Morning friends.
We’ll start our Friday conversation with a little motivation.
From our friend the Dalai Lama – the 12th son of the Lama – comes this morning thought: “We need to be determined to achieve positive change, and also be able to take a long view of what needs to be done. What is important is not to become demoralized. Optimism leads to success; pessimism leads to defeat. One person can be the source of inspiration for many others.”
Optimism leads to success; pessimism leads to defeat. With that in mind, let’s see if we can answer a full mailbag and tie in quotes from that fountain of optimism that was SNL motivational mentor Jack Handey. Deal? Deal.
From the “Talks too much” studios, let’s go.
From Larry
My friend reads your blog everyday and has told me about your college picks.
Do you only make picks on Thursdays? Do you not do NFL games? If you are hitting this much why aren’t you charging for these picks?
Gotta tell you man, I call BS.
Larry –
As Jack Handey says, “Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away and you have a new pair of shoes.”
Don’t know what to tell you Larry other than thanks for the email.
We have been picking college games against the number since the start of the 2011 season, and our career numbers are pretty close to this year’s 34-23-1 total.
As for other nights, I am going to try to make a gambling pick every afternoon on Press Row, and I will add that pick in the comments around 5:45 or so. Please remember that’s a pledge to ‘try’ because as one of the regulars (Hi Fat Vader) noted this week, 27 straight days of football could be 27 straight days of entertainment.
I’ll keep up with these starting with Tuesday’s double-dip. Thursday we offered the over-58 in UC-Temple. That game was 34-28 at half – UCF got a late 52-40 win to cover the 10 – so you got to be thoroughly entertained and go about your BID-ness. In random off the cuff picks, we’re 3-0. Hey, in honor of Fletch, we’ll call these the “Off track betting in the Himalayas” picks – it’s a smaller collection of picks, but I know you have been following them. https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/70dfef60-21b7-4fc3-8413-0c9fa39d5ce0
MTSU -13.5 over a dreadful Western Kentucky team. DEEEEEE-readful. WKU lost to Louisville for Pete’s sake. And Maine. Blue Raiders at home Hilltoppers checked out. (Side point: This also brings us to the point of the importance of a rising star coach at mid-level programs. WKU was UCF-like a few years ago when they had a hungry/desperate Bobby Petrino followed by rising boy wonder Jeff Brohm. Now? The Hilltoppers could be making their fans pill poppers it’s so ugly.)
Anyhoo, back to Larry. We dabbled in NFL. Two years ago when the college season ended we did NFL picks and was smoking hot. Something like 70 percent if memory serves. Then we tried to duplicate picking games all season last year and produced a river of 2-and-2s that would have made Chuck Worley envious. (That’s an A1 joke right there friends.) We will pick up in December, but we thought we’d spare everyone our Seinfeld-esque down-the-middle NFL picks.
As for our credentials and tabulations, well, we publish these every Thursday and keep up with them as we go. We were smoking hot last year – 50-30-1 in the regular season and a decidedly mediocre 18-17 in the bowl season – as we posted when we started this year. All told, our record is currently 438-279-6 since starting this in 2011. That’s 61.1 percent. Even with our penchant to buy more halves than a fat man at a cake auction, simple math shows that at 100 entertainment duckets per bet, and losing 112 entertainment duckets per loss (we added the extra 2 to the vig/entertainment brokerage fee, which is way, Way, WAY higher than the extra fees for buying a half on missed bets, but we are going to err on the side of caution) here are the totals:
That’s 43,800 entertainment duckets in the win column; 33,480 in entertainment losses with fees and charges (again this number is high because we overestimated losses with extra juice).
So, free of charge – well other than the prescription – if you have decided to use the Fab 4 picks, we are +10,320 (at least). That’s more than a 1,370 per year if you divide that by 7.5.
As for BS, well, everyone is entitled to their own view my good man, but we have documented the Fab 4 picks every week since we started this venture. So there’s that.
Speaking of starting this venture, we have been obscenely busy the last handful of weeks. There’s a lot happening at our jobs and at home – most of it is good gang no worries – so we failed to mention this late last month, but the 5-at-10 celebrated it’s 8th birthday Oct. 25. Yep, eight years every Monday-though-Friday started all the way back when Cam Newton was leading the Auburn Tigers to the promised land.
Every Monday-Friday, too, be it Christmas, a sick day – we have been blessed that the only time we have been truly sick in that time frame was on a Saturday last year – or vacation. (Yeah, the Mrs. has gotten a little peeved at some of those vacation 5-at-10s.) That’s 420 straight weeks 2,100 consecutive 5-at-10s. Today.
So in short Larry – or as short as we get here in the “Talks too much” studios – we don’t really care what you think is or is not BS, my man.
From Chance
Have you ever thought about having a Hall of Fame or something like that for the 5-at-10 regulars?
Because, and no offense Mr. 5@10, the comments are as fun as the column a lot of the time.
Thanks for the gathering place sir.
Chance –
Hmmmmmmm At first glance, we are intrigued by this idea, but as Jack Handey says, “On the other hand you have different fingers.”
We like this thought in general, but we also really like the culture we have crafted here.
And while we have a collection of regulars who are aces and a growing number of occasional/random commenters who bring a lot of diversity and viewpoints to the platform, the last thing we’d want is turn this into a competition because people want to be recognized one way or the other.
That said, I am open to the possibility, and there are a few folks who have been around for a long, Long, LONG time. Going back to the days when the website was free and the 5-at-10 routinely would get 30-plus comments on a regular basis.
From several of you in one form or the other
Rushmore of calzones in Chattanooga area?
Gang –
Thanks as always, TC, for reading and listening to Press Row. (Seriously gang, I know David and Wells feel the same way, but we are blown away by all the kind words and the folks coming up and sharing how much they enjoy our hijinks from 3-6 on ESPN 105.1 the Zone.)
Hmmmmm
OK Lupi’s and Mellow Mushroom are there. Although David and Wells get sticker shock at MM when the check comes – and that’s a fair complaint – the product is still aces.
We think Community Pie has a good one, and the sandwich offerings at Terminal actually have a Calzone feel, so we’ll go there. Thoughts?
And that brings us to the Rushmores this week.
Rushmore of Saints – Saint Nick for sure. St. Patrick (if you get a day dedicated to you that is highlighted with green beer, you’re in), “When the Saints Go Marching In” and
(Side note: Doing some research on saints, well, let’s just say this passage from listverse.com on St. Quiteria gave her a puncher’s chance to make the list. If she had had offspring like Peyton or Eli, well, she could have crashed that last spot. Read this and enjoy: “This entry is number one on the list for not just the badassness of St Quiteria, but the downright weird circumstances of her life. St Quiteria was one of nine sisters all born at the same time (nonuplets). The nine girls’ mother was a lady of high rank and she was disgusted that she had given birth to nine children like a common animal and even more so that she had nine daughters and no son (son’s were far more valuable). In a fit of rage, she demanded that her nurse take the babies and drown them in the river. The nurse couldn’t do it so she took them to a remote village where the girls grew up together. Then things get really weird. They formed a nonuplet warrior gang. The girls were all good Christians and their gang was formed to travel around breaking Christians out of jail. They spent a number of years in this task (and smashing Roman idols) until they were caught and returned to their father, who recognized them. He told them all to marry good Roman pagans but they refused and broke out of jail. Then the real badass began. They waged a guerilla war against the Roman Empire. Eventually, the girls were all killed or died (Quiteria was beheaded) and along with Quiteria, two of her sisters Marina and Liberata are saints.” Side note on the side note: “Nonuplet Warrior Gang” is an aces name for a fantasy team.)
Rushmore of best college football teams of the last 40 years: Miami 2001, which was crazy, insane talented with Ed Reed, D.J. Williams, Jonathan Vilma, Jerome McDougle, Vince Wilfork, Sean Taylor, Mike Rumph and Phillip Buchanon on defense, and OT Bryant McKinnie, Clinton Portis, Willis McGahee, Frank Gore, Najeh Davenport, Andre Johnson and Jeremy Shockey on offense. Nebraska 1995 and 2004 USC, and this year’s Alabama. (And as a true-believing Auburn fan, as great and as complete as those teams were, we’re still not 100 percent sure they could beat Cam in the back half of 2010.)
Rushmore of famous pitches: Ryan’s heater, Satchel Paige’s mysterious (shine) ball, Mariano’s cutter, Fernando’s screwball. On the zany side: We’ll go with Pitch Fork, Pitching a Tent, Pitch Perfect (Shut up Spy) and Pitching a Fit, which we can assure you is not tolerated around the 5-at-10 compound.
Rushmore of baseball players known by their initials: CC Sabathia, who has a better shot at the Hall than most think; AL MVP runner-up JD Martinez, who is one of the five or six best hitters in the game today. R.A. Dickey and JD Drew.
From Alejandro
Whats your preferred Playoff right now? Mine is my Dawgs, Leach’s bunch, Clemson and The fighting Khakis.
Alejandro –
First, good luck on your interview today my man. (Side note: Later today, Alejandro has a sit-down with the bigwigs ay Auburn to get into their MBA/Accounting program. Everyone say a silent prayer that he does not cuss and that he does not smell of Tequila and Silver Bullets.)
My preferred playoff, huh? Well, Auburn would be in that but that’s not football. That’s fantasy land.
Alabama is going to turn the playoff on neutral fields into an avalanche, so from a fan’s perspective, we may need Alabama to lose (and maybe twice) to make the playoff the most fun.
We like the Leach call. We’ll add UCF if for no other reason than to see them get beat 102-5 and shut up about it. Love Oklahoma’s offense and Lincoln Riley. That dude calls ball plays. And since the SEC is going to have to have someone there, we’ll go Georgia, because of the family ties but man that UK story is fun to follow this year.
From Todd C
Mailbag… What is the chance that UGA finishes the regular season and beats Bama in the SEC title game… and they both get in the playoff? What happens IF (a big if) LSU does beat Bama? And what if Kentucky beats UGA, then who goes to the SEC title game?
Todd C.
If UGA walks it out and beats Alabama (in a close game, mind you), I think they both get in, yes. I think that is a very likely outcome if the SEC title game – in Atlanta mind you – is, say 34-31.
LSU and Alabama still have two SEC games after Saturday, so this does not lock it up for either. But let’s be really clear, it does for all intents and purposes.
If LSU beats Alabama this weekend, and wins out over Arkansas and Texas A&M (which they should), LSU goes with one loss. The winner of UK- UGA represents the East. Period.
And know this: Whether it’s UK or UGA or LSU, a one-loss SEC champ is getting into the college football playoff. No donut. Alabama losing a close one Saturday or in the title game would be the best chance for the SEC to get two in the dance.
From Chas
Sweetness is a great all-time nickname. Top four?
Chas –
This may be on the Rushmore of most difficult Rushmores. Up there with SNL cast members, Seinfeld episodes, Godfather quotes and movies so bad they’re excellent. (Roadhouse is the MJ of that category friends and on this we’ll not debate.)
Mainly because there are so many categories. By sport. By cleverness. By uniqueness. There’s a lot, and we’re throwing out some all-timers like Splendid Splinter and Iron Horse and Crazy Legs and, well, how much time do you have.
I think there if I had to go with four that merged the greatness of the name and the player in an all-time way, we’d go Magic, Sweetness, Babe and The Intimidator.
Editor note: Gang, we had wicked computer problems this morning. We had several more questions and I will try to posy some more in the comments.
Enjoy the weekend.