA

Wyoming

Games of Interest:

(Thurs Nite) Cal at UCLA – 3 (68): I see this game as a shootout between with two good offenses and two “less than stellar” defenses. I like the game to go OVER.

Indiana at Michigan St – 16.5 (63): Michigan St. seems to be the team of destiny for 2015. When they finally lose a game, it will be in a monumental fashion but I doubt that Indiana has the horses to make that happen. State does not shoot itself in the foot and should win handily here. I like Michigan State to win and cover.

Clemson – 6.5 at Miami (FL) (56): Again, I see two competent offenses going against a pair of defenses that are not equally competent. I like this game to go OVER.

NC State – 9.5 at Wake Forest (46): Wake doesn’t score a lot but they can play defense. They should keep this as a low-scoring game. Is NC State really good enough to be a 9.5-point road favorite in a conference game? That line is fatter than Sally Struthers. I’ll take Wake plus the points at home.

Missouri – 2.5 at Vandy (35): In a college football era where some games have total scores over 100, this Total Line is at 35. Here you have two good defenses and two offenses that strive to be labeled as inept. I will not make a pick here but this is a game of interest just because the Total Line is so low.

Utah at USC – 3.5 (59.5): Utah is undefeated and ranked in the Top 10; USC has lost 3 times this year. USC is favored? Where is the respect? USC’s offense gains 115 yards per game more than Utah’s. Utah’s defense allows 45 yards per game less than USC’s. I like Utah plus the points here.

Tennessee at Alabama – 15 (53): Tennessee has had two weeks to prepare for this game. I think they are badly over-matched here because Alabama knows that it cannot afford another loss if they hope to be in the College Football Championship Playoff. Actually, Tennessee has had two weeks to prepare to get their butts kicked. I’ll take Alabama to win and cover at home.

K-State at Texas – 4 (50): This is a game of interest just to see what is going on in these two programs. State is unusually discombobulated this year; that is not the trademark of a Bill Snyder team. Texas has been awful at times – – and then it rose up and beat Oklahoma. Who knows what is going on with these two programs?

Texas A&M at Ole Miss – 6 (65.5): If you look at the way these guys played against Alabama, you would make Ole Miss a 3 TD favorite. I prefer to look at the schedules the teams have played. I like Texas A&M plus the points here.

Duke at Va Tech – 3 (43): Cutting to the chase, that Total Line looks very low to me. I’ll take the game to go OVER.

BC at Louisville – 7.5 (37): Here is another game with a Total Line in the 30s. Maybe I need to conjure up a list of “Limbo Games” where the question is:

How low can you go?

Kentucky at Mississippi St. – 11.5 (55): Kentucky still has a shot at the SEC East title (see above). A loss here would pretty much eliminate them, however. I cannot see them winning on the road here but State is hardly a team to inspire confidence to cover a large spread. I do not see where 56 points will come from in this game. I like the game to stay UNDER.

Auburn at Arkansas – 6 (51): Arkansas loves to run the ball; Auburn’s defensive weakness is run defense. I am not sold on either team here but that matchup seems to favor Arkansas rather dramatically. I’ll take Arkansas at home to win and cover.

Texas Tech at Oklahoma – 14 (74): This game is another match-up situation. Texas Tech throws the ball all over the field; they are averaging 49 passes per game this year and 427 yards per game. Oklahoma has had its ups and downs this year but they do play decent pass defense. They only give up 152 yards per game and less than 50% completions. Meanwhile, the Sooners do not have nearly the yardage stats that Texas Tech does on offense, but the Tech defense has given up 554 yards per game this year. I like Oklahoma at home to win and cover here.

Florida State – 6.5 at Georgia Tech (56.5): Tech opened the season with two huge wins over Division 1-AA Alcorn State and SHOE candidate Tulane. Since then Tech has lost 5 in a row and has been outscored by 61 points in those 5 losses. This Florida State team is not the juggernaut of years past for that program but they sure do appear to be better than Georgia Tech. I like Florida State to win and cover.

Ohio State – 21 at Rutgers (no Total Line): The “Chief Logistics Officer” for our annual trip to Las Vegas has proclaimed this game as his “50-Star Mortal-Lock Beat-The-Book-To-Death Game of the Year”. Who am I to argue? I’ll take Ohio State to win and cover.

Washington State at Arizona – 7.5 (74): If Washington State hopes to be the PAC-12 North champion, they can ill afford a loss here. Expect to see a lot of hurry-up offense in this game and most of the play calls to be forward passes. I like this game to go OVER.

Finally, here is a comment from Dwight Perry in the Seattle Times:

“In Pac-12 football play this season, the visiting team won 10 of the first 15 conference games.

“Veteran observers say they haven’t seen this much trauma at home since Elin discovered Tiger’s text messages.”

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 10/17/15

Last week’s Mythical Picks could have been better but they were still ever so slightly mythically profitable. The record was 9-8-0 bringing the season record to 46-44-3.

The “Best Picks” last week were two OVER bets. I took Iowa St/Texas Tech to go OVER 73 and the total was 97 and I took TCU/Kansas State OVER 63 and the total was also 97.

The “Worst Pick” from last week was taking Oklahoma – 16.5 against Texas and watching Texas win the game outright.

No one should consider anything written here as worthy of consideration when it comes to choosing a side in making a real wager on a real college football game where real money is on the line. Anyone doing that would be just about this dumb:

He/She thinks a thesaurus is a well-spoken dinosaur.

General Comments:

The Linfield College Wildcats ran their record to 4-0 (2-0 in conference) with a massive 77-10 win over Pacific University (Oregon). One more win will keep their streak of winning seasons alive; Division III teams play 9 game schedules. This week, the Wildcats go on the road to face Willamette University. The Bearcats are 1-3 on the season but 2 of their 3 losses came at the expense of a total of 7 points. Go Wildcats!

Maranatha Baptist University had last week off to prepare for this week’s road game against Trinity Bible College in Ellendale, ND. Maranatha Baptist is 0-5 as is Trinity Bible College. If you have been following my quest to find the polar opposite of Linfield as a Division III team to follow, you know that Maranatha lost to Finlandia two weeks ago. Well after Trinity plays Maranatha, Trinity plays Finlandia and then Finlandia and Maranatha play each other again. This is getting much too complicated…

Last week, the Wake Forest/Boston College game set back college football about 75 years. The final score was 3-0 but that only begins to tell the tale of ineptitude in the game. Consider just a few stats:

If you have concluded that the team to make the last mistake would lose that game you would be correct because BC botched the end-of-game possession in epic fashion. I will try to summarize:

The ball is snapped with 18 or 19 seconds on the clock and the play call was a run.

The runner never got close to the end zone. That is not good.

What is even worse is that BC could get lined up to spike the ball and stop the clock and if you watch the final seconds of that game expire (Google is your friend) your eyes will get very wide and your jaw will drop. It looks like a Keystone Kops flick.

I enjoy defensive games more than most folks do. That was not a defensive game as the 3-0 score might intimate; that was a blunderingly inept game.

Last week we saw Steve Spurrier resign and Steve Sarkisian get fired. It was not a good week for coaches with names beginning with the letter “S”. [Yes, I know Randy Edsall was fired too but including him in the sentence above does not fit the narrative…] There was another college coach firing last week that received far less attention than the others. North Texas fired Coach Dan McCarney last week right after the Mean Green lost to Portland State 66-7. Portland State is a Division 1-AA school; earlier this year, Portland State beat Washington St. by a TD in the opening game of the season. Nevertheless, that loss dropped North Texas to 0-5 and the school decided to “go in a different direction”.

Division 1-AA schools rise up and beat Division 1-A every once in a while. Many folks recall when Appalachian St. went to Ann Arbor and beat Michigan 34-32. That was about 10 years ago and it is often mentioned as one of the great upsets of all time. However, note that the score differential was 2 points; in most Division 1-AA victories over Division 1-A teams, the score is close enough that the loser still considers that it has a shot to win sometime in the second half. Not so last week in the Portland St./North Texas game:

I do not have the time or the inclination to do the research to find out if this is the biggest butt-kicking ever administered by a Division 1-AA team to a Division 1-A team; suffice it to say that this was so monumental a rout that it justified firing the North Texas coach on the spot.

Oh, by the way, in another exemplar of the minimal importance one should attach to coaching changes in mid-season, North Texas played their next game last night. They did a lot better than they did against Portland State where they lost by 59 points; last night they only lost by 27 to W. Kentucky.

In a more uplifting piece of news last week, the nation’s longest losing streak came to a halt. Columbia beat Wagner 26-3; prior to that game, Columbia had lost 24 games in a row; their last win was in November 2012 over Cornell. Columbia has been known to go on losing streaks before. Back in the 1980s, they once lost 44 games in a row – the longest losing streak on record in college football. The losing streak that ended last week did not come close to the school record on the college football record.

Texas beat Oklahoma 24-17 and that ought to quiet down the “Fire Charlie Strong” chorus for at least a week. That victory was the first win for Texas over a ranked team since Charlie Strong took over the program. Here is a measure of the dominance in the game:

More importantly, there were no humongously embarrassing gaffes by any of the Texas Special teams units in the game; that seemingly had become a refrain for the Longhorns this year. It would be far too much of a feelgood story to say that Texas has turned the corner and is on its way back to greatness on the basis of one dominant win. Upcoming for Texas are K-State, Iowa St. and Kansas. Texas is 2-4 today; after those 3 games they should be 4-5 at the worst. Oh, and Baylor is still down the road for them later this year…

TCU and Kansas State went on an offensive bender last week. K-State led by 18 at halftime but TCU rallied to win 52-45. TCU QB, Trevone Boykin, had an amazing second half running for two TDs and throwing the winning TD pass in the 4th quarter. In the opening game of the season, TCU beat Minnesota 23-17. In the five games since that one, TCU has gone over 50 points in every game averaging 56.6 points in those 5 games.

Tennessee beat Georgia for the first time since 2009 last week. Nick Chubb suffered a season-ending knee injury on his first carry of the game and Chubb is more than just a really good RB; he is what makes the Georgia offense go. Georgia led 24-3 in the first half and managed to lose 38-31. The Vols ran up 512 yards of total offense on a Georgia defense that has not looked nearly that bad all season long. Some folks may want to ascribe this loss to the hangover sustained from the clobbering that Alabama put on Georgia 2 weeks ago; I think it was more about the loss of Nick Chubb. And, that has implications for Georgia and the SEC East going forward. More on that later…

Florida beat Missouri 21-2 last week. If ever there was a game that deserved the label “winning ugly” this would be it. There were 18 punts in the game and at one point there were 7 consecutive 3-and-outs. The Florida offense last week – and truth be told all season long – has been a unit using training wheels. It has been the defense that has carried the team to its 6-0 record. And the job for that defense just got harder because starting QB, Will Grier, will sit out a 12-month suspension imposed by the NCAA because he flunked a PED drug test.

Look at the SEC East today:

Florida’s next two games are against LSU and Georgia. If they lose both, all of those 2-loss teams in the SEC East become “contendas” again.

Michigan pitched its third consecutive shutout last week beating Northwestern 38-0. Michigan returned the opening kickoff for a TD; that was an omen; the score was 21-0 at the end of the first quarter and the game was clearly over at that point. Northwestern is an unbalanced team; they have a good defense and a sub-standard offense. Consider these stats:

Ohio State beat Maryland as expected by 3 TDs but that margin might be a bit deceiving if you are grading on the style points scale. The score of this game was tied in the second half. Maryland is not nearly good enough to be tied with the #1 team in the country in the second half…

Out west in the PAC-12, Utah beat Cal 30-24. Jared Goff’s NFL résumé took a hit in the game because he threw 5 INTs in the game. [He has only thrown 4 INTs for the season until last week.] I have been impressed by Utah’s defense since their opening week win over Michigan and last week it looked even better than it did then. However, Utah also has a running back who is not getting a lot of attention in a year when Leonard Fournette, Nick Chubb and Ezekiel Elliot have dominated headlines. Devontae Booker carried 34 times against Cal and gained 222 yards; he is one tough runner.

Utah now leads the PAC-12 South standings; USC and UCLA had been considered the co-favorites in that division but both of them now have 2 conference losses; Utah is undefeated. Arizona State has 1 loss and Arizona St and Utah play each other this weekend…

Interesting fact that may or may not have any significance:

Oregon – like USC – has two losses at home already this year. Last week, Oregon lost at home in double over-time to Washington State – the “other Division 1-A team” that Portland State defeated this year. Sitting at 3-3 with at least 3 tough games remaining on the schedule, the question is whether this year represents a “precipitous decline” in Oregon football or “an implosion”. Chip Kelly has been gone sufficiently long that virtually none of his recruits are left on the team – and coincidentally, the team is not nearly as successful as it was then. Coincidence – – or causality?

UConn beat UCF last week 40-13; the game is of no real consequence except that it means that in starting out this year with an 0-6 record, UCF has managed to lose to an impressive array of lower-tier football programs to include Florida International, Tulane, Furman and now UConn…

The alums at Central Michigan are probably not thrilled by the team’s 2-4 record this year. However, sports bettors – or “punters” as they are known in the UK – love C Michigan because they are 6-0 ATS (against the spread). Just saying…

Conversely, the alums at Michigan State have to like the team’s 6-0 start but the fact is that Michigan State is 0-6 ATS…

The Ponderosa Games:

Last week we had 4 Ponderosa Games and the record for favorites covering was 2-2-0.

Baylor and Ole’ Miss covered. Interestingly, both teams covered 45-point spreads

Mississippi St. and Ohio St. did not cover.

For the season the cumulative record for favorites covering Ponderosa spreads stands at 22-25-0.

Once again, this week, we have 4 Ponderosa Games

E. Michigan at Toledo – 28 (60): Oh swell… A MAC game that looks as if it will be a blowout. Remind me not to set my DVR to record that one…

New Mexico St. at Georgia Southern – 30.5 (65): You read that right. This is not Georgia or Georgia Tech that is the 30.5-point favorite here…

Purdue at Wisconsin – 24 (50.5): I am sure the coaches and players care about the outcome here. As for me…

Texas Tech – 31.5 at Kansas (78): This line opened at 28 points and has been climbing steadily all week…

The SHOE Tournament Teams:

It is still too early in the season to start ranking the teams that will earn their way into my imaginary SHOE Tournament at the end of the year to determine the single worst Division 1-A football team in the country. However, it is getting to be the time to identify about a dozen teams that have made themselves known to the SHOE Selection Committee (me). In alphabetical order, here are teams that might be known eventually as the SHOE Team – the Steaming Heap Of Excrement for 2015:

Games of Interest:

(Fri Nite) Houston – 20 at Tulane (58): I do not see either defense being able to stop the other guys reliably so I like this game to go OVER.

(Fri Nite) UNLV – 6.5 at Fresno St. (50): These are two bad teams. It is a Game of Interest because the loser will surely go on the SHOE Tournament Watch List and the winner may not be excluded from that list either.

USF at UConn – 2.5 (45): These are two bad teams. They are not bad enough to be considered at this time as SHOE contenders but they are still bad. If you took the family and friends of the players and coaches out of the stands for this game, might there be less than 2500 folks there?

BC at Clemson – 16 (35.5): After Wake Forest shut out BC last week, no one should expect BC to have an offensive explosion against a Clemson defense that is at least as good as Wake Forest’s. BC does play good defense, so I do not expect Clemson to get into 30s here. The question is if BC can get into double-digits. Because that Total Line is incredibly low, I’ll take the game to go OVER and hope BC can score 10 points here.

Iowa – 1.5 at Northwestern (41.5): Iowa plays very good defense particularly against the run. Michigan showed last week what a really good defense can do to Northwestern (see above). Iowa is not as good on defense as Michigan but they will prevent the modest Northwestern offense from doing a lot of scoring or a lot of clock control. Moreover, they may a bit of a “hangover” on the Northwestern side from the shellacking they took last week. I like Iowa to win and cover on the road here and I like the game to stay UNDER.

Alabama – 4 at Texas A&M (53): This should be a great game to watch; both teams are ranked in the Top 10. The Aggies have had 2 weeks to prep for this game and I suspect that the coaching staff has mentioned to the team the results of last year’s game with Alabama when The Tide won 59-0. The game sets up this way:

The Aggies’ defense can be exploited by a good running game and Ezekiel Elliot is a very good RB. The question here is if the Aggies can run on Alabama enough to keep that defense guessing. I like Alabama to win and cover here.

Florida at LSU – 7 (45.5): Here is another SEC game pairing highly ranked teams. This may not be an “artistic game” but it is very important for Florida if they want to stay firmly in control of the SEC East (see above). The Florida defense has been dominant this year but they have not yet seen anyone like Leonard Fournette across the line of scrimmage. Florida yields only 99 yards per game on the ground; Fournette averages 205 yards per game rushing. Can Florida keep him under some semblance of control? That is the essential question for this game. I think defense is the order of the day and I like the game to stay UNDER.

Missouri at Georgia – 15 (46): The loser here is pretty much out of the SEC East race; it will be that team’s third conference loss. Missouri plays without their suspended starting QB; Georgia plays without RB, Nick Chubb. Missouri’s chance to win rests with shutting down the Georgia running game and forcing whatever QB Georgia puts on the field to win the game throwing the ball most of the time. I think this will be a low scoring game so I’ll take Missouri plus all those points and I’ll take the game to stay UNDER.

Oklahoma – 4 at K-State (54): Short and sweet here… I like this game to go OVER.

Michigan St. at Michigan – 7 (42): Here is another game with two ranked teams that ought to be a good one; this rivalry may not be as intense as the Michigan/Ohio State rivalry, but it is still an emotional game every year. Michigan State has not played well despite winning every game this year; last week, they escaped against Rutgers and no one would confuse Rutgers with Michigan. Michigan has been on a roll since that opening loss to Utah and as of last week they looked like a superior football team. I fully expect Michigan’s shutout streak to end here but I think the Michigan defense will be the dominant unit in the contest. I’ll take Michigan and lay the points.

West Virginia at Baylor – 21 (76): Baylor scores points by the bushel (see above); their “closest tussle” was a 63-35 win over Texas Tech; that is a 28-point win just in case your calculator batteries are low. West Virginia has lost its last two games and has turned the ball over 9 times in those two losses; if they do that here, they might lose to Baylor by 50 points. West Virginia is not a scoring machine in the same conversation with Baylor, but this is not a team that rarely finds the end zone either. I think there will be lots of scoring here so I’ll take the game to go OVER.

Vandy at South Carolina – 2.5 (43): No way would I bet on this game but it is interesting to see how South Carolina reacts to the new coaching situation there. Neither offense is any good; both defenses are just good enough to stifle the opposing offense. Over/Under for punts in the game is around 16…

Arizona St. at Utah – 6.5 (55): Arizona St. is the team in the PAC-12 South with only 1 conference loss. A win for Utah here would give them a 2-game cushion in that division; a win for Arizona St. would put them in first place in that division because they would have beaten Utah head-to-head. This may not be a great rivalry game like Michigan/Michigan St. but this is a very important game. I love the Utah defense but I am not in love with the Utah offense. That line looks fat to me so I’ll take Arizona St. plus the points.

Arizona – 7.5 at Colorado (67): Colorado can score points and the Arizona defense is not nearly the strength of the team. Meanwhile, the same situation obtains in reverse. That leads me to take the game to go OVER.

TCU – 20.5 at Iowa St. (73): The spread started out at 22 points and has been dropping. That means there was an excess of “Iowa State money” hitting the windows. There is no way that I think Iowa St. has a defense that is going to hold TCU to anything significantly less than 50 points. Therefore, if I believe that Iowa St. can get 3 TDs in the game, it will go OVER. That is exactly what I believe; I like the game to go OVER.

USC at Notre Dame – 6 (61): This is an interesting match-up having nothing to do with college football tradition or anything like that. USC comes to South Bend to play a rivalry game with new leadership on the sidelines. Coaches always say they need to rid the team of distractions; well, this week will be a test for the new coaching structure at USC. Notre Dame is 5-1 for the season; their loss was to Clemson in a monsoon. However, Notre Dame has not played much of a schedule outside of Clemson. Wins over Texas, Virginia, Georgia Tech, UMass and Navy are nice but they are not compelling. I like the game to stay UNDER and I like USC plus the points here.

Penn St. at Ohio St. – 19 (48): Normally, when I think a game will be low-scoring I like to take the points – especially if there are 19 of them to take. However, in this case I am loathe to do that because I am not sure that Penn St. will score more than 10-12 points. I do think the game will stay UNDER so I’ll take that. However, I will pass on any bet against the spread.

Oregon at Washington – 3 (60): This is a big rivalry game and Washington has been on the wrong side of the score for more than a few years now. Oregon is not the team it has been (see above) but I don’t think that Washington deserves to be favored here. I think Oregon will win the game outright so I’ll happily take them with the points here.

Finally, here is a college football observation from Bob Molinaro in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot:

“Regrouping: Cardale Jones, so special for Ohio State in his three starts at the end of last season, has been pretty ordinary this year. He might be wondering if he made a mistake by not turning pro last winter when his stock was through the roof. With rare exceptions, no quarterback coming off a spectacular season has ever enhanced his draft prospects by returning to college.”

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 10/10/15

Last week was another middling week of Mythical Picks; the record was 10-9-0 bringing the season total to 37-36-3. The “Best Pick of the week was taking Iowa +7 points and seeing Iowa win the game straight up. The “Worst Pick” from last week was taking Minnesota +4 points and watching them get shut out by Northwestern to lose by a meager 27 points.

Undaunted, I shall soldier on… Nonetheless, no one should read these words of deathless prose and think even for a moment of using the content here as the basis for making a real wager on a real college football game involving real money this weekend. Here is how dumb you would have to be to do that:

You would be dumb enough to try to kill a fish by drowning it.

General Comments:

The Linfield College Wildcats extended their record to 3-0 last week by crushing Lewis and Clark College by a score of 73-0. This week, Linfield hosts the Pacific University (Oregon) Boxers in a Northwest Conference game. Pacific brings a record of 3-1 to this game. Go Wildcats!

My rapid search for a miserable D-III team to follow in juxtaposition with Linfield appears to have been too hasty. My “discovery”, the Finlandia Lions, had been steamrollered and left for dead in their first three games but rallied last week to defeat Maranatha Bible College by a score of 30-14. Finlandia won a game – – but they left behind a winless Maranatha squad that lost to a team previously outscored 272-9. Therefore, I shall track the fortunes – or misfortunes – of Maranatha Bible College at least until Halloween. You may recall from last week that in an unusual twist of scheduling Finlandia and Maranatha will meet again on Halloween.

The Maranatha Sabrecats’ record now stands at 0-5; they have been outscored for the season 223 – 41. The team has this week off to prepare for their next game which will be on the road in Ellendale, ND a week from Saturday.

Last week, Ohio State rallied to beat Indiana by a slim 7-point margin. Other than Ezekiel Elliot who ran for 275 yards, the team just seemed to be going through the motions. Cardale Jones never seemed to get into anything resembling a comfortable zone in the game. At the end, it was the Ohio State defense that stopped Indiana and preserved the win. Ohio State did not look like the best team in the country last week.

Two weeks ago, Alabama lost to Ole Miss and many pundits/analysts left them dead and buried. Last week, they went to Georgia to take on a team that looked like the favorite to win the SEC East; Georgia was favored in the game. Alabama manhandled Georgia 38-10. There is no really polite way to put it; this was an organized ass-kicking. The fact that Georgia can still win the SEC East means that they should be motivated to play hard in the rest of their games, but this game was so lopsided that people who vote in polls will need to remember it in the coming weeks. People had been saying that Alabama’s offense was not what it was supposed to be due to a weakness at QB. Well, folks, Georgia has some QB issues of its own:

Reliever Brice Ramsey took over in the second half. He introduced himself to the contest by throwing a Pick Six.

Meanwhile in other SEC action, Florida beat Ole Miss by the same 38-10 score that Alabama dropped on Georgia. At kickoff time, Ole Miss was ranked #3 in the country; they sure did not play that way last week. The Florida defense looked very fast and very strong; Gator’s QB, Will Grier, had a “decent day”.

He was 24-29 for 271 yards and 4 TDs. That will do…

Speaking of teams that have had “up days” and “down days” this season, consider Oklahoma. Earlier this year, the Sooners gave up 600 yards to Tulsa. Last week, they held West Virginia to 24 points and recorded 7 sacks.

Meanwhile, Va Tech lost at home to Pitt by a score of 17-13. In the game, Tech managed to accumulate the grand total of 101 yards on offense. The Hokies record is now 2-3 and things are not looking good at all in Blacksburg…

In Big 10 play, Michigan recorded its second consecutive shutout beating Maryland 28-0. Since losing its opening game to Utah, Michigan has allowed the next 4 opponents a total of 14 points. It is a well-established fact that if a team shuts out the opponent, the team will not lose the game. Last week’s win was indeed a dominant defensive performance:

Maryland rushing stats were 26 carries for 29 yards.

Maryland had 15 possessions; on 10 of them they went 3-and-out.

Maryland’s record is deceiving at 2-3. The wins have come over Division 1-AA Richmond and a bad USF team that has not beaten a Division 1-A team yet this year. Meanwhile, the 3 losses on the record have been embarrassing:

Bowling Green and West Virginia sped up the game and Maryland could not keep up. Michigan did not play frenetic football; they just overpowered Maryland which raises the question:

If they cannot keep up with the “speed teams” and they cannot stand up to a “power team”, just what kind of team are they built to beat?

Rumors are circulating that Coach Randy Edsall is going to be fired early next week after a game against Ohio State in Columbus where Ohio State is a 33-point favorite because the Terps have next week off. If those rumors turn out to be correct – and I have exactly no inside info to add to the mix here – here are my reactions:

A firing in mid-season will make the suits in the institution in College Park feel as if they are powerful and that they have done something to “address the situation”. In reality, the team will continue to flounder.

If they do fire Edsall, someone ought to remind those folks in the administration that it was they who gave randy Edsall a 3-year contract extension – wait for it – in June 2015. How smart where they then if they have to fire him now and pay him for three years not to darken their doorsteps?

I am not in favor of rumor-mongering and find mid-season removals for coaches feckless. Nonetheless, I wonder if the folks in Tennessee have begun to take a look at Butch Jones’ accomplishments there. Tennessee beats teams that tend to reside under the left side of the bell curve and does not beat teams that are generally good ones. Consider the Vols performance under Jones:

Only 5 of the 14 wins have been against SEC teams. That is not good.

Of the 5 SEC wins, the opponents were Kentucky (twice), South Carolina (twice) and Vandy. That is not the crème de la crème of the SEC…

Tennessee is 2-3 this year; the wins came over Bowling Green and W. Carolina; 2 of the 3 losses are to SEC opponents with Georgia and Alabama up as the next two events on the schedule. It would not be shocking to see Tennessee lose 6 SEC games this year.

In a Big 10 conference game, the nominal #2 team in the country, Michigan State, edged out a pretty mediocre Purdue team by a field goal. For the record, Michigan State is 5-0 straight up this year and 0-5 against the spread this year. For some Michigan State alums, that is not satisfactory…

Northwestern continued its undefeated season shutting out Minnesota 27-0 last week. Minnesota is not an offensive juggernaut, so one could downplay this accomplishment but you need to look at Northwestern’s “body of work” this year. The Northwestern defense is really good.

In 5 games, Northwestern has given up a total of 35 points.

Stanford and Duke were two of Northwestern’s opponents in those games.

Last week, Illinois beat Nebraska 14-13. That is not a misprint; it actually happened. The last time that happened was in 1924 and Calvin Coolidge was the President. When Nebraska fired Bo Pellini at the end of last year, the nominal reason was that Nebraska was tired of only winning 9 games in a season; they wanted a “return to glory”. So, how’s that working out in Lincoln? Well the Cornhuskers have wins over South Alabama and Southern Mississippi; they have lost their other 3 games; they will need to “win out” to get to 9 wins this year. That is not happening…

By the way, the winning TD for Illinois was caught by WR, Geronimo Allison; for the record, Geronimo was an Apache and not an Illini. There are several other interesting player names on the Illinois roster:

Clemson beat Notre Dame 24-22 in an absolute deluge. The Notre Dame receivers had a particularly tough time catching the football; I counted 4 passes that hit receivers squarely in the hands that were dropped. Nonetheless, it was an exciting game to watch…

In Big 12 action, TCU pounded the bejeepers out of Texas winning by 6 TDs. After two straight weeks of special teams’ screw-ups, you would think that the Texas special teams units would have been drilled to do what they need to do. And if you thought that, you would have been very wrong. Not that it would have changed the outcome of this rout, but here is what the Texas special teams “accomplished” last week:

Moreover, here is a tidbit from last week’s game that ought to make the Texas fans a bit upset. TCU scheduled Homecoming for the Texas game; schools often schedule homecoming around a football game they expect to win so that the alums who show up can go home feeling good and proud and – hopefully – generous with regard to the university. Texas has been a national champion and a contender for the national championship many times and now they are considered a potential Homecoming opponent. Sic transit gloria mundi…

Baylor and Texas Tech demonstrated that it is possible to play 60 minutes of football without playing defense. The final score was 63-35. You may recall that the Total Line for that game was 88 points (and 88.5 at one Internet sportsbook) when I did last week’s Mythical Picks. I do not recall ever seeing a Total Line that high – and these guys went over that number by 2 scores. Baylor QB, Seth Russell accounted for 6 TDs by himself – running for 2 and throwing 4 TD passes. At halftime, the score was 49-21. At that point, the teams were on pace to score 140 points in the game. They must have gotten exhausted in the second half.

The PAC-12 is inscrutable this year. Arizona St. had lost badly to Texas A&M and then lost to USC; a win for the Sun Devils over Cal-Poly was nothing to write home about. UCLA had been beating up everyone and so, naturally, Arizona St. went to UCLA and beat UCLA. Makes sense, right? Then, last night USC lost a second game to Washington. That sets up a big game this weekend (see below).

UCF lost by 14 points to Tulane last week dropping their record to 0-5. Looking at their schedule, there are not a lot of teams down the line that are significantly weaker than Tulane. They get UConn this week and USF much later this year. Other than that… It is going to be a long year for college football in the Orlando area…

Auburn has tossed D’haquille Williams – a really good WR – off the team. This is not a suspension; he is gone. Auburn has had more than a few problems with its passing offense this year so ditching a talented WR is not something you would expect them to do. Of course the explanation for this move was “violation of team rules”; my suspicion is that it was either a monstrous violation or the accumulation of a load of other violations that got them to this point.

Speaking of suspensions, Missouri QB, Maty Mauk remains suspended for this weekend’s game against Florida. Freshman Drew Lock who started against S. Carolina last week will be under center again this week. Mauk’s suspension is “indefinite”…

I mentioned Tennessee and their problems winning SEC games above. Last week, the program was in the news for a player suspension situation; WR, Pig Howard, was suspended for “violation of team rules”. Not to worry, the Tennessee roster is not devoid of great names even if Pig Howard is not dressed for the game:

Joe Young is a running back; if he runs over a defender, I would give him the nickname “Mighty Joe Young”.

Colton Jumper (linebacker) and Will Jumper (TE) are from the same high school so I assume they are related. But shouldn’t they be on the basketball team?

The Ponderosa Games:

Last week, we had 4 Ponderosa Games and the favorite covered in only 1 of them. That brings the season record for favorites covering to 20-23-0.

Boise St. covered.

Appalachian St,. LSU, and Penn State did not cover.

This week, we again have 4 Ponderosa Games:

Maryland at Ohio St. – 33 (54): Maryland is currently +7000 on the money line. That money line is much lower than I would have expected it to be.

Troy at Mississippi St. – 30.5 (56): Troy is +5500 on the money line. That too is surprisingly low… Mississippi St. has not run the ball well this year; if they cannot run the ball in this game they are probably in deep yogurt against the SEC teams remaining on their schedule.

New Mexico St. at Ole Miss – 45 (66): There have been two very large line moves for this game. The spread opened at 40.5 and has been expanding all week; it could be higher by game time. Meanwhile, the Total Line opened at 71.5 and dropped very quickly to 67 and then has inched down to this level. I mention this only because I cannot imagine there is enough interest in this potential blowout to bring in enough money to move either line that much – let alone both of them. By halftime, I suspect many of the Ole Miss alums will have repaired to their vehicles in the tailgate area to down a cocktail or three.

Baylor – 45 at Kansas (79): The spread opened at 38 and has expanded all week by a full TD. More interesting than the outcome of this game will be to watch how close Baylor comes to taking the game OVER all by themselves.

Games of Interest:

(Fri Nite) NC State at Va Tech – 3 (45.5): Neither team is very good but I just have a sense that the wheels are falling off the wagon at Va Tech to a greater extent than they are at NC State. Tech has 2 wins this year over Furman and Purdue – unimpressive. State has wins over Troy, E. Kentucky, Old Dominion and South Alabama – equally unimpressive. Purely a hunch here; I’ll take NC State plus the points.

Oklahoma – 16.5 vs. Texas (59): [Game is in Dallas] I said above that Oklahoma is as unpredictable as any team this year from week to week but we seem to be able to count on Texas to find ways to embarrass themselves week after week after… That is a lot of points but I think Oklahoma is a lot better than Texas. I’ll take Oklahoma to win and cover.

Indiana at Penn State – 7 (55): Indiana only lost to Ohio St. by 7 last week and Penn State struggled against Army despite being a 25-point favorite. This line looks like a set-up to me. However, I suspect this will be a defensive game; so just for fun, I’ll take the game to stay UNDER.

Duke – 12 at Army (47): Sometimes teams take time to adjust to Army’s options run offense because defenses see it so rarely. However, Duke already saw it against Georgia Tech so they should be prepared for it from the start. Here is a trend stat for those of you who like such things:

Duke is 8-2-1 against the spread in its last 11 games on the road.

I think the Duke offense shows up big here; I like Duke to win and cover on the road.

Illinois at Iowa – 10.5 (46): Both teams won conference games last week as underdogs. If Illinois is going to get any business done on offense, it will probably be by throwing the ball because Iowa has an outstanding run defense. Iowa is not an explosive team, but they are steady. I like Iowa at home to win and cover.

Wake Forest at BC – 7.5 (37): Last week there was a Total Line at 88 and I had never seen one that high. Here the Total Line is similarly minuscule but not the lowest one of the week (see below). I have a feeling that if you like to observe and dissect the nuances of “the punting game”, this is the game for you. No pick here but a prop bet on the OVER/UNDER for number of punts in the game might be interesting…

Arkansas at Alabama – 16 (48): Arkansas likes to run the ball with a power running attack; that is not likely to work well against Alabama. However, I see this game as a defensive game and not a runaway so that is an awfully fat line. Just a hunch, but I’ll take Arkansas with those points.

Washington St. at Oregon – 17 (71): I am surprised by both of these teams this year. Washington St. is better than I thought they would be and Oregon is not as good as I thought they would be. Having said that, I do not see this as a defensive game so I’ll take the game to go OVER.

Georgia – 3 at Tennessee (59.5): The Vols could surely use a win over a good SEC team (see above) and they host Georgia here the week after Alabama disemboweled Georgia at home. Georgia can surely use a win here too; they can still win the SEC East because they still have Florida on the schedule even if no one else can find a way to beat Florida. Neither team has a reliable quarterbacking situation so the comparison here would seem to be the running game and the run defenses. That gives Georgia the edge so I’ll take Georgia and lay the points.

Miami at Florida State – 9 (51): Back in the day, these teams would both be in the Top 5 and this was the game that would set up the winner to be the national champion. Not this year… Miami fans want to fire Coach Al Golden; Florida State is undefeated so far this year but they have only been able to crush Texas State in the manner that FSU fans used to expect. That line looks fat to me so I’ll take Miami plus the points on the road.

Northwestern at Michigan – 7.5 (34): A top-shelf matchup here… That is a stunningly low Total Line for a college or an NFL game but indeed these are two excellent defensive teams and neither one is scary on offense. I can imagine this game ending with a 13-9 score either way; I can also imagine this game getting both teams to 20 points or so. I think that a spread of more than a TD is too big to pass up in this game; I’ll take Northwestern plus the points.

Georgia Tech at Clemson – 7 (54.5): Will Clemson suffer a let-down after beating Notre Dame last week? I think that is the only real question here because Tech has shown that it is “vulnerable” this year. I will not make a pick here because I have a creepy feeling about this game. Clemson might blow Tech out of the stadium by 4 TDs – – or Clemson might “pull a Clemson” and lose outright…

Cal at Utah – 7 (61): Perhaps the best game of the weekend. Cal is 5-0 and Utah is 4-0; raise your hand if you saw that coming back in August. I surely did not. Cal QB, Jared Goff, is getting a lot of publicity as the top QB for next year’s NFL Draft; he needs to be sure that he does not come to believe that those press clippings make him invincible because Utah has a good defense. I like this game to go OVER.

UConn at UCF – 2.5 (39): Here is a team that UCF might actually beat this year (see above). Do not bet on this game and do not bother watching it either. It is interesting here because soon I shall start checking to see what teams belong in the SHOE Tournament…

Florida – 3.5 at Missouri (40): Florida beat Ole Miss last week in a big game in Gainesville. This is a young team and now they go on the road with potentially swelled heads. Missouri has a good defense but will be without starting QB, Maty Mauk (see above). I like Florida to win and cover even on the road here and with it being Homecoming Weekend for Missouri.

Syracuse at USF – 2 (47.5): Short and simple here… Syracuse is not very good on the road and out of their dome. USF is not very good anywhere. I have no idea where 48 points will come from so I like the game to stay UNDER.

TCU – 10 at Kansas State (63): Short and simple here… I think both teams will be able to score on the opponents’ defenses. This is the best opponent either team has seen all season. I like this game to go OVER.

Iowa St. at Texas Tech – 10 (73): Tech’s offense has shown that it can score points in bundles; State’s defense does not seem to be able to throttle that back. Tech’s defense has not shut down anyone recently. I like this game to go OVER.

Michigan St. – 13.5 at Rutgers (54.5): Why is the spread here so low? Is it because Rutgers had last week off to prep for this game? Big deal. Is it because folks think State will ignore this opponent because Michigan is up next? Possibly. I do not know if Michigan St. is indeed a Top 5 team as it has been in the polls all season long, but I do know that Rutgers is a hot mess. I’ll take Michigan St. to win and cover here purely because they are the much better team.

Wisconsin at Nebraska – 1.5 (49): Both teams lost last week as solid favorites. However, Wisconsin lost to a better team (Iowa) than Nebraska did (Illinois). I’ll take Wisconsin plus the points here.

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend of 10/3/15

Last week’s Mythical Picks were not mythically profitable at 6-7-2 but it was hardly the worst weekend ever for college Mythical Picks. Overall for the season, the record now stands at 27-27-3. That record reminds me of a comment made by Gene Mauch when he was the manager of the Phillies back in the dearly 1960s. After splitting a Sunday doubleheader – millennials can Google this term to find out what they were – a reporter asked him something along the lines of how he felt about the split. Mauch replied something like this:

It is sort of like kissing your sister through a screen door.

The “Best Pick” from last week taking the Mississippi State/Auburn game UNDER 58 and seeing it end with only 26 points on the board. The “Worst Pick” from last week has two entries:

Then, on Saturday, I took Oregon to beat Utah by 11 or more. Well, Oregon lost that game and it was not close; Oregon lost by 42 to Utah and the score reflected the way the game ought to have turned out. So. I was off by 53.5 points in the game meaning it was even worse than the Friday nite embarrassment.

No one ought to consider any of the information here as sufficiently authoritative such that one would consider it as a basis for making a real wager involving real money on a college football game this weekend.

Anyone stupid enough to do that also thinks that ambassadors do not get sick because they have diplomatic immunity.

General Comments:

I must apologize; I misspoke last week. Linfield had the week off and did not visit Lewis and Clark in Portland last week. Instead, they will play that game this weekend. Linfield’s record remains at 2-0 as they embark on their conference schedule for the season and as they continue to keep alive their streak of winning seasons in football that started back in 1956.

Finlandia did indeed play its scheduled game against Wisconsin-Stevens Point. In keeping with the disastrous season for the Finlandia Lions they lost the game; moreover they lost big. The score was 77-6. That means that Finlandia now has a record of 0-4 and the cumulative score against them is 272-9.

I happened upon Finlandia because someone chided me for reveling in the success of Linfield and my search for a team at the other end of the stick was brief and ended as soon as I found Finlandia. I did not do any research other than the current record early in this season and so I did not notice the twist in the schedule for Finlandia that begins this week:

Moreover, Finlandia and Maranatha will meet again this year on October 31. That is correct; these teams will play on Halloween; you cannot make this kind of stuff up. In any event, this provides at least two chances for Finlandia to win a game over a disastrously bad opponent – – just as it provides the same pair of opportunities for Maranatha. I will have to track the fate of the loser in this week’s contest…

Dabo Sweeney – head coach at Clemson – said in a press conference this week that he fills out his coaches’ poll ballot every week and he thinks it is a meaningless exercise this early in the season. Kudos to Dabo Sweeney for candor!!!

Oh, by the way, any coach who did not give Utah a vote in the Top Ten this week – irrespective of whether or not Utah is going to be one of the 10 best teams in the country come December – should have his voting privileges revoked. If coaches are going to do this kind of nonsense, they ought to spend enough time and energy to check the realities of the season and not merely the reputations of the schools on the ballots.

Utah’s defense is excellent. In the opening game of the year they completely stifled Michigan and the Wolverines have gone on to win their last three games convincingly. Last week, Utah shut down Oregon – a team that normally thinks scoring only 45 points in a game is a bad day at the office. Oregon only gained a smidge over 5 yards per snap; often they average over 11 yards per snap. Utah’s defensive line can play the run and it can pressure the QB. The Utes will be a tough out for opponents this season.

Utah won the game 62-20; it was an old fashioned ass-kicking. In the second quarter, Utah led 20-13 and it was still a game. From that point until the middle of the 4thquarter, Utah ran off 42 straight points before Oregon scored a meaningless TD at the end.

In another PAC-12 game, UCLA dominated Arizona and won by 26 points. I thought that UCLA freshman QB, Josh Rosen, might be uncomfortable with his first real road game against a real opponent with really rabid fans in the stands. The verdict is in:

UCLA scored 42 points in the first half.

Speaking of Michigan above, the Wolverines shut out BYU last week 31-0. The Michigan defense held BYU to 50 yards rushing and 55 yards passing for the game. Before your disregard that accomplishment by Michigan, consider that BYU had beaten Nebraska and Boise St. and lost to UCLA by a single point coming into that game. Yes, the game was in Ann Arbor, but nonetheless…

Arkansas lost to Texas A&M by 7 points in OT last week. If I have counted correctly, that means that Arkansas teams under Bret Bielema are now 0-11 in games decided by 10 points or less. Just to be clear, that is not a good thing… Consider these stats:

Arkansas held the ball for more than 40 minutes.

Arkansas still managed to lose the game.

LSU beat Syracuse by 10 points in Syracuse. The Orange played tough throughout the game but they really did not have an answer for Leonard Fournette who gained 244 yards and scored 2 TDs in the game. Zack Mahoney started at QB for Syracuse. If you do not recognize the name, you can be excused because back in the days of Spring Practice, Mahoney was listed at #5 on the QB depth chart. He threw 3 TD passes in the game which is more than adequate for a “fifth-stringer”…

Florida beat Tennessee 28-27. The story of the game is not how close the score was; the story here is that Tennessee had a 13-point lead in the 4th quarter and managed to lose the game. That happened to Tennessee earlier this year against Oklahoma when the Vols blew another double-digit lead to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. Last week, Florida came up with a 63-yard pass play in the final two minutes to take the lead and hold on for the win.

At kickoff time last week, Missouri was ranked #25 in the country in those less-than-meaningful polls. They traveled to Kentucky – hardly a traditional football powerhouse – and managed to lose the game 21-13. So, I hear some of you saying that Kentucky is a pretty good defensive team and this ought not to be so embarrassing. Well, it might not be except for the fact that Mizzou managed to score a grand total of 9 points against UConn just two weeks ago. All three of UConn’s other opponents scored more than 9 points this year and those three juggernauts were :

Missouri carries a 3-1 record so far this year but the upcoming SEC schedule will provide a higher level of competition than the Tigers have seen fit to schedule so far. Florida, Georgia, Mississippi St and BYU – along with other SEC opponents await Mizzou…

Bowling Green beat Purdue 35-28. That is the second win of the year for Bowling Green over a Big 10 team; they beat Maryland earlier in the season. Bowling Green is one of those teams that plays offense at a frenetic pace; they ran off 92 plays last week; they were 11-16 on third down conversions and they gained 39 first downs in the game. Bowling Green loves to throw the football; the passing stat line for the game was 43-59 with 1 INT producing 402 yards though the air.

Maryland could not handle the pace of Bowling Green earlier this year; last week, they faced West Virginia who also plays the game at breakneck speed. The Terps lost to the Mountaineers by 45-6. This appears to be a bad omen for Maryland. If any of the “lower-tier” Big 10 teams can play at such a pace, the Terps could be in trouble because you can be sure that the “top-tier” Big 10 teams are going to play smash-mouth football against the Terps and beat them with that style of play.

TCU and Texas Tech played what is coming to be known as a “Typical Big 12 Game”; the final score was TCU 55 and Texas Tech 52. TCU caught a tipped pass in the end zone in the final minute of the game to come from behind and win the game. The two teams combined to produce 107 points, 70 first downs, 187 offensive plays and 1357 yards of offense. About 50 years ago, Jerry Lee Lewis sang:

Whole lot of shakin’ going on…

It is safe to say that in the TCU/Texas game:

Not a whole lot of tacklin’ going on…

For Texas last week it was déjà vu; special teams undid the Longhorns for the second week in a row; Texas lost its last two games by a total of 4 points. Two weeks ago, Texas lost when they missed an extra point that would have tied the game in the final moments. Last week with the score tied, the punter flubbed the snap from center and could only get off a kick that reached the original line of scrimmage around the Texas 25 yardline late in the 4th quarter. From there Oklahoma State kicked a game-winning field goal with less than 10 seconds left to produce yet one more stain on the Longhorns’ record for the season. Let me put this in perspective for you:

The last time Texas started 1-3 was back in 1956.

Kansas State must be recruiting their football players with an eye toward having them bond together and share in the same major. Consider:

Potential forestry majors include OL Will Ash and DL Tanner Wood.

The Ponderosa Games:

Last week, the favorites in Ponderosa Games covered in 4 of the 9 contests. That brings the cumulative record for favorites covering in Ponderosa Games to 19-20-0.

Baylor, Iowa, Notre Dame and Wisconsin covered.

Alabama, LSU, Michigan St. Mississippi and Ohio State did not cover.

This week, we have only 4 Ponderosa Games;

Army at Penn State – 25 (47.5): These teams last played each other in 1979. Notwithstanding the lack of any semblance of a “traditional rivalry”, I read a report that said the game was sold out and the crowd in State College was expected to be 107,000.

Wyoming at Appalachian St – 25 (53.5): I do not recall ever seeing Appalachian St. as a Ponderosa favorite.

Hawaii at Boise St. – 24.5 (53.5): The weather forecast for Boise this Saturday is partly sunny with a high of 71 degrees. Better for Hawaii to be there for a game in September than in the last week of November…

E. Michigan at LSU – 44.5 (59.5): Here are the money line odds for this game:

Enjoy the game…

Games of Interest:

(Fri Nite) Temple – 22 at UNC-Charlotte (44): My first reaction here was surprise that Temple was a 22-point favorite over any other Div 1-A school. Then I recognized that this is UNC-Charlotte’s first year as a Div 1-A school and that Temple had already beaten Penn state and Cincy this year. I am not happy about taking Temple on the road with that big a spread so I’ll just take the game to go OVER.

(Fri Nite) UConn at BYU – 18.5 (44): After starting the season with Nebraska, Boise St. UCLA and Michigan and splitting that strong quartet, BYU gets a softer opponent to come to their house. The question is if the team can get up for this game or if it will take the outcome for granted. With E. Carolina coming up on the schedule next, there is not a lot of reason to look ahead to a tough opponent next week. I’ll take BYU at home and lay the points.

UNC at Georgia Tech – 7.5 (62): The spread here opened the week at 10 points but it has settled here for the last couple of days. UNC is a yo-yo team; Georgia Tech is a one-trick pony. My guess is that one of these teams is going to make that spread look silly – but I have no idea which one. I will watch the game to see the outcome with the hope of learning something for a game down the line but no pick is coming here.

Bowling Green – 8 at Buffalo (68): If a pair of lower-tier Big 10 teams cannot stop Bowling Green, why should I think Buffalo can. This is the University of Buffalo not the Buffalo Bills. I’ll take Bowling Green and lay the points.

Kansas at Iowa St – 16 (59): Iowa State is not a good football team and I am not trying to say that it is. Nevertheless, I think Kansas is potentially a truly awful team and they are on the road here. I will take Iowa St. at home and lay the points.

Minnesota at Northwestern – 4 (40): Minnesota has a good defense and so does Northwestern. Neither team has an offense that will strike fear into the heart of an opposing defensive coordinator. This game should be very low scoring (as the Total Line would indicate) and so, I’ll take Minnesota plus the points.

West Virginia at Oklahoma – 7 (58.5): I think West Virginia can score points here and I do not think that West Virginia can hold the OU offense in check and off the board. I like this game to go OVER.

Iowa at Wisconsin – 7 (46): Here is the game within the game:

In 4 games Iowa has only given up a total of 336 yards on the ground. That sounds really good until I tell you that in 4 games, Wisconsin has only given up a total of 331 yards on the ground. I think this is a game where two teams try to bludgeon each other into submission and neither is going to succeed. In a low scoring game, I’ll take Iowa plus the points.

Mississippi St. at Texas A&M – 7 (61.5): The Total Line for this game opened the week at 56.5 but spent very little time at that level. I know that the Aggies can move the ball and score but I also have seen Mississippi St. hold LSU’s offense in check. I like Mississippi St. plus the points here and I like the game to stay UNDER.

Kansas St. at Oklahoma St – 8 (49): This may not be the best Kansas State team Bill Snyder ever put on the field, but I am not all that enamored by Oklahoma St. either. That line looks fat to me so I’ll take Kansas St. plus the points.

Arizona St at UCLA – 13.5 (60): Arizona St. had enough talent that many folks had them as a dark horse to win the South Division of the PAC-12. They have not played that way so far – but if the talent was there I guess it is still there. I will not make a pick here but I will watch the outcome here to see if Arizona St. is a team worthy of backing somewhere down the line.

Arizona at Stanford – 14 (63.5): Arizona may not be a great team, but it is a competent team. I do not trust the Stanford offense to score enough to cover 2 full TDs against a competent team. I’ll take Arizona plus the points here.

Texas at TCU – 14.5 (71): I think TCU can score points on anybody and I am not confident that Texas can score a lot on the TCU defense – even though TCU has injury problems there. I like TCU at home to win and cover.

Air Force at Navy – 5 (51): There will be no malingerers on the field in this game. More than likely, this game will go down to the wire so I am not inclined to guess which team will do whatever near the end to determine the outcome. Rather, I think that these guys will both be successful on offense and so I’ll take the game to go OVER.

Alabama at Georgia – 2 (55): Alabama is an underdog for the first time in 73 games. The last time Alabama got points was in the 2009 SEC Championship Game against Florida. This will one of the top 3 games of the weekend. Georgia features Nick Chubb running the ball; after you finish talking about Leonard Fourchette at LSU, the next RB you want to rave about is Nick Chubb. Simple question:

Can the Alabama defense hold Chubb in check?

My guess is that they can and in so doing the Alabama defense will keep the game UNDER. My pick here is UNDER.

Mississippi – 7 at Florida (52): This should be a great game and it is an important game within the SEC. Neither team has a loss this year. Florida has beaten SEC foes Kentucky and Tennessee by a total of 5 points; the Gators know what it means to be in a close game down to the end. Ole Miss has beaten Alabama by 6 points and has toyed with its other 3 opponents. Florida has a good defense and a mediocre offense so I’ll take this game to stay UNDER.

Texas Tech at Baylor – 17 (88): Tech stayed within a field goal of TCU last week and they are a three score dog here. That has to mean that most folks think that Tech left everything on the field last week and have nothing left for this game. The Total Line opened here at 85.5 and has risen slowly to this level. I think that any “great defensive play” that occurs in this game will be an accident. I will just watch this game and see of Texas Tech can take the Total over 100 points for a second week in a row…

Oregon – 7 at Colorado (70): I know that Oregon got waxed last week by Utah and the game was in Eugene. Moreover, I know that this game is in Boulder. However, please to not confuse Colorado with Utah. Also, know that Oregon has beaten Colorado by 30 or more points in each of the last 4 seasons no matter the venue. Assuming that the entire Oregon squad is not comatose at kickoff time, I think Oregon rolls here. I’ll take Oregon to win and cover on the road.

Washington St. at Cal – 19 (70): Cal can score points here; they put 46 on the board against Texas. Washington St should score here too because Cal’s defense is not exactly potent. I’ll take this game will go OVER – and it would not shock me to see it go OVER by the end of the 3rd quarter.

Vanderbilt at Middle Tennessee St – 2 (50): I do not understand this line at all. Vandy has played Mississippi and Georgia this year; while they did not win either game, they kept it close and made the other guys work for the win. Here they play Middle Tennessee St. and they are the underdog? Here is a golden rule of sports wagering:

Oddsmakers do not play favorites and oddsmakers do not have their heads up their asses.

Because that line is so confusing to me, I will simply pass on it and move on…

South Carolina at Missouri – 2 (41): Here are two hugely disappointing teams so far in 2015. S. Carolina lost its QB to injury; Missouri will go to its backup QB due to a suspension for the starter. Both teams have already lost to Kentucky this year. Totally as a venue call, I’ll take Mizzou and lay the points at home.

Arkansas at Tennessee – 6.5 (56): This game is interesting only to see which team will find a way to lose in the final minutes. Instead of betting the game, take your money and go put it all on “BLACK” for a spin of the roulette wheel.

Notre Dame at Clemson “pick ‘em” (54): Here is the last of the top 3 games of the weekend. The oddsmaker wants me to just pick the winner here. OK, I think Notre Dame is the better team so I’ll take Notre Dame to win here. Plain and simple…

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 9/26/15

Last week’s Mythical Picks were decidedly in the red – mythically of course. The record for last week was a miserable 5-9-1 bringing the cumulative record for the year to 21-20-1. Those are not inspiring results so far this year – but it better than sitting on a sharp nail. The best pick last week was taking Stanford +9.5 and seeing Stanford beat USC straight up. The worst pick of the week was taking Cal/Texas to stay UNDER 58.5; the teams had 48 at halftime and looked on course to break 90; they slowed down in the second half and the total score was only 89.

Obviously no one would read that last paragraph and think that these picks provide a path to fame and fortune. Indeed no one ought to even consider using any information here as the basis for making a real wager involving real money on a real college football game this weekend – or any other weekend for that matter. Here is how dumb one would have to be to do that:

It would take you 2 hours to watch 60 Minutes.

General Comments:

The Linfield College Wildcats extended their record to 2-0 last weekend in their quest to keep their streak of winning seasons alive. They beat the University of the Redlands 44-7 and begin their Northwest Conference schedule this week. They take a very short trip to Portland, OR to take on Lewis and Clark College. The Pioneers bring an 0-2 record to the game having lost to Claremont College and Pomona-Pitzer. Go Wildcats!

A neighbor who reads Mythical Picks in the Fall told me that he thought it was incongruous for a curmudgeon to revel in the successes of Linfield’s football program without some concurrent following of some obscure team’s utter futility. He has a point there. So, I went searching around and latched onto Division III Finlandia University. In parallel with Linfield, I have no affiliation with the school and know next to nothing about it academically or athletically. Here is what I did find, however:

This week Finlandia hosts the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point up in the far reaches of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Go Lions!

The folks who brew Guinness and publish the Guinness Book of Records have hit upon a fantastic way to advertise their product at minimal cost to the company. People all over the world with way too much time on their hands go to great measures to get themselves and/or herds of their compatriots into that book. The Guinness folks “certify” the record and that gets the story into hundreds of outlets around the world. What a scam those folks are pulling on us; I would call them despicable scoundrels if they did not brew such a good beer.

Fans of Mississippi State football recently got together to “set a record” thereby giving Guinness some more free advertising. They set a record for “Most People Ringing Cowbells Simultaneously”. The previous record had been 640 bell ringers set somewhere in Switzerland; now that record stands at 5,748. I know you want to have all the details on this monumental achievement, so here is a link.

There is another intersection between college football news and beer this week. I will simply cite Dwight Perry’s item from the Seattle Times for you here:

“TCU defensive end Mike Tuaua and backup wide receiver Andre Petties-Wilson were arrested in Fort Worth on suspicion of accosting a fellow student and stealing his case of Keystone Light.

“They face charges of robbery, bodily injury and questionable taste in beer.”

Up until last weekend, Ole Miss had never beaten Alabama two years in a row. They have now. I heard one of the folks on sports radio saying that this indicated that Alabama was following the same downward path as Notre Dame as an “old-line football power” and that new schools were about to emerge as power programs. He may be right; but I think he is overstating the situation.

First of all, Notre Dame is pretty good this year; they had a few “down years” but they seem to be getting their fair share of football players year over year. Secondly, I think that what this shows is that there are more schools out there that are highly competitive with the traditional top-shelf programs. Rather than indicating a violent shift in the college football hierarchy, I think this points toward more parity in college football and a large part of that parity comes from the reduction in the number of scholarships that schools can give out. Today, there are fewer “blue chip” players riding the bench at the top schools because they are now out there playing for other schools. In fact, I think the rest of the SEC has caught up with Alabama and LSU to the point that when one of them loses a game it is not necessarily a “headline event”.

I mentioned above that my best pick of the week was taking Stanford plus a passel of points and seeing them beat USC straight up. Much has been made of the pressure on Texas coach Charlie Strong and Arkansas coach, Bret Bielema this week. Frankly, I think some of the microscopic attention ought to turn itself to Steve Sarkisian. After embarrassing himself and the school with his “impaired performance” at a booster rally, the team has not looked anything like the shoo-in champion of the PAC-12 (as more than a few folks predicted) nor as a strong contender to be in the Playoff Championship Game (as some predicted). Clearly, it is too early to write USC off, but they really looked ordinary against a Stanford team that lost badly to Northwestern earlier this month.

In its first season as a Division 1-A football program, UNC-Charlotte had won its first two games. Last week they encountered Middle Tennessee State – never to be confused with Alabama, Notre Dame or Ohio State – and lost that game by a score of 73-14. Welcome to Division 1-A…

Texas Tech beat Arkansas last week – at Arkansas no less – by 11 points and then coaches Kliff Kingsbury and Bret Bielema got into a spitting contest that matters not at all. What does matter is that Arkansas has now lost 2 home games in a row to Toledo (!!) and Texas Tech (!). Bielema is a large man with an outsized persona; perhaps he is the Rex Ryan of college football?

Speaking of teams losing badly, how about UCF? Last week, they lost to Division 1-AA Furman; the last time Furman beat a Division 1-A team was in 1999; just a week before the UCF game, Furman lost to Va Tech 42-3. UCF is now 0-3 on the season having also lost to FIU earlier this year. There are reports that George O’Leary wants to get out of the coaching business and take over as UCF Athletic Director. He may get out of the coaching business for other reasons if the team continues to lose games like this. Two years ago, UCF played in the Fiesta Bowl; that is a major game not an irrelevant game. Now, two years later, you have this kind of a team on the field…?

Georgia waxed South Carolina 52-20 last week. It looks as if it will be a loooong season for Gamecock fans. Georgia running back, Nick Chubb ran for 159 yards and 2 TDs in the game last week.

Navy beat E. Carolina last week by 24 points. Unless Navy is REALLY good this year, it may be that ECU is in for a long season also. They do have a win on their record this year over Division 1-AA Towson and they still have Va Tech and BYU on the schedule.

Idaho won a football game last week. Playing at home, they beat Division 1-AA Wofford by 3 points. If that is their only win for the year, they will be in the SHOE Tournament. By the way, Wofford College is in Spartanburg, SC; how much did they have to get paid to take that jaunt across the entire country to beautiful downtown Moscow, ID?

LSU played characteristically well beating Auburn last week 45-21. Going into the game, I did not think LSU could score 45 points nor that Auburn could give up 45 points; I was very wrong. Running back Leonard Fournette gained 228 yards and scored 3 times. He is very big and very fast; absent a traumatic injury, he will be playing Sunday football down the line.

From the same game, it surely appears as if the pre-season hype for Auburn QB, Jeremy Johnson was just that – – hype. Against LSU, Johnson was 11-19 for 100 yards. Word is that he will not start this week…

Missouri had a bad day at the office last week even though they won the game. Playing at home against UConn, Mizzou only won by a score of 9-6. Moreover, UConn had a chance to tie the game at the end with a field goal but UConn set up with a fake field goal that was telegraphed so badly that it looked as if the entire Missouri defense knew it was a fake and where the fake play was going. The pass play was into tight triple coverage and resulted in an INT that sealed the game. Nonetheless, this is an embarrassing result for a team in the SEC West at home against a mediocre-at-best program.

Ohio State beat Northern Illinois by a measly 7 points last week. That result ought to indicate 2 things:

2. Northern Illinois should have gotten at least a few votes as the #2 team in the country from voters who only check the scores of the games and the stats after the fact.

In addition to holding Ohio State under 300 yards of total offense, Northern Illinois got 5 turnovers in the game. That is why the game stayed as close as it did; even with 5 turnovers, Northern Illinois only scored 7 points in the game. This week, Ohio State faces another MAC team and then the Big 10 season starts. I do not want that to sound too ominous because the first six Big 10 teams on Ohio State’s schedule are not particularly fearsome:

That takes Ohio State thru 14 November and if they are indeed the best team in the country, they should be undefeated at that point. Then their season starts in earnest on 21 November hosting Michigan State that weekend followed by a game at Michigan the next weekend.

Temple beat UMass by 2 points last week. The margin of victory came via a blocked extra point that Temple returned all the way to the other end zone for 2 points. That brought Temple to within 1 point of UMass and a very late field goal sealed the win. Temple is now 3-0 on the season.

Kansas State beat La Tech 39-33. The surprise here was the margin of victory (K-State was a 10-point favorite) plus the fact that it took 3 OTs to get the win.

Florida State beat BC 14-0. This was a result of good defense by Florida State and rather inept offense from BC. It seemed as if BC had “second and long” just about all the time.

UCLA beat BYU 24-23 even on a day when freshman phenom QB, Josh Rosen, had a bad game. Rosen was 11-23 for 106 yards and 3 INTs in the game. Nevertheless, UCLAQ found a way to win… Brad Rock juxtaposed Rosen with BYU freshman QB, Tanner Mangum with this comment in the Deseret News:

“UCLA QB Josh Rosen is 18 and BYU’s Tanner Mangum 22, but both are true freshmen.

“Nobody noticed the age difference, last week, until Rosen pulled out his iPhone and Mangum said, ‘Hey, nice Walkman.’”

Miami beat Nebraska 36-33 in OT. The game ended when Miami DB, Corn Elder intercepted a Miami pass. Indeed, the Cornhuskers lost the game when a guy named Corn intercepted a pass. Karma…

Ponderosa Games:

For the first two weeks of the season, the favorites covered an inordinate percentage of the spreads in these games. Last week, the favorites “regressed to the mean. Last week, there were 12 Ponderosa Games and only 1 favorite covered. The record last week was 1-11-0 bringing the season cumulative record to 15-15-0 for favorites covering spreads here.

Oklahoma State covered.

Arizona St, Michigan, Michigan St, Minnesota, Ohio St, Oklahoma, Oregon, TCU, Texas A&M, Washington St and Wisconsin failed to cover.

This week, we have 9 Ponderosa Games:

C. Michigan at Michigan St – 26.5 (54): Games between a “directional school” and a “state school” are often Ponderosa Games.

W. Michigan at Ohio St – 31.5 (61): If W. Michigan gets 5 turnovers from Ohio St. as N. Illinois did last week, they can keep the game close.

[Aside: If you are wondering why E. Michigan is not a Ponderosa underdog, it is because E. Michigan is playing Army this week.]

Vandy at Ole Miss – 24.5 (54): The Total Line for this game opened at 59 and dropped to this level very quickly.

N. Texas at Iowa – 25 (54.5): Iowa is a Ponderosa favorite?

Rice at Baylor – 34.5 (75): This will be ugly.

LSU – 24 at Syracuse (47): The majority of Ponderosa favorites are home teams; LSU is a Ponderosa favorite on the road here.

UMass at Notre Dame – 29 (59): Maybe the Pope needs to say a mass for UMass here?

La-Monroe at Alabama – 38 (58): Do you think Nick Saban worked the team a bit harder than usual this week?

Hawaii at Wisconsin – 24.5 (50.5): That is a long way to fly to take a beating…

Games of Interest:

(Fri Nite) Boise St. – 2.5 at UVa (49): The Total Line here opened at 55.5 and dropped to this level very quickly. This probably reflects the fact that Boise St. will have to play without their starting QB here plus the fact that UVa has not exactly been an offensive juggernaut this year. I will make this a pure venue call and take UVA plus the points.

(Fri Nite) Stanford – 15.5 at Oregon St. (44.5): Stanford has to suffer at least a small letdown after beating USC on the road last week, no? On the other hand, Oregon St. looked awfully meek when they played Michigan earlier this year. I think the line is fat so I will take Oregon St. plus the points.

BYU at Michigan – 6.5 (44.5): BYU is not in a conference so they get to schedule all of their games without the restrictions that a conference imposes. You cannot accuse the folks there of scheduling only patsies. They have already played UCLA and Nebraska and hoof it all the way to Ann Arbor for this game. Both teams have better defenses than offenses so I see a low scoring game. I’ll take BYU plus the points here.

Missouri at Kentucky – 2.5 (45): Neither team has an offense that scares anyone. I am surprised to see Kentucky favored in a conference game and after UConn held Missouri to 9 points last week, there is no way I would take Mizzou on the road with that few points. Therefore, I will take the game to stay UNDER.

Navy – 7 at UConn (47): Perhaps this game will give an indication of how good Navy might be this year and/or how good UConn might be this year. No wagering interest hear at all, but the game is worth some attention.

Bowling Green – 2.5 at Purdue (75): This line opened with Purdue as a 2-point favorite but the movement has been toward Bowling Green all week. On the road at Maryland a couple of weeks ago, Bowling Green scored 48 points; last week Purdue gave up 51 points to Va Tech. I know that Bowling Green’s defense is nothing to write home about, but I like them to win here by wearing Purdue down. I’ll take Bowling Green on the road and lay the points.

Kansas at Rutgers – 14 (65): Kansas just stinks. Rutgers has coaches suspended and a half-dozen players either kicked off the team or in jail or both. This game is as attractive as a landfill site. Do not wager on this game; do not watch this game. Merely marvel at the fact that Rutgers can be a 2 TD favorite here; how bad must Kansas be?

Ga Tech – 7 at Duke (56): Notre Dame put the brakes on the Ga Tech option offense and forced Tech to throw the ball way more than they wanted to. Can Duke do something similar? Probably not. Nevertheless, this is a game between two good ACC teams and the rivalry had to have heated up last year when Duke beat Ga Tech in Atlanta. Purely a hunch here, but I like Duke at home plus a TD’s worth of points.

Texas A&M – 7 vs. Arkansas (58) Game is in Arlington, TX: Arkansas has lost two consecutive home games (one was in Little Rock) to Toledo and to Texas Tech. Texas A&M is a better squad than either of those teams and while this is a neutral site game, there are likely to be plenty of Aggie fans in attendance. I like Texas A&M to win and cover here.

Tennessee – 1.5 at Florida (48): Florida opened as a 2-point favorite here; the Total Line opened at 53.5. Neither team is great on offense but it appears as if Florida has the better defense. This is completely a venue call; I’ll take Florida plus the points.

Mississippi St. at Auburn – 3 (58): Auburn has changed QBs; is that going to be a plus for the team against a good Mississippi St defense? Miss. St has Dak Prescott at QB and he has good games and bad games seemingly with no pattern. I think this will be a defensive game so I’ll take the game to stay UNDER.

TCU – 6 at Texas Tech (80): Yes, you read the Total Line correctly; believe it or not, it started the week higher at 81. The team that has the ball last is likely the winner here because neither defense is outstanding and both units will be tired in the 4th quarter. No pick here, but keep your eyes on the crawl at the bottom of your TV screen for a lot of “Score Alerts” here.

Utah at Oregon – 11.5 (64.5): Utah wins when their defense dictates the pace of the game and the field position; Oregon wins when it overwhelms the opposition with speed and quick strikes. Here are a couple of trend angles for the game:

Since the start of last year, Utah is 5-1 against the spread as an underdog. They are the underdog here.

Forget the trends, I think Oregon is too fast for Utah to contain for 60 minutes. I’ll take Oregon and lay the points.

Northern Illinois at BC – 4.5 (47): Last week, Northern Illinois lost to Ohio State by 7 points while BC was shut out by Florida State (see above). The spread here suggests a significant offensive rebound for BC and that Northern Illinois left all of itself on the field against Ohio State. I think this will be a low scoring affair and so I’ll take N. Illinois plus the points.

Oklahoma St. – 3 at Texas (59): Last week, Ok.St. beat up on Texas-San Antonio; this week they get just plain Texas. The Longhorns have had plenty of problems this year but they have a decent defense and they are getting points at home. Purely a venue call; I’ll take Texas plus the points.

USC – 5.5 at Arizona St (61): USC played poorly on defense against Stanford last week. Arizona St. wins by outscoring the other guys. I do not see a lot of “three-and-outs” happening here. I like the game to go OVER.

UCLA – 3 at Arizona (66): This may the best game of the weekend. This will be the first real road game for UCLA freshman QB, Josh Rosen, so I expect him to play a tad below his level in the game. UCLA’s defense ought to keep Arizona from running wild too. I like the game to stay UNDER.

Cal – 3 at Washington (60): I am not impressed by either defense here and both teams have shown they can score points on offense. Therefore, I like the game to go OVER.

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

Mythical Picks – NCAA – Weekend Of 9/19/15

Last week’s college Mythical Picks were successful in terms that they showed a mythical profit for the week. The record was 9-6-0 for the week bringing the season record to 16-11-0. The “Best Mythical Pick” was taking BYU and getting points as BYU went out and won the game outright – on another final minute TD pass. The “Worst Mythical Pick” was taking Oregon State +15 and seeing them get their doors blown off.

The “winning record” for last week and for the season to date might tempt someone to think that there is a degree of wisdom and insight contained herein that simply does not exist. No one should use anything here as the basis for making an actual bet on an actual college football game involving actual money. Here is how stupid you would have to be if you did that:

You put clocks under your desk in order to work overtime.

General Comments:

Last Saturday, Linfield College began its Division 3 football season. I track their season here because the last time Linfield had a losing season in football was in 1956. Division 3 teams play a 9-game regular season followed by a championship tournament in December for those teams that qualify. Last week, Linfield defeated Chapman 52-14 to start the 2015 season at 1-0. This week, Linfield hosts Redlands in their final out-of-conference game before they meet 7 consecutive Northwest Conference foes to fill out their season. Go Wildcats!

Going into last weekend, all 7 teams in the SEC West were ranked in the Top 25. Auburn, Arkansas and Missouri did not play like Top 25 teams last week:

Arkansas lost to Toledo 16-12. Toledo is a MAC team and no one will confuse Toledo with a Top 25 team come December. Arkansas was a 21.5-point favorite and the game was played in Little Rock. While Arksansas dominated the stat sheet and held the ball for almost 38 minutes, they continued to find ways not to score points. One 73-yard drive involved 21 offensive plays and took more than 10 minutes off the clock and resulted in a field goal. Arkansas outgained Toledo 515 yards to 318 yards and still lost.

Missouri managed to beat a less-than-fearsome Arkansas St. by all of 7 points.

In another SEC West game, LSU beat Mississippi St. 21-19. I watched most of this game and the thing you need to know here is that both of these teams can play very good defense!

Meanwhile, Ole Miss has been beating up on patsies and is averaging 74.5 points per game. This week, the Rebels are on the road against Alabama. I will go out on a limb here and suggest that they will not score 70+ against Alabama…

Over in the SEC East, South Carolina may be in trouble this year. Last week, the Gamecocks lost at home to Kentucky 26-22 snapping a 20-game road losing streak for Kentucky. Added to that, starting QB, Connor Mitch separated his shoulder and might be out for the rest of the season. Next up for South Carolina is a visit to Georgia this weekend and Georgia is a good team as usual.

Florida St. beat USF 34-14 last week. That is not so surprising but what is surprising is that the game was tied 7-7 at the half.

Washington St. beat Rutgers 37-34 last week. In last week’s Mythical Picks, I took this game to stay UNDER 63. At halftime Washington St. led 13-6 and after 3 quarters they led 20-12. Seemed as if that Mythical Pick was in the bag… Then the teams combined to score 39 points in the 4th quarter to take the game OVER. Arrrgh…!

BYU beat Boise St. 35-24 but this was not an easy victory for BYU. Taylor Mangum is the freshman QB for BYU who threw the Hail Mary to beat Nebraska in Week 1. Well he threw a TD pass with about a minute to go in this game to give BYU a 28-24 lead. Then on the next possession by Boise St., BYU intercepted a pass leading to an insurance score. That is not a bad way for a freshman to start his college career…

Notre Dame rallied to beat UVa last week but lost its starting QB, Malik Zaire for the season with a broken ankle. Reserve QB, DeShone Kizer took over and threw a late TD pass to win the game for the Irish. Kizer will get his first start this week against Georgia Tech and that gives Notre Dame two important practice objectives this week:

Get ready to stop Georgia Tech’s option running attack.

Oklahoma fell behind Tennessee 17-0 at Tennessee. Then OU woke up and rallied to tie the game and send it to OT and the Sooners won 31-24 in double OT. That has to be a downer for Tennessee…

Bowling Green beat Maryland 48-27 last week. Maryland led at halftime 13-6 and things got “offensive” in the second half. Here are some notes about the game:

Bowling Green ran 105 offensive plays for a total of 692 yards of offense. Talk about a frenetic pace; these guys would put Chip Kelly and his offense to shame.

Maryland ran off 59 offensive plays for 341 yards.

The total number of offensive plays was 164. A typical NFL game will feature 120-130 offensive plays.

Wisconsin beat Miami (Ohio) 58-0. Last week in discussing the Ponderosa Games for the week, I said I was tempted to take the game OVER 53 because I thought Wisconsin might be angry after losing its opener to Alabama and might go over the Total Line by itself. I did not take the OVER but indeed Wisconsin took the game OVER all by itself…

Temple beat Cincy 34-26. Going into the season, more than a few folks thought Cincy would be one of the teams to beat in the American Athletic Conference. Temple is now 2-0 with wins over Penn State and Cincy. This may be an up year for Temple football but I offer a cautionary note here having seen parts of both Temple games:

Temple’s defense has stopped two teams that did not look organized on offense at all. Maybe it was the defense that made that happen – or maybe these are two not-very-good offensive teams.

UNC/Charlotte beat Presbyterian 34-10 last week. Why is that interesting? This is Charlotte’s first year playing Division 1-A football and they have started out 2-0. They are hardly going to be undefeated at the end of the year, but it has to be a good feeling on campus for now.

The last game from last weekend I want to talk about is the BC win over Howard by a score of 76-0. After the first quarter, the score was 41-0 and at the half the score was 62-0. Howard had 2 first downs in the game; they ran 40 plays for a total offense of 11 yards; that is not a typo… Howard ran the ball 28 times and gained 7 yards on the ground; you can easily do the math here to get their passing stats. Obviously, this game should never have been scheduled and I cannot imagine myself staying in the stands to watch this debacle beyond halftime. However, there is one positive thing to say about the game:

In the second half, both coaches went to the officials and everyone agreed to play 10-minute quarters in the second half. Essentially, everyone agreed to acknowledge that this game was nothing but a glorified scrimmage.

Bob Molinaro had a comment in the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot last week that applies directly to the BC/Howard game:

“Idle thought: Generally speaking, the difference between college football and the NFL this time of year is that pro games are worth watching into the fourth quarter.”

There are two players in college football this year with names that apply to the position they play:

Tulane punter, Zachary Block, has a very unfortunate name for his position.

Ponderosa Games:

The favorites are crushing the lines so far this year. Last week the favorites went 7-3-0 against the huge spreads bringing the season total for favorites covering to 14-4-0.

Georgia Tech, Mississippi, Nebraska, Texas A&M, UCLA, USC and Wisconsin covered.

Alabama, Florida St. and Ohio St. did not cover.

This week, we have 12 Ponderosa Games:

(Friday) New Mexico at Arizona St. – 27.5 (65): This line opened at 24 and the next time I looked it was up to this level where it has stayed all week long.

UNLV at Michigan – 34 (49): The money lines for this game are:

Kent St. at Minnesota – 24.5 (46): This spread opened the week at 22.5 and has risen steadily over the week. Meanwhile the Total Line opened at 48.5 and dropped all week long. Obviously, the oddsmakers are not thinking Kent St. will be putting too many points on the scoreboard.

Troy at Wisconsin – 35 (58): The big question here is whether Wisconsin took out all of its frustrations against Miami (Oh) last week. If not…

N. Illinois at Ohio State – 35 (67): I doubt this will be a nail-biter of a game…

Tulsa at Oklahoma – 31 (71): Best thing to observe here is that this an intra-state matchup.

Nevada at Texas A&M – 34 (65): The spread here opened the week at 29. If you had laid the points at that level, you could take points here and play for a middle.

Georgia St. at Oregon – 44 (72): The money lines for this game are:

Texas San Antonio at Oklahoma St – 25 (55): Other than alums from each school and their families, I doubt this game is interesting to many folks.

SMU at TCU – 37 (66): These schools are less than 50 miles apart geographically but they are light years apart in terms of football prowess.

Air Force at Michigan St. – 26 (54.5): The Total Line opened the week at 60 points; it dropped to 57 almost immediately and has been dropping from that level all week long.

Wyoming at Washington St. – 24.5 (64.5): Washington State is not very good; they lost their opening game at home to a Division 1-AA school. Yet, they are a Ponderosa favorite here. So what might that tell you about Wyoming…?

Games of Interest:

Florida State – 7.5 at BC (47): These lines have moved a lot this week. The spread opened at 9 points; the Total Line opened at 53. BC steps up in class from Howard last week to a big-boy in a big-boy’s conference. I see this as a low scoring game so I will take BC plus more than a TD’s worth of points.

Temple – 10 at UMass (54.5): I said above that Temple had not yet played a strong offensive team this year. UMass is a team that will try to up-tempo the game but I am not sure that qualifies UMass as a good offensive team. Temple won on the road already this year so that should not be a novelty for them. I’ll take Temple and lay the points.

NC State – 17.7 at Old Dominion (59): I think these teams will score a bunch of points off one another so I like the game to go OVER.

Northwestern at Duke – 3.5 (48): Northwestern beat Stanford in the first SAT Bowl of the year; now they face Duke in another such game. So far, Duke has played Tulane and N. Carolina Central; Northwestern is a step up in class from those opponents. Northwestern played one cupcake last week but faced Stanford in the opener. This should be a defensive game so I’ll take Northwestern plus the points even on the road.

La-Tech at Kansas State – 10 (50): The Total Line opened the week at 55 and has been falling all week. Tech is stepping way up in class this week; their previous opponents have been Div. 1-AA Southern and W. Kentucky. I think K-State demonstrates what a big-time college football programs is like here. I’ll take K-State and lay the points.

South Carolina at Georgia – 16 (52): Steve Spurrier has found ways to torment Georgia for the entire time Spurrier has been in the SEC. Does he have something up his sleeve for this game? Georgia can surely run the football; their passing offense is merely adequate. There are too many question marks in the game to make a pick – even a mythical one – but the game is interesting because it might tell you something about South Carolina down the road.

East Carolina at Navy – 4 (57): East Carolina has played Florida this year so it has seen real competition; Navy beat Colgate and then had a Bye week. The issue here is the ECU defense and its ability to stop Navy’s triple option run offense. That offense is very different from most of the other opponents ECU will face this year so one has to wonder how much time they have devoted to it in training camp. Purely a hunch, I’ll take Navy to win and cover at home.

Auburn at LSU – 7 (48): As noted above, Auburn played terribly against Jacksonville St. last week needing OT to beat that Div. 1-AA school. Moreover, if Auburn QB, Jeremy Johnson, continues to throw INTs at the rate he has, LSU will have a field day. On the other hand, perhaps Auburn was looking past Jax St. knowing that a trip to Baton Rouge was the next item on its dance card. LSU plays tough defense – but its offense did not stand out against a solid Mississippi state defense last week. Auburn can play done “D” too. I like Auburn plus the points – even in Baton Rouge.

Ole Miss at Alabama – 7 (53): Mississippi beat Alabama last year; I suspect that Nick Saban has mentioned that fact to his squad once or twice this week. So far, the Rebels have faced University of Tennessee-Martin and Fresno St; please let us not confuse either of those two defenses with the one Alabama will field this week. I like Alabama at home to win and cover here.

Nebraska at Miami (Fla) – 3 (58): I think Miami is the better team here and they are at home. Laying a field goal is not unrealistic in that circumstance. So, I’ll take Miami to win and cover.

Georgia Tech – 2.5 at Notre Dame (55.5): Notre Dame has lost a RB to injury and the starting QB to injury in the first two games. Tech is a solid team that will bring its option offense to South Bend and dare the Irish to stop it. The key words in that last sentence were “South Bend”. I like the idea of taking Notre Dame at home plus some points and so I shall.

Utah St. at Washington – 6 (44): Utah St. has already played one PAC-12 team (Utah) and lost by 10 points – but covered the spread. Utah is a better team than Washington so things point to taking the road underdog here. The question mark here is Utah State QB, Chuckie Keeton. He is a good QB playing at a school that gets little national exposure; he is also fragile having suffered two season ending injuries in previous years. Moreover, he was thrown around like a ragdoll in that game against Utah last week. I am going to take Utah St plus the points here and hope that Keeton can play his “A game”.

Memphis – 3.5 at Bowling Green (79.5): This game is only interesting because the Total Line started the week at 69.5 and has risen 10 points during the week. I am sure that sort of thing must have happened at some time in the past, but I cannot recall a line move that big for a game only a week away.

USF at Maryland – 7 (51): This game is only interesting to see what kind of return stats Maryland’s William Likely will get.

Florida – 3.5 at Kentucky (53): Florida has two home wins over mediocre to bad opponents – New Mexico St. and East Carolina. Kentucky has beaten La-Lafayette at home and then beat South Carolina on the road (see above). Let me just say that Kentucky’s football program in recent years makes me want to see more than one nice road win before I declare the team fully competitive. On the other hand, Florida has not played anyone yet so I cannot really assess the impact of their new coaching staff in Gainesville. This is another game where you keep your eyes on the game and your money in your pocket.

Cal – 7 at Texas (58.5): You read that spread correctly; Cal is a TD favorite over Texas in Austin. Moreover, the spread opened the week at 3 points and has ballooned to this number over the week. Texas has looked bad so far this year losing to Notre Dame by 5 TDs and then allowing Rice to score 28 points in the second game of the season. They have fired the AD there and Charlie Strong is not going to win a mayoral election in Austin these days. Strong changed play callers and changed offensive coordinators and we are still in September! Here is what Mike Bianchi had to say about that in the Orlando Sentinel:

“Texas coach Charlie Strong already has demoted his offensive coordinator after a season-opening blowout by Notre Dame. As UCF coach George O’Leary told me the other day, ‘When you start getting rid of people like that, you’re usually the next one to follow.’”

Cal’s defense has played well against second-tier opposition (Grambling and San Diego State) so whatever changes Texas has made to its offense will be put to the task here. I smell a defensive game so I’ll take the game to stay UNDER.

UTEP – 3 at New Mexico St (62): this game is interesting because it matches two bad teams who might be invited to my imaginary SHOE Tournament at the end of the season. Please do not wager on this game…

Stanford at USC – 9.5 (50): Historically, Stanford plays USC tough but this Cardinal team is the one that lost to Northwestern in the opener and then beat a mediocre UCF squad. Granted USC has played Arkansas St. (the halt) and Idaho (the lame) so far this year which means they have never played anyone nearly as good as a PAC-12 foe. I think this will be a low-scoring game so I will take Stanford plus the points.

BYU at UCLA – 16.5 (59): How many times can BYU pull out a game with a heroic finish? They already have two of them under their belts this season winning both games in the final minutes when they were underdogs to start with. UCLA features true freshman QB, Josh “The Chosen” Rosen who has looked good against the likes of UVa and UNLV. BYU’s defense will challenge him a bit more than either of those previous opponents did. I think that line is fat. Even though I doubt BYU can pull this rabbit out of its hat, I will take BYU plus those points even on the road.

San Jose St at Oregon St. – 7 (49.5): Oregon St. beat Weber St. in the opener; whoop-di-damned-doo! Last week, they played like cadavers losing to Michigan by 4 TDs. I do not want to intimate that San Jose St. is a juggernaut by any measure, but after the way they were gashed last week by Michigan, I cannot see how Oregon St is a full TD favorite here. I’ll take San Jose St plus the points here.

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