Last weekend, I made four selections in Mythical Picks. All four were winners:
Wisconsin covered against Washington State
Ga.Tech not only covered against Notre Dame, they beat them by 30.
UNLV covered against Utah St. by a point on a late TD drive
Navy/Temple stayed UNDER 52.
Now if I were one of those guys on the infomercials for betting services, I’d be shouting as loudly as I could that I had a perfect week and I made my customers (maybe mythical ones?) thousands of dollars and I’d be willing to do the same for you if you paid me a small fee and you really need to call my toll-free number and… But I don’t do that. These picks are for fun; I put them out there for free; and because they are free, you know exactly what they are worth.
Let me candid here. If I could actually pick four out of four selections (or even three out of four) reliably every week, I’d own my own island by now. And I don’t…
So, as they say in the ads for mutual funds, past performance is no indicator of future success. No one would be stupid enough to use any information here as the basis for making a real wager using real money. Doing that would make you so dumb that you wouldn’t even be the smartest guy in the first four rows at a WWE pay-per-view event.
General Comments:
When talking about the Appalachian State upset of Michigan, lots of people say it was the biggest upset of all time. [I don’t know, but I’m sort of partial to David over Goliath in that category but whatever…] In college football, I recall a Temple/Va Tech game about 10 – 15 years ago when Temple went to Blacksburg as an underdog of 35-40 point proportion and won the game. Yes, I know that Temple is not actually a Division 1-AA school; but in actuality, they aren’t necessarily better than a lot of Division 1-AA schools.
I guess we now know why Charlie Weis kept his opening day QB selection a secret until game time. They all stunk! Forget that the Notre Dame only scored 3 points in the game; the total offense for the Irish was 122 yards. Notre Dame travels to Penn State this week and based on last week’s showings, the Irish are going to open the season at 0-2. Then they go to Michigan…
After the debacle, Charlie Weis said all the predictable things; they had to “rally the troops” and they had to “circle the wagons”. Good plan, coach. Now, don’t forget to tell the guys that after the wagons are circled they need to aim those rifles outside the circle…
In the past, I criticized Penn State for scheduling FIU, Temple and Buffalo as three out of conference games. Based on last week’s showing, maybe scheduling Notre Dame this year is a fourth patty-cake team?
Texas was a 40-point favorite over Arkansas State last week and only won by 8. But that’s better than what happened to Michigan and Notre Dame…
Duke lost to UConn last week. Duke led at the half 14-11. Then Duke came out in the second half and collapsed; they lost the second half 34-0.
I suggested last week that the Hawaii/Northern Colorado score would be 63-10. Sorry about that, Hawaii won 63-6. Colt Brennan threw for 4 TDs and 412 yards – - in the first half of the game. This week, Hawaii flies to Louisiana to play La Tech. The over/under for that game is 76.
Minnesota’s new football coach, Tim Brewster, said he was going to go from frat house to frat house to drum up interest in Gopher football. He said there were 54,000 students at Minnesota and there was no reason that the Gophers should play to any home crowds below 60,000. Then his team played their first game and lost at home to Bowling Green 32-31 in OT. I have an idea that’s not the way for him to win over new and loyal fans.
The Nick Saban Era at Alabama needs perspective. Alabama travels to Vanderbilt this week and the Tide is a 3.5-point favorite over the Commodores. Somewhere in the cosmos, Bear Bryant is weeping at the sight of this betting line…
By the way, do you think Nick Saban might be interested in the job at Michigan? It’s likely to come open at the end of this season…
Boise State is a 3-point favorite on the road against Washington. Just to show you that Boise State may have arrived as a recognized football program, consider that Boise State has never beaten a PAC-10 team on the road or any BCS Conference school on the road. [Last year’s bowl victory over Oklahoma was at a neutral site.] Yet, they are favored this week over a team that won big at Syracuse last week.
After the first week, the Big Ten has only one team in the Top 10 (Wisconsin) and only two others ranked between eleven and twenty-five (Penn State and Ohio State). Maybe the Big Ten isn’t all that good this year?
Texas started the week as a 7-point favorite over TCU. Texas was uninspiring in their win against Arkansas State last week while TCU shut out Baylor. However, it seems as if a whole lot of money has been coming in on Texas during the week because now the line is 9 at one sportsbook and 9.5 about everywhere else. That is a big movement in a college football line. I have no idea if this is “smart money” that is showing up or if this is “bet with your heart money”. It’s a good game to avoid from a betting perspective.
Games of Interest:
Usually, I only find a handful of NCAA games interesting – particularly in the early part of the season. For some reason, this weekend presents some lines that are surprising and so there are more games of interest than usual.
Oregon at Michigan – 7.5 (63): Two good offenses play two mediocre defenses. I would not be surprised to see either team beat the other one by a double-digit margin so I won’t try to guess the winner here and the margin. But I do like the OVER here.
VA Tech at LSU – 12 (40): Two really good defenses play two mediocre offenses. The Hokie offensive line let East Carolina sack the QB four times last week; might LSU have a pass rush equal to ECU? I think this game stays UNDER.
Bowling Green at Michigan State – 17.5 (57.5): Bowling Green may be flat as a tortilla this week after pointing to Minnesota in Week 1 and getting that win. On the other hand, this line says that Michigan State is 18.5 points better than Minnesota; do I believe that? No, I don’t. I’ll assume that Bowling Green uses last week’s game as a confidence-builder and plays similarly to last week. The line is fat; I’ll take Bowling Green with the points here.
Rice at Baylor – 6 (44): Rice was a feelgood story last year. They opened this year with a loss to Nicholls State by giving up a safety in the 4th quarter. I think the college football feelgood story will come from somewhere else this year. Baylor isn’t any kind of powerhouse; they were clobbered by TCU last week, but TCU is a top-25 team. Baylor is at home and they ought to be better than Nicholls State… I’ll take Baylor and lay the points.
Nebraska – 7.5 at Wake Forest (50): I couldn’t watch all of the Wake Forest/BC game last weekend, but while I was watching, BC moved the ball at will – and gave up two defensive TDs to the Deacons. Nebraska seems finally to have morphed from its power running offense to a spread passing offense. I didn’t see anything last week that would lead me to believe Wake Forest can stop that. I’ll take Nebraska here and lay the points – - but I sure would be happier if the line were only 7.
South Florida at Auburn – 7 (39): Auburn trailed Kansas State at the end of the third quarter and had to rally to win. South Florida won by two TDs – - against Elon. Auburn’s defense will probably be just a tad stingier than Elon’s was. I like Auburn here; I’ll lay the points.
Good luck.
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…