The Dean is filling in for Coach Fel this week. Due to my own negligence Coach Fel was not able to be contacted for his picks. I am sure that by this time Coach Fel is knee deep in all those things that make the pain of an 0-8 football team go away . . . at least until Sunday film sessions.
Coach Fel is hitting 64% of his NCAA games through 6 weeks!!! Check in on the Fel 4-Pack every week before you place your college bets.
Here are this week’s Home Dogs That Lost at Home the Week Before
Army +11 vs. Akron
Arizona St. +7.5 vs. Georgia
8 Team 7-Point Teaser
Northwestern -4 vs Ohio
Vanderbilt +14 @ Ole Miss
Georgia Tech -.5 vs Mississippi St
Virginia Tech +11 @ North Carolina
Wake Forest +11.5 @ Florida St.
Oregon -3 vs. Boise St.
Fresno St. -1 @ Toledo
Ohio St. -13.5 vs Troy
I am going to maintain a steady practical approach to my college football wagers. That is to say, exhibit patience and keep paying attention. I have not seen enough, and teams have not played enough for me to make any definitive claims of significance. I don’t believe they should have rankings published yet for this very reason. Let the season play a few weeks before we start declaring who is better than who.
There is a trend that I have been following for the past three years and it has hit over 60% of the time. The trend is to play Hone Dogs that lost at home the week before. I identify these teams and I bet them, regardless of the spread, regardless of the team. This is simply a trend bet. For example, Syracuse lost at home last week to Akron and now faces Penn St. at the Carrier Dome. The Orangemen are +28.5. Under any circumstance other than Syracuse fitting the trend I would not touch this game. As a matter of fact, I would probably lean towards Penn St. considering the facts. But alas, these wagers are not about analysis on an individual game basis, it is an analysis of a trend. And if the trend hits 60% of the time, then all games that fit the trend must be played.
Here are this week’s Home Dogs That Lost at Home the Week Before
Syracuse +28.5 vs. Penn St.
Washington +21.5 vs. Oklahoma
New Mexico +12 vs. Arizona
The following 4 games I liked individually, so I grouped them into a 6-point teaser and got 3x my action.
California -10 @ Maryland
Vanderbilt -4 vs. Rice
Oregon -3.5 @ Purdue
USC -6 vs. Ohio St.
I know this is the second weekend of college football, but its the first where I am laying action. Here is who I am taking.
Middle Tennessee State +12.5 vs. Maryland
Washington St. +14 vs. California
New Mexico +3.5 vs. Texas A&M
The following teams are together in a 3-team 7.5 point teaser
Georgia Tech +14.5 @ Boston College. The news that Georgia Tech’s starting Linebackers are not playing causes me a little pause.
Tulane +39 @ Alabama
Oregon State +22.5 @ Penn State
I am not worried about Missouri, they are good and the 42 points they gave up were more a result of the type of game, not the strength of the defense. I also believe that Illinois’ offense is pretty explosive, should serve Illinois well in Big 10 play.
Ohio St. is a good team. Tyrelle Prior to going to be great but the Big 10 is just not very good. Some teams are better than they used to be, i.e. Indiana, and some are Top 20 teams. But there is no Big 10 team, save Ohio St., that is even scratching at the door. That said, I grade the Big 10 higher than I grade the ACC.
The ACC was supposed to become a better conference after raiding the Big East, but that sure isn’t the case. Clemson embarrassed themselves and their conference. I do think Alabama is not-bad, so losing wouldn’t have necessarily been embarrassing, but it wasn’t even close. I do think this will inflate Alabama’s perceived value, could be a team to keep an eye-out-for on the Board.
Hats off to the Big East! The Big East is having the best year of any Conference! I know it’s only Week 1, and I believe that the Big East overall is slightly beneath the ACC. West Virginia gives the conference a legit player in the BCS Game, and up and comers like Rutgers provide a sprinkle of hope. But I congratulate them for getting their non-Football Big East brethren on the national stage. Villanova’s appearance in Morgantown is no doubt a good move by ‘Nova. It is the type of boost that could make Villanova a perennial contender in I-AA or whatever the hell it is called now.
For the record, the SEC is the best conference and the Big XII is a distant second.
There are good bets and there are bad bets. Both have the potential to win; both have the potential to lose. As I sit here the day after a losing bet, I remain convinced that Ohio St. was not a bad bet. I am not going to talk about how Ohio St. should have won, because they shouldn’t have won, they weren’t the best team out there and they made too many mistakes to even deserve consideration that they might have won the game. Even with that, I remain steadfast that OSU was not a bad bet. Please understand that I fully recognize that LSU was a GOOD bet. But a certain solace can be found by the bettors of Ohio St. that is not afforded to a fan of Ohio St. First off, I only need Ohio St. to cover a 13.5 line, which they almost did. (Had the bet been placed earlier that would have been 15.5 points, but I digress). Secondly, despite all their bad play and mistakes, Ohio St. still had chances to cover and to win, but the whole they dug was too deep and the miscues to crucial.
All that being said, this is the second year in a row that the Buckeyes have been selected to play in the Championship game and the second year in a row that they showed us what they and the Big 10 are really made of; which is that they are weak and do not deserve to be considered among the elites in college football. How can the Big 10 turn this perception? For starters they can play a conference championship game. You may ask what that would do? That even if there were a Big 10 championship, Ohio St. could have won that and still made it to to last night’s game. True. However, when a marginal team has to play more games the likelihood that they will lose a game increases, i.e. the Buckeyes losing to Illinois. Granted LSU had two losses this year, but that speaks to the strength of their conference. So, the first thing the Big 10 needs to do is get that extra game on the schedule.
To help the Big 10 complete this task, I have a proposal. My proposal is for Notre Dame to join the Big 10 making it a 12-team conference, and forming two 6-team divisions. This would also solve the ND as an island scenario that exists now and that really screws teams should the Irish ever field a competitive team again. Each Big 10+2 team would play their division mates for 5-games, 3 of their other division schools and have 4 open slots. I have taken the liberty of forming a Big 10 East and a Big 10 West Division. Here is how it would look:
East Division: Michigan, Michigan St., Notre Dame, Purdue, Ohio St., and Penn St.
West Division: Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Minnesota, and Northwestern.
With this in place, and with the addition of a Plus-1 scenario, only the Pac 10 needs to get in line and we will be in a much better place.
Ohio St. +3.5
So here it is, the so-called National Championship game. Don’t get too caught up in what people want you to think of this game as, and take it for what it is. Its another Bowl Game and another chance to make some cash. For my money the pick is Ohio St., and here is why. For starters, Ohio St. will find a way to deal with the lay-off, which is overblown. They did not get crushed last year because of the lay-off. They got crushed because their offense was one-dimensional and their defense was suspect. LSU will not, can not, put up the points like The Gators could. In addition, LSU is a few plays away from having 5 losses. Now I know that it speaks well of them to winning close games, and it does, but it also speaks to them playing close games. More power to you if you got OSU at 5.5. If you think the home crowd is going to harm OSU than you didn’t see them take the field in a hostile Beaver Stadium this year. The Buckeyes were unflappable so I don’t see the LSU dominant crowd as being so influential. LSU had a non-cover win against Tulane in the Superdome earlier this year, so perhaps the stadium isn’t so much to the Tigers liking. Lastly, OSU comes into this game the exact opposite as last year. They are supposed to get trounced by the faster, better SEC team, but I just don’t see a beat-down happening.
I have OSU at +13.5 in the last piece of a 3-team Tease, OSU at +3.5 as the last piece of a 3-team parlay and OSU and the Money Line at +145.
It should be noted that I had Florida as a 4-star last year and I am NOT a supporter, fan or even an admirer of OSU.
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