Fab 4 picks
OK, let’s figure a way to break through the malaise of middle of the road.
For comparisons sake, we are looking for Season 4 Seinfeld-type entertainment. Right now, we’re more toward the late years of Fresh Prince. Sure there are some entertaining moments, but we’re still searching for week-in, week-out surefire reliable gold.
Last week we choose poorly, hanging with Michigan and Hawaii over some others we liked just as much but worked out much better. Picking which games after examining all the lines is just as important as picking which teams.
Alabama-Arkansas over 56. We are to the point that any total for the Tide that is not in the 60s may be a must play because simply put Alabama is going to come close to that on its own. Plus, in SEC games, Alabama can only dress 85 dudes – and all 85 making the trip likely would start for Arkansas – so when Lord Saban clears the bench, he’s still putting talented dudes on the field.
Georgia Southern minus-13.5 over South Alabama. This sets up well for the Eagles for a multitude of reasons. The running game is improving by the week. The GSU defense has been reliable. And South Alabama is playing its sixth straight week that has included trips – and beatdowns – to Oklahoma, Memphis and App State. Plus, the injuries are starting to mount and senior quarterback Cole Gervin is still suspended. Now know that South Alabama is 112th in the country in run defense. Yes please.
Syracuse minus-3 at Pittsburgh. Buy the half here but we like this Syracuse team for a lot of reasons. They are experienced. They are explosive. They are well-coached. Plus, Pittsburgh may have the worst home-field environment of any of the teams who have won a national championship in the last half-century.
Northwestern plus-11 at Michigan State. The Spartans have one of the best run defenses around. That’s great. Northwestern is not going to run the ball but that’s OK with a short-to-mid-range passing game with a future NFL back-up quarterback. This is just too many points for a Michigan State team that simply has not been that impressive.
Notre Dame minus-6 at Virginia Tech. Yes, at night in Blacksburg is a scary proposition. But the Hokies are still without their quarterback and the Irish are very good defensively. Plus, Notre Dame has a lot to playoff, something that is exceedingly important for road favorites.
UNLV minus-9.5 over New Mexico . Want to guess who leads the country in rushing yards per game? Nope, it’s not Georgia Tech or Navy or even Wisconsin. It’s the true-to-their-name Runnin’ Rebels of UNLV at 344 yards per game. And to open the Mountain West Conference slate, this UNLV offense gets a visit from New Mexico, which allows more than 210 yards rushing per game.
Last week: 3-3 against the spread (50 percent)
This season: 19-14-1 (57.6 percent)
NCAA college football head coach Gus Malzahn of Auburn speaks during the Southeastern Conference Media Days at the College Football Hall of Fame in Atlanta, Thursday, July 19, 2018. (AP Photo/John Amis)College football items of interest
Who earns they monster check? We all know Nick Saban is the best, and with that title, he is the highest-paid coach in college football.at $8.3 million per year. (Based on a 40-hour work week – and we know that Saban works longer hours than that – and 50 weeks a year, Saban earns $4,140 an hour, which works out to $6916 per minute, $33,200 per work day and $166,000 per week in normal person hours.) And Saban is underpaid considering his results. Just think if he got a sizable bonus for each news conference rant. (Wednesday Lord Saban went off on the students for not showing up early and not staying through the entirety of the Tide’s whitewashing of Louisiana-LaFayette. Dude, what do you think Saban’s like with telemarketers when he’s in a foul mood?) Anyhoo, USA Today released its list of highest paid coaches, and after the Dark Lord, there’s Urban Liar ($7.6 million), Jimmy Harbaugh and Jimbo Fisher ($7.5 million each) and Gus Malzahn ($6.7 million). Saban’s bunch is a five-TD favorite at Arkansas. Meyer made his money last week against Penn State and his team is a 25-point favorite over Indiana. Those are gimmes. Michigan is a 17.5-favorite over Maryland, so yeah, that’s doable. As for Jimbo and Gus, well, that’s a lot of coin for two dudes who have scary games against Kentucky and Mississippi State respectively.
First SEC team to 21 wins. There are several league games with single-digit lines and curiously low over/unders. Total for LSU-Florida is 43.5. Total for Auburn-Mississippi State is 42 for Pete’s sake. Kentucky-Texas A&M is 50. Sneaky great match-up in that last game pits the Aggies run defense, which is one of only nine in the country that is allowing less than 100 rushing yards to opponents per game, against Benny Snell and the Wildcats ground game.
Red River Rivalry. We’re in for some OU and Texas for a lot of reasons. First there’s the Sooners hiccup-quick offense. There’s the “Is Texas back” storyline. Plus the details about Mike Leach creating a fake playbook when he was the OU OC and making sure Texas got its hands on it is awesome. College football needs more of Mike Leach. And less of Mike Gundy.
Remember when Miami-FSU was the game of the year? Yeah, so do we. Now, it could very well be a Hurricanes romp and the questions about the immediate future for these struggling Seminoles are very real and have very few easy answers.
The Atlanta Braves warm up for Wednesday’s practice in Los Angeles ahead of today’s NL Division Series opener against the Dodgers.Thursday night action
We got the Braves-Dodgers tonight. We’re in.
We also got the Colts-Pats, speaking of rivals that everyone made time for in the early 2000s.
The Thursday night improvements have been noticeable. We hope they continue tonight.
As for our survivor pool, we only lost one last week. Sorry Chris B.
Here’s who’s left. If you want the Pats I need the pick by end of BID-ness today. If you want the Colts, well, better luck next year.
Weena
Jason T.
Jules
Auburn Guy
Lil’ 5-at-10. (Yes, Lee Greeson had Panthers over Cowboys, Falcons over Panthers, Eagles over Colts. And he was wise not to listen to his old man, who had Lions over Jets in week 1.)
Mike C.
Terry
El Jefe
Brent R.
Justin
This and that
– Yankees toppled A’s, so baseball gets what it wants: Boston-New York in the postseason. Good times.
– Click on this at your own risk. This is the state-by-state graphic of the most popular candy in each of the 50 states in these United States. Who knew that so many people liked candy corn?
– This list of TV market size for the 67 cities with at least one of the 114 teams in the four major team sports in America is interesting. The biggest, of course, is NYC. Other items of note: The largest one-team city is Orlando and its Magic. Nashville is 27th in size with 1.022 million homes. The smallest of course is Green Bay.
– Man, talk about dirty campaigning. A Michigan cheerleader is in hot water for bringing pot brownies to school to help garner support and votes in her big to be homecoming queen.
– Here’s an excellent story by TFP excellent sports columnist Mark Wiedmer on an alternative baseball league. It’s worth your time.
– The UGA baseball player accused of screaming racial slurs at Justin Fields at Saturday’s UGA-Tennessee game – “Put the (N-word) in” – has been dismissed from the team.
Today’s questions
Lots to get to today friends.
Today is Cinnamon Roll Day. It’s also national golf day, national taco day and national vodka day. We’ll go friend on all four of those friends.
Susan Sarandon is 72 today.
In 1957, Sputnik was launched. In 2006 WikiLeaks was launched.
And we have to mention this because, well, you will see. On this day in 1927 Gutzon Borglum started sculpting Mount Rushmore. Well done, Mr. Borglum.
Did you see that the inspiration for the Buddy Holly classic “Peggy Sue” died? She was 78. https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/real-life-peggy-sue-inspiration-buddy-hollys-song-died-78-185938543.html
Rushmore of songs with a woman’s name in the title. Go and remember the mailbag.