Last weekend was an excellent one for Mythical Picks. In the Ponderosa Spread games, the favorites covered in 9 of the 14 games. That brings the "Ponderosa Favorites" to 16-10-1 for the season. More importantly, the Mythical Picks were 6-2 for the weekend. Both losses were in the Georgia/Colorado game where I was nowhere near close to correct. Whatever. For the year, the mythical picks are 11-8 for a mythical profit of $220.
Obviously, I take inspiration from these outcomes and feel emboldened to make more picks. Nonetheless, no one reading this should use any of the information herein as the basis for making a wager or for choosing which side to back in a wagering situation. You'd have to be really dumb to do that - - dumb enough to bet on the deaf kid in a game of musical chairs.
General Comments:
Stanford has been horrendous this year. They are 0-4 and they lost to Navy by 4 TDs. Whatever pretense Stanford wants to maintain with regard to its being a major player in the PAC-10 is about to be defenestrated. Walt Harris was brought in a couple of years ago from Pitt as a creative football guy to take Stanford to a higher level of accomplishment on the field; that ain't happening. I wonder if he might be looking for work in a new zip code for next year or if he has a sufficiently onerous buy-out clause in his contract to keep him in Palo Alto for a while longer…
Temple finally scored a touchdown in the fourth weekend of the year. They still lost to W. Michigan by a score of 48-7, but they finally found the end zone. That's probably the end of the good news for Temple. According to Stewart Mandel's college football blog at SI.com, the Las Vegas oddsmakers are considering taking Temple off the board. Mandel quotes a senior oddsmaker at Las Vegas Sports Consultants saying, "I've never seen a team in the last ten years that's been this non-competitive." Temple is a 34-point underdog this week to Vanderbilt. Yes, you read that right; Vandy is a 34-point favorite over Temple. That same consultant went back in his records to 1980 and could not find any game where Vandy was this big a favorite in the past 26 years. The consultant said that if Vandy smokes Temple this week and if Kent State rolls over them next week, then Las Vegas Consultants will stop writing lines for Temple games.
Last week, I suggested that Temple adopt Born To Lose as its post-game song. That was harsh. Maybe a rendition of the Beatles' song, Help! would be more appropriately sensitive. Actually, what would be most appropriate would be for Temple to drop Division 1-A football and become a Division 1-AA program. I've suggested this before and the idea becomes more and more appealing as the weeks go by.
Based on a note from a reader, Temple, Rice and Florida Atlantic are all nicknamed The Owls. And all of them have horrendous football teams; none have won a game this year and none have been serious threats to win any of their games so far this year. That sent me to the Internet to do some research…
Those are the only three Division 1-A schools known as The Owls. But there are ten other schools with that nickname. How might they fare on the gridiron?
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Westfield State College is 0-3 this season. They've lost their games by a combined score of 93-24. They have a showdown with Maine Maritime Academy this weekend…
Widener University is 1-2 this season. They have a game with Moravian this weekend.
The other eight schools either don't play intercollegiate football or do not acknowledge that they do so on their websites.
Conclusion: Going to a school nicknamed The Owls is not a good way to see a lot of winning football games.
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Texas A&M is 4-0 but they have beaten The Citadel, La-Lafayette, Army (barely) and La Tech. The Aggie Athletic Department ought to be ashamed of itself for scheduling these sacrificial lambs. Not to worry, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Texas are on the docket later in the year…
Wake Forest has beaten Syracuse, Duke (barely), UConn and Ole Miss. Those are four really bad football teams.
Missouri has beaten Murray State, Ole Miss, New Mexico and Ohio. Put together an All-Star team from those four schools and let them practice for a year together and it would still struggle to win four college football games in a season.
I've said before that Mississippi State is bad football team. However, Mississippi may be even worse. Last week Ole MIss lost at home to Wake Forest when the Deacons were missing their starting tailback and their starting quarterback. Wake Forest ran the ball 53 times out of 58 snaps and dominated the game. Mississippi has Georgia, Auburn, Alabama and Arkansas still on the schedule. It will get very ugly… Ole Miss ends its season on November 25 by hosting Mississippi State; what an ugly game that looks to be.
Here's a stat that staggered me. Baylor has rushed for 119 yards so far this year. There are a bunch of running backs in college football who are averaging more than 119 yards per game this year. Compare the Baylor running game to Garret Wolfe of Northern Illinois who is averaging 205 yards per game. Even Ohio State only managed to "hold" Wolfe to 171 yards in the season opener; Wolfe is averaging 8.6 yards per carry for the year.
Michigan State hosts Illinois this weekend. After State barfed away a big lead against Notre Dame last weekend, more than a few Michigan State fans suggested that the "L" in Coach John L. Smith's name stands for "Loser". Not to worry, Spartan faithful. The Illini bring Ron Zook to town as their coach. Zook won his first two games at Illinois last year and the team has lost twelve of thirteen since then. If losing causes agita, then Big Ten teams ought to consider Illinois and Ron Zook as Bromo Seltzer.
Duke will open its football season in 2010 against Elon College. Cut that out. The only way that game is interesting is if the loser is relegated - as happens in English soccer leagues - to Division III. In that circumstance, I'm not sure Duke would want to take that game…
Virginia plays Duke this weekend in Durham. UVa is favored by only 5 points and that spread has been contracting since it opened at 6.5 on Monday night. If UVa loses here, they should consider dropping football as an intercollegiate sport. If they decide to keep football around despite a loss, then they'll have to get a new bunch of folks to recruit and coach the players they trot out on the field each weekend.
Texas has scheduled Sam Houston State this weekend and that game is so lopsided that there is no line available for the game at any of the sports books that I check in order to write these mythical picks. Texas has a huge following and many of those folks have been known to "go to the hip" to retrieve the wallet in order to make a wager on the Longhorns. Nevertheless, there's no line on the game. That tells me that the books couldn't write a line that would bring in enough money on Sam Houston State to begin to balance their ledgers. Now, maybe if Texas agreed to play blindfolded for the first and third quarters…
Looking at the schedule, if Ohio State wins this week at Iowa they should be undefeated when they take on Michigan in mid-November. And because they handled Texas the way they did, Ohio State will stay as the #1 ranked team so long as they win no matter how close the games might be - - and not too many ought to be that close. With regard to this weekend's game, Iowa has played the #1 ranked team in the country ten times in the school's history; their record is 0-9-1.
Meanwhile, LSU is a really good team despite its one loss. They have a much tougher road ahead of them than most other schools; they have to play Florida, Tennessee and Arkansas and all of those games are on the road. I don't pretend to have examined closely each of the schedules for all 119 Division 1-A schools, but I don't think anyone has a significantly harder schedule in front of them than LSU.
Games of Interest:
There are only five Ponderosa Spread games this weekend:
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Temple at Vanderbilt - 34
La Tech at Clemson - 33.5
Mississippi State at LSU - 33
Illinois at Michigan State - 25.5
Stanford at UCLA - 24
Purdue at Notre Dame - 14 (60): Purdue averages about 40 points a game and their defense can't stop a run in a pair of pantyhose. They give up 29 points a game and haven't held anyone under three TDs. Notre Dame has shown it can score points by the handful and give up points by the handful. I'll take this game OVER. Here's an interesting prop bet even though I can't find it anywhere. Will the total yards passing for both teams combined be OVER or UNDER 700 yards? I'd be tempted to take OVER if I could find that bet…
Michigan - 9 at Minnesota (51.5): Don't be misled by Minnesota's rushing stats showing 225 yards per game. They played Temple and Kent State - whom they beat by a combined score of 106-0. Michigan held Notre Dame to 4 yards rushing for the game and Wisconsin to 12 yards rushing. If Minnesota can't run - and they won't - they should get clobbered by Michigan. I like Michigan to win and cover here. I also want this game UNDER 51.5 because I don't see Minnesota scoring more than 14 points.
Wisconsin - 10.5 at Indiana (43): Indiana will get an emotional lift if their coach can return to the team after brain surgery. Unfortunately, Indiana needs something that medical science cannot provide - - a talent transplant. Indiana's offense is weak; Wisconsin only gives up 250 yards per game. When Wisconsin is successful offensively, it is because it can run the ball; Indiana's run defense borders on non-existent. I like Wisconsin to win and cover here.
Northwestern at Penn State - 20 (41): What is this? Big Ten Week? Whatever. That's too big a spread for me to lay the points and I will not play Northwestern on the road; after all, Northwestern lost to New Hampshire and Nevada. But I do like the game OVER 41. I know I'm looking forward to that showdown in mid-November when Northwestern lays it all on the line when they travel to play Illinois…
Alabama at Florida - 15 (38.5): I agree with the oddsmakers here; this game will be low scoring. And so I will take Alabama with that generous helping of points - - and hope they have a decent place-kicker ready for Saturday afternoon.
Good luck.
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