Last Week’s Record
Biggest Game (Straight Up: 1-0; Vs. Spread: 0-1)
Overall (Straight Up: 1-0; Vs. Spread: 0-1; Moneyline Upsets: 0-0)
Season Record
Biggest 10 Games (Straight Up: 101-50; Vs. Spread: 71-77-3)
Overall (Straight Up: 505-175; Vs. Spread: 343-322-8; Moneyline Upsets: 23-18)
Week 15 Review: Well this year the only big game in week 15 was really good. Unfortunately for me, I picked the winner correctly but lost ATS. That leaves a sour taste in my mouth heading into bowl season.
Bowl Season Preview: Despite the disappointing week 15 result, I still have a chance to have a really good year if I can avoid disaster in the bowls (which can be tricky). If I have a really good bowl season I might be able to get over .500 ATS in the biggest games which would make me feel a lot better.
As always, I found the bowl games difficult to predict. Trying to figure out how the coaching situations will play out is always a tough task. There are always injury and eligibility concerns. And it’s never easy to figure out who wants to be there and who will be distracted. To be honest, I’m a little concerned about my picks. I took a lot of underdogs ATS, which would go against the pattern for most of this season.
As for the games themselves, when the matchups were announced I was disgusted. But that’s nothing new. After initial feelings of anger, followed by a general sense of malaise and boredom, I settled into that familiar sense of, “well, it’s college football, and that beats just about everything else.”
I think it’s ridiculous that Boise State and TCU are playing middling (at best) teams from the Pac-12 and the WAC respectively. I will say, I’m not overconfident when it comes to the SEC. The spreads seem to lean towards the SEC as much as ever, but I don’t know if it should be that way.
Most of all I’m annoyed that there will be no satisfactory conclusion to the season in many ways. If LSU wins to finish as the only undefeated team and clearly the team with the most impressive résumé, most will understand that they were simply the top team this year. However, because they won’t play Oklahoma State or Stanford in the final game, there will be those annoying voices who complain.
If Alabama wins, it might actually say more about the SEC’s superiority than anything we’ve seen over the last 6 years, but that will likely be lost among the shouting. People will say (perhaps rightly) that LSU got screwed, having to play Alabama again. People will say (perhaps rightly) that only a rubber match would truly say who the better team was.
And then you will have those annoying voices who will say that since there was no undefeated team, and since neither Bama nor LSU had to play one of the top teams from the other conferences in the final, the system didn’t determine who the top team was.
This is what annoys me the most. Alabama and LSU are the top two teams in the country, and the SEC’s dominance over the last 6 years is what led to them winding up in the final game, but it might have been better for the conference for LSU to play Oklahoma State.
While I’ve had an okay year picking games, I have to say that this has been a disappointing year in terms of my blogs, because I just haven’t been able to offer as much commentary and analysis along with my rankings and picks. Unfortunately, I have to end the year in a fitting manner, with no comments for my bowl game picks. For a variety of reasons, I just haven’t had the time.
I’m obviously getting these in late so it didn’t make much sense for me to do a lot of detailed notes. This is most annoying, because I love analyzing all of the bowls. I can only offer the vague, promise-sounding statement that it is my intent to make up for some of this year’s shortcomings with some solid postseason entries.
The changes in title are the only things that are fun or unique about this year’s bowl picks. And to be honest, most of them are the same or very similar to last year’s titles, though there are several new ones. I don’t have time to go into the titles, so if you are wondering about any of them, please feel free to investigate.
And now, on to the picks.
December 18th
The Po’Poy Bowl
Matchup: Temple (-7) vs. Wyoming
Pick: Wyoming beats the spread
The Blue Bowl
Matchup: Utah State (-1.5) vs. Ohio
Pick: Utah State covers
The Crescent City Bowl
Matchup: Louisiana-Lafayette (+4.5) vs. San Diego State
Pick: Louisiana-Lafayette beats the spread
December 20th
The Hero City Bowl
Matchup: Florida International (-4) vs. Marshall
Pick: Florida International covers
December 21st
The Jack Murphy Bowl
Matchup: Louisiana Tech (+10.5) vs. TCU
Pick: TCU covers
December 22nd
The Legalize Gambling Now Bowl
Matchup: Arizona State (+14) vs. Boise State
Pick: Boise State covers
December 24th
The Bayonet Constitution Bowl
Matchup: Nevada (+6) vs. Southern Mississippi
Pick: Southern Mississippi covers
December 26th
The Sam Cooke Bowl
Matchup: North Carolina (+5) vs. Missouri
Pick: Missouri covers
December 27th
The Motor City Bowl
Matchup: Western Michigan (+2.5) vs. Purdue
Pick: Purdue covers
The Queen City Bowl
Matchup: Louisville (+2.5) vs. North Carolina State
Pick: Louisville pulls off the upset
December 28th
The General George Washington Bowl
Matchup: Toledo (-3) vs. Air Force
Pick: Air Force beats the spread
The Holiday Bowl
Matchup: California (+3) vs. Texas
Pick: California beats the spread
December 29th
The Sunshine Classic Bowl
Matchup: Notre Dame (+3) vs. Florida State
Pick: Florida State covers
The Mess With Texas Bowl
Matchup: Washington (+9) vs. Baylor
Pick: Baylor covers
December 30th
The Oil Bowl
Matchup: Tulsa (+2.5) vs. BYU
Pick: Tulsa pulls off the upset
The Bronx Bowl
Matchup: Rutgers (-1.5) vs. Iowa State
Pick: Iowa State pulls off the upset
The Music City Bowl
Matchup: Wake Forest (+6.5) vs. Mississippi State
Pick: Mississippi State covers
The Copper Bowl
Matchup: Iowa (+13.5) vs. Oklahoma
Pick: Oklahoma covers
December 31st
The Blue Bonnet Bowl
Matchup: Texas A&M (-9.5) vs. Northwestern
Pick: Northwestern beats the spread
The Sun Bowl
Matchup: Utah (+3.5) vs. Georgia Tech
Pick: Utah beats the spread
The Grateful Dead Bowl
Matchup: UCLA (+2.5) vs. Illinois
Pick: UCLA pulls off the upset
The Martin Luther King Jr. Bowl
Matchup: Cincinnati (+3) vs. Vanderbilt
Pick: Cincinnati beats the spread
The Peach Bowl
Matchup: Virginia (+1.5) vs. Auburn
Pick: Auburn covers
January 2nd
The Doak Walker Bowl
Matchup: Penn State (+5.5) vs. Houston
Pick: Houston covers
The Cigar Bowl
Matchup: Michigan State (+3.5) vs. Georgia
Pick: Michigan State beats the spread
The Tangerine Bowl
Matchup: Nebraska (+2.5) vs. South Carolina
Pick: South Carolina covers
The Gator Bowl
Matchup: Florida (-2) vs. Ohio State
Pick: Florida covers
The Keith Jackson Bowl
Matchup: Wisconsin (+6) vs. Oregon
Pick: Wisconsin beats the spread
The Fuck Arizona SB 1070 Bowl
Matchup: Stanford (+3.5) vs. Oklahoma State
Pick: Stanford beats the spread
January 3rd
The Sugar Bowl
Matchup: Michigan (-2.5) vs. Virginia Tech
Pick: Michigan covers
January 4th
The Orange Bowl
Matchup: West Virginia (+3.5) vs. Clemson
Pick: Clemson covers
January 6th
The Jurrah Jones Bowl
Matchup: Kansas State (+7.5) vs. Arkansas
Pick: Kansas State beats the spread
January 7th
The Civil Rights Bowl
Matchup: SMU (+3.5) vs. Pittsburgh
Pick: Pittsburgh covers
January 8th
The Titties Bowl
Matchup: Arkansas State (-1) vs. Northern Illinois
Pick: Arkansas State covers
January 9th
The Fraudulent National Championship Game
Matchup: Alabama (-1) vs. LSU
Pick: LSU pulls off the upset
No comments:
Post a Comment