Last weekend was a middling one for Mythical Picks. The Ponderosa Spread favorites had a bad week. There were nine Ponderosa Spread games and the favorite only covered in three of them. So the Pondersoa Spread favorites are only 21-19-1 for the season. If you had been playing all these favorites at $110 per game to win $100, you would have wagered $4510 so far. When you went to the windows to collect, you would have collected $4520; the mythical profit at this point would be all of $10. Don't spend it all in one mythical place…
In terms of the picks in the Games of Interest, I went 3-2 for a mythical profit of $80. That brings the cumulative record for the Games of Interest to 17-12-1 and a mythical profit of $380 for the season so far. Obviously, that's better than having semi-annual appointments for root canals; but it isn't spectacular by any means.
Of course readers of my stuff are intelligent people and would never think of using any information or commentary here as the basis for making a real wager on a sporting event that involved real money. My intelligent readers aren't stupid. Doing that would make them stupid enough to think that Moby Dick is some kind of sexually transmitted disease.
General Comments:
Earlier this year, Chris Dufresne pointed out in the LA Times that Linfield College in Oregon started the season at 0-2. That start jeopardized an ongoing streak of 50 consecutive winning seasons; that is the longest such streak in the country by a lot. Harvard and Notre Dame both went 42 straight years with winning records; the Yankees in baseball won for 39 consecutive seasons; the Cowboys hold the NFL record with 21 straight winning seasons. Linfield has a new coach this year and the team is now 1-2 going into their game on Saturday against Puget Sound. One positive thing that Linfield can take into that game is that they have beaten Puget Sound the last 19 times that the two teams have met. You won't find a line on this Division III game, but it's one I'll go and check out later this weekend…
There was a story earlier this week that an unnamed voter in one of the polls voted for USC as the #2 team in the country because he thought that SEC football wasn't all that good because the scores were so low. In no way do I want to demean USC football or the USC team this year; I don't know if USC deserves to be ranked #2 at this point but they are surely one of the five best teams in the country at the moment; that last statement cannot be in any serious doubt. But anyone who votes for or against a team in the polls based on the total amount of scoring in their games is a dolt and deserves to lose their poll voting privileges. Last week, Ball State and Buffalo put 80 points on the scoreboard; Nevada and Hawaii scored a total of 75 points; does anyone think those are four "top teams"? Oh, and by the way, the highest scoring game last weekend was an SEC game; Tennessee and Georgia combined for 84 points.
I'm not so sure that USC would want to be ranked #2 this week. The #2 spot in the rankings has not been kind to the teams residing there so far this year. Notre Dame was #2 for a while but they had to scratch for a win against Georgia Tech and lost to Michigan. Texas was #2 when Ohio State went visiting and hammered the Longhorns. Auburn was #2 until last weekend when they lost by 17 points to unranked Arkansas; Auburn was a 15-point favorite in that game. So, maybe USC would rather stay at #3 until the final poll after the last game of the year…
I mentioned the Tennessee/Georgia game two paragraphs ago. Georgia led the nation in scoring defense going into that game. The Bulldogs led 27-24 at the start of the 4th quarter. Then Georgia's defense surrendered 27 points in the 4th quarter losing the game 51-33. I think the collars on those bulldogs might have gotten just a bit tight and gagged them.
At the moment Florida and Arkansas lead the two SEC divisions. Florida was expected to contend for the SEC title; no one outside of the state of Arkansas picked the Hogs to win the SEC. Florida still has Auburn (this weekend) and Georgia later this month as serious obstacles. Arkansas still has Tennessee and LSU on their dance card. SEC football is high quality football.
Meanwhile in the ACC, there are two teams who are undefeated in conference play. If you picked NC State and Georgia Tech to be the only two teams undefeated in ACC play at this point of the season, you probably can trace your mitochondrial DNA back to Nostradamus. The ACC teams have been disappointing this year relative to the pre-season hype they received. I can't even begin to pick the ultimate winner in this conference.
Navy beat Air Force last week; that puts Navy in a position to win the Commander in Chief's Trophy outright for the fourth consecutive year if they beat Army in early December. If they do that, it will be the first time any class at Navy has gone 4-0 against both Air Force and Army.
I took note that Tulsa and Southern Mississippi played last weekend; it was a game between the Golden Hurricane and the Golden Eagles. I went to both teams' websites looking for players with "golden" names. I'd have loved to find someone named Midas Locks or Aureus Finger. No such luck. Tulsa came close with WR, Ryan Bugg, and K, Brad DeVault. Southern Miss had nothing even close to what I was looking for. Oh, they did have a punter named Britt Barefoot though.
The California Golden Bears started the season ranked #9; in their opening game in Knoxville, the Bears spit the bit. Looking at their games since that opener, maybe they woke up as a result of that game. Since then, Cal has scored over 40 points in all five of its games; Cal is averaging 44 points a game since then.
Stanford is 0-6 at the moment; this is a bad football team. During the telecast of their game with Notre Dame last weekend someone described one of the Stanford linebackers as "very active". I didn't watch the entire game because the outcome was hardly in doubt but I have to say that any linebacker more active than a corpse for Stanford would qualify as "very active". Notre Dame ran the ball for 204 yards against Stanford and averaged 5.2 yards per carry.
Last weekend Duke extended its nation-leading losing streak to 13 games. On a brighter note, Idaho - with Dennis Erickson on board - evened its record at 3-3 for the year. That may not sound like a reason to celebrate, but that is the first time Idaho has been at .500 in six seasons.
Utah State won a football game last weekend; they beat Fresno State. Up until this year, Fresno State coach, Pat Hill, was the media anointed up-and-coming certified caching genius who merely needed a break to get into the big time and show his stuff. Fresno State is now 1-4 and they've lost to a really bad Utah State team. It's funny how coaching geniuses don't fare all that well when lots of good players aren't suiting up for every game. Fresno State hosts Hawaii this week. I really don't like to take Hawaii in a game where they've had to fly for six hours to a "garden spot" like Fresno. If Fresno State were playing just about anyone else, I'd probably take a stand against Fresno State this week; as it is, I'll pass,
The adage goes that to win football games you have to be able to run the football and stop the run. Arizona can't run the football. The Wildcats ran for minus-16 yards against USC, minus-7 yards against Washington and minus-13 yards against UCLA in the last three weeks. Arizona coach, Bob Stoops, said after last week's game, "We don't have a lot of good options right now [on offense]." Here's an option; throw the football.
Games of Interest:
There are seven Ponderosa Spread games this week - - and surprisingly the Florida State/Duke game is not one of them:
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Temple at Clemson - 44.5 (Thursday night 10/12/06)
Baylor at Texas - 27
Kentucky at LSU - 26.5
Fla International at Miami - 26.5
Boise State - 26.5 at New Mexico State (Sunday night 10/15)
Syracuse at West Virginia - 25
Cincinnati at Louisville - 25
Missouri and Texas A&M meet in a game between teams with a combined 11-1 record so far this year. But Texas A&M has wins over teams way below them in the football pecking order and Missouri has conditioned college football fans over the past few years to be wary of the way the Aggies can sleepwalk through games on a random basis. Good game to watch? Maybe. Good game to bet? Not on your life.
In terms of pitting ranked opponents against one another, Auburn/Florida is probably the best game of the weekend. There's no question that you should watch this game if you have any interest in college football. But I'll pass on the chance to bet on the game because I can't figure out what ought to be the difference maker between these two sides.
Army at UConn - 5.5 (42.5): UConn just dismissed five players from the team including three who actually played more than a down or two. In addition, they are changing QBs this week and they've given up more than 960 yards of offense in their last two games - - not surprisingly both were losses. Army isn't a really good team and Army is on the road, but still I think they have a shot to win this game outright. So, I'll take Army with the points here.
Pitt - 9 at Univ of Central Florida (46): If you like UCF, shop this line. You can find it at 10.5 in several places and at the time I'm typing this at 11 in one place. I don't like UCF in this game; they give up a lot of yards passing and Pitt has a potent passing attack. The danger is that Pitt might be looking ahead to their game against Rutgers. Nonetheless, I'll take Pitt on the road to win and cover.
Rutgers at Navy - 3 (45.5): Both teams like to run the ball and both teams do that very well. The difference here is that Rutgers looks like it might be better able to stop Navy's running game. Two years ago if you told me that I'd be taking Rutgers as a road underdog against any team better than in intramural flag football team, I'd have asked you what you were smoking. But that's what I'm gonna to here; I'll take Rutgers with the points; I think they might win outright.
Florida State - 22 at Duke (42): This is a game I expected to be a Ponderosa Spread game. The fact that it is not ought to be an embarrassment to the players and the coaching staff. FSU is not nearly as good as we've come to expect them to be and are certainly not nearly as good as they were hyped to be prior to the season. Nevertheless, UVa beat Duke by 37 points this year and Florida State can't be two touchdowns worse than UVa, can they? I'll take FSU to win and cover here.
Boise State - 26.5 at New Mexico State (62.5): Boise State should score 50 in this game so the question really is whether or not NM State can score a TD and one other score. I think they can so I'll take the game OVER.
Good luck.
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