COLLEGE FOOTBALL WEEK 12 - 2K18
Back to back weeks! A trend has started, soon it will be a habit (well, college football is almost over, so a light habit, similar to TOB’s coke binge of 2009). While it was a bit of a yawn last week, good to see the TOB endorsement work again by having WVU head coach Dana Holgorsen on the cover (I know it’s a blog, but let me at least pretend to have a magazine cover…I don’t ask for much, just several comments, likes, recommendations, etc.) Before we get into all of last weeks action, let’s get to a reader favorite, “Commercial that is currently making TOB laugh”:
https://www.ispot.tv/ad/dnfU/eggo-thick-and-fluffy-waffles-whisper
The face “husband” makes in this commercial is similar to that of TOB when some jackass from UCF claims to have a better team than ND. That seems like a good place to start…
https://247sports.com/Article/McKenzie-Milton-UCF-better-than-Notre-Dame-Fighting-Irish-124804858/
Real cool, guy. Congrats on being undefeated last season, raising your own banner as National Champion, and having the current longest unbeaten streak in the country. Let’s roll out a few things that hurt Milton’s argument…UCF is the largest school in Florida (60,767 students), a state that routinely produces some of the best talent in the NFL (Antonio Brown, Geno Atkins, Patrick Peterson, Matt Stafford, TY Hilton – is that something you would be interested in), they are not exactly IVY League when it comes to the application process (a quick TOB search led me to believe that the $30 undergrad application fee is the biggest hurdle), and they are currently part of the AAC (a basketball conference). Want some respect? Join the ACC, or the SEC, or anywhere but the AAC and maybe you’ll have a sniff at a real championship. UCF’s strength of schedule is currently 104, ND is 59 – nothing to brag about, but twice as hard (assuming this is linear, TOB really has no idea, the rankings online all involved decimal points leading to 1 being the best, seems a bit sketchy at best…I wonder if more words have been written parenthetically to this point…well, probably now).
Milton’s argument hinges on how dominant UCF was against Pitt while ND struggled against said opponent. Unlike simple algebra, the transitive property does not hold in sports (particularly football where every game is unique). By Milton’s logic, last season it could be argued that Vanderbilt was the true National Champion (Vanderbilt beat Kansas State, Kansas State beat UCLA, UCLA beat Texas A&M, Texas A&M beat Auburn, Auburn beat Georgia, Georgia beat Alabama). See how stupid that is? Do you know how long that took to research? Not that long really.
Picks are back and better than ever! You’re welcome for all that $$ last week, let’s do it again with house money! Instead of keeping track of record, we will keep track of that cash up or down based on standard bets.
Last weeks’ picks:
Cheech
Oklahoma State (+21.5) over Oklahoma – Win +$100
Washington State (-6.5) over Colorado – Win +$100
LSU (-13) over Arkansas – Win +$100
Georgia (-13.5) over Auburn – Win +$100
Northwestern (+10) over Iowa – Win +$100 (+$250 if you took TOB’s advice on the moneyline!)
TOB
Ohio State (-3.5) over Michigan State – Win +$100
Florida (-7) over South Carolina – Loss ($100)
West Virginia (-13.5) over TCU – Win +$100
Texas A&M (-13) over Ole Miss – Win +$100
Miami (+2.5) over GA Tech – Loss ($100)
Week 12 picks (not a ton of great games, a lot of the SEC is doing their pre-rivalry week warm-up game):
Cheech (+$500)
Taking his $500 and running to the bank…
Tony (+$100)
Ohio State (-14) over Maryland – Ohio State took care of business last week against MSU (as read here first!) and should continue that trend. Following this win Ohio State will then become the biggest Syracuse fans this side of Buffalo.
Ole Miss (+3) over Vanderbilt – Ole Miss is in a tough spot here, needing a win against the defending National Champion (suck it UCF) to qualify for bowl season. TOB’s wife will be all over this game…which is to say she will ask if they are playing today after the result is in.
Iowa State (+2.5) over Texas – Iowa State tends to be a giant killer. Texas is hardly a giant this year, though with 3 losses is still ranked top 20 (what is going on here!?). TOB would take Iowa State even if they were the favorite.
UCF (-7) over Cincinnati – Despite TOB’s annoyance with UCF, they are a very good (more importantly very motivated) team. This line should probably be around 13.5, give the 7 and laugh when they raise another banner by winning the AAC.
Syracuse (+10) over Notre Dame – TOB is typically very opposed to picking games based on emotion, but there about 3 decent games this week. ND should win this game, but 10 seems like too many. TOB predicts ND being up 5 with about 2 minutes left and sweating out a Syracuse drive that ends with a 4th and goal incompletion.
A win today would almost assure the Irish a spot in the playoff – which may or may not be a good thing. The only opponent standing in their way is the favorite team of TOB’s personal rival (Steve Gerring), the USC Trojans. What a turd sandwich they could provide by tripping up an undefeated Irish team just before a triumphant return to glory (or a triumphant return to losing by 45 points to Alabama). How sweet would it be if Notre Dame were to get tripped up, find themselves in a nice little New Years Day bowl game against the hated UCF…that’s foreshadowing kids!
One more housekeeping item, shout out to Les Miles taking the Kansas job. Waiting to hear Mizzou claim he wasn’t interested in a school in the Midwest again. Curious of the details of the contract, but given the state of Kansas it could be in the $6M/yr range. The Big 12 is ripe for the picking if Lincoln Riley makes the move to the NFL (Cleveland and Dallas will be calling…at least), and Texas continues to be a dumpster fire. It wasn’t that long ago Mark Mangino had Kansas in the Orange Bowl and there were some scouts looking at Todd Reesing as a legit prospect. TOB and company made several trips to KC for those MU/KU games back when both were vying for the #1 rank. This could be big for KU football, and just the distraction the school needs while Bill Self continues to sweep that Adidas money under the rug…
GO IRISH!
-Tonyonball
