Fab 4 picks
Last week was a good week. Every week you top 60 percent against the number is by definition entertaining.
But let's look beyond the actual picks and remember that we skipped Clemson (minus-33) and Hawaii (plus-6) for various reasons and each failed to cover. We've said this multiple times, and we likely will say it multiple times more, picking the losers (or avoiding them) is every bit as entertaining as picking winners.
So, as we made the most of Vegas getting their legs underneath in Week 1 (5-1 against the spread) and took a beating as the overreaction of Week 2 landed on our lap (2-4). If we can settle into a 60-percent groove, well, entertainment for everyone.
Alabama minus-26 over Texas A&M. Is the number scary? Sure. A&M has quality athletes and a future NFL running back in Trayveon Williams. A&M is 21st in points scored (44.3 per game) and 21st in points allowed (15 per game). Quarterback Kellen Mond has been the quietest star in the game - he has 103 rushing yards and three scores and has thrown for 824 yards and six scores with no picks in three games - and was aces against consistent pressure Clemson. And you know what, I simply do not care because we are riding Alabama until we have reason not to ride the Tide anymore. And ask yourself this: How many points would Alabama have to give at home to anyone for you to back the other side? Exactly.
Georgia minus-14 at Missouri. Buy the half, and read all the stuff above, and sub out that Missouri is at home and has a potential No. 1 overall pick in quarterback in Drew Lock. But how many other Missouri players would start for this Georgia team? Seriously. That has to be worth two touchdowns. And the noon Eastern kickoff (11 a.m. in Columbia) always helps the road team in SEC games as the crowd and the home team are slow out of the gate.
USC minus-3.5 over Washington State. We'll make the rare move to buy it down to an even 3. Follow along: USC at home, at night. (This game is Friday friends.) USC is more talented across almost every position. USC is young, yes, but these freshmen have faced Stanford and Texas on the road. And while last week's final in Austin looks rotten - it was 23-14 middle of the fourth before a blocked kick for a score and a late garbage TD made it 3714, Texas - the score was a little misleading. Now, let's add in the desperation factor that faces Klay Helton considering this is a home game and the home folks are uneasy. Also, sprinkle in some serious revenge factor from this game a year ago, and we think you simply can not get a talent mismatch like this at a better price.
Syracuse minus-27.5 over UConn. Are we riding teams with which are familiar? You know it. Syracuse smoked FSU last week in the Carrier Dome 30-7, and that was without star quarterback Eric Dungey in the second half. UConn edged Rhode Island 56-49. In fact, UConn has allowed 56, 62 and 49 points in its three games so far and, well, here comes some statistical overkill for anyone who believes laying 27 points is entirely too many in any sporting event involving Syracuse and UConn that does not include Geno Auriemma: UConn defensively, among the 129 FBS teams is 128th in rush defense (298.3 yards per game), 126th in pass defense (375.0 yards per game), 129th in scoring defense (55.7 points per game) and 129th in total defense (673.3 yards per game, which is 75 yards per game more than the next-to-last team allows). Just for good measure on gladly laying the 27.5 is the knowledge that Syracuse is 12th in the country in scoring offense at 49 points per game. When the score "Syracuse 59, UConn 7, 3rd quarter" hits your ticker Saturday, smile and remember to tip your wait staff.
TCU minus-3 at Texas. There's a tough hurdle that few folks realize that faces college football coaches. When you have a monster win - like Texas' 37-14 win over USC - there simply is no way for a coach to stop friends and family and (as Mike Leach called them) those "fat girlfriends" from telling the Longhorns how great they are and how they are back. There's simply no way to stop it, and almost no way to stop an 18-to-22-year-old youngster from believing it. TCU is more talented than and, more importantly, faster than Texas, which is in a staggering stretch of USC, TCU, at Kansas State and Oklahoma. Buy the half, but simply put TCU is better.
South Carolina minus-2 at Vanderbilt. The ripples of Hurricane Florence actual has an effect on this one. Consider the following: South Carolina's last game was absolute drubbing at the hands of Georgia, which is no worse than 1B nationally. Last week's potential 'letdown' game against Marshall was rained out. Will Muschamp's bunch has to be itching to get back on the field. On the other side, Vandy should have won at South Bend and you can't help but wonder if the 'Dores will have a little hangover about a missed chance to derail a top-10 Notre Dame team. South Carolina has better players, a defense that is complete and had another week to get healthy, and likely going to come to Nashville more than a touch angry.
UNLV plus-7.5 at Arkansas State. Our one underdog. And amazingly, we did not have an over/under this week, so that's strange. We are riding UNLV friends. (And Hawaii, but there's no line on the Hawaii-Duquense game but if there was, we'd lay 40.) UNLV has a legit running quarterback in Armani Rogers and runs the old-school, Gus Malzahn middling option with a legit running quarterback. In three games - including a feisty road effort at USC - UNLV is averaging more than 345 rushing yards per game and 6.4 yards per carry and has 10 rushing TDs.
Navy minus-6.5 at SMU. The Mustangs may have had one of the sneaky toughest starts to the season of any team in the country. A 23-point loss at North Texas. A 30-point home loss to TCU. A 25-point loss at Michigan. Now comes Navy in a nooner and that offense. Man, has been uncharacteristically erratic this season, but this one screams "Get Well" game and you get it for less than a TD.
Last week: 5-3 against the spread (62.5 percent)
This season: 12-8 against the spread (60 spread)
UTC football coach Tom Arth congratulates players as they come off the field at Finley Stadium after scoring a touchdown during last season's game against The Citadel. Arth's second season as coach of the Mocs will kick off at 7 p.m. Thursday when they host Tennessee Tech.College football items of interest
We will start locally and tip the visor to the UTC Fightin' Arths. UTC is 3-0 against D-I competition for the first time since 1979. That's cool. If that becomes 4-0 after a visit from Samford, which is ranked in the FCS polls, the Mocs will surge into the polls and return to the conversation of contenders. It's also cool to see Nick Tiano get his chance to be a college QB1 and make the most of it. Think about it this way, Tiano was neck-and-neck with Nick Fitzgerald for the Mississippi State gig a couple of years ago, and we see what Fitzgerald has become. Tiano can play friends and the Mocs are feeding off it. (Side storyline: Georgia's on the road. Tennessee and Florida play an ugly game that may not sell out. How many folks will descend on Finley on Saturday will be an interesting number to follow.)
Speaking of attendance, we're curious if Tennessee-Florida will be a sell-out. And if we'd have typed that sentence in the mid-1990s, well, they would have taken away my keyboard. Now, add in the fact that Tennessee is celebrating the 1998 national championship team, and that question becomes even more potentially damaging. (Is there anything that is 20 years-old that feels like it happened a lot longer ago than the Vols' '98 natty? Saving Private Ryan and There's Something About Mary, and The Big Lebowski came out in 1998. Jordan won his final NBA title in 1998. NBC still had Must-Watch Thursday nights with Friends and Seinfeld and ER. And it still feels like the Vols title run happened 15 years before any of those.) We have no idea who wins this game because neither team has a trustable offensive piece. But, man, we want a UT-Florida game to mean something again, you know?
Ranked road favorites on upset alert. Look around the country and there are nine ranked teams going on the road and you have to wonder how many of those teams will escape the work trip unscathed. The games are sneaky intriguing too. We discussed Georgia going to Missouri, and it's clear we do not think that falls into the upset special category. But some of the others: a physical Kentucky team hosting Mississippi State, Clemson visiting a desperate Georgia Tech team, Notre Dame at Wake Forest (and that one is really, Really, REALLY interesting) and TCU going to Texas. Hard to know which of those ranked teams will stumble, but here's betting at least a couple do. Keep an eye on Stanford, too, which heads to Oregon for a night game in the Land of Nike.
Speaking of road favorites, well, we have an especially keen interest in Clemson at Georgia Tech. One, a good buddy who has ties to the Tech program has told me that this is one is as close to a must-have as a 17-point home underdog can have for Jackets coach Paul Johnson. We love PJ. Dude is everything that college coaches should be: Honest, direct, in it for the right reasons, true to his players and his system. Plus he can golf his ball and is funny. But we're not sure that the Jackets have anything close to enough to topple a Clemson team that already slept walked through a road game this year. There's no cheering in the press box, but man, we'd love for the Yellow Johnsons to give Clemson a tight one if for no other reason than we're pulling for PJ.
FSU's tailspin. Hard to know if the freewill for the Seminoles will continue this weekend, but Northern Illinois comes calling and there are a lot of folks who have the Huskies winning this game outright. Yes, Northern Illinois coming to Doak Campbell. Somewhere Burt Reynolds is punching Dom DeLuise. If this one goes against Willie Taggert, would that potentially lead us a step closer to our first one-and-done coaching scenario ever?
FILE - In this Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2016 file photo, AXS TV Chairman and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban listens on Capitol Hill in Washington while testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing on the proposed merger between AT&T and Time Warner. President Donald Trump’s performance in the White House is making it harder for Republicans and billionaires in the coming elections. That’s according to two prominent Trump critics, billionaire businessman Mark Cuban and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who lashed out at the GOP president Saturday, July 22, 2017 during a summer festival in New York City. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File) Is $10 million enough?
That's the question a lot of folks are asking considering that's the voluntary amount Mark Cuban has pledged to women's groups and domestic violence causes after the NBA concluded its investigation into the allegations against Cuban's Dallas Mavericks.
In a strong interview from Rachel Nichols on ESPN's The Jump, she grilled Cuban on several aspects of the investigation, the culture of the Mavericks that was toxic and completely unfair to and even dangerous for women, and how Cuban did not know about almost all of it. She also asked why an executive who had been charged with domestic violence was not fired and was allowed to return to the organization and later committed domestic violence against a female Mavericks' employee.
(Side note: That interview should be required viewing for folks who want to be on air interviewers - looking at you Mr. Sensitive Tom Rinaldi - and while we are at it, Cuban looked truly hurt and apologetic and answered with honest and more than a little contrition in his gestures and his voice. Well done all around.)
But the question now is if the league should have suspended him or done more. No one is saying that the Sterling Code Red is in order of course, but, while $10 million is a lot of coin and can do a lot of good, for someone like Cuban, who is worth $3.9 billion, it's like if you had $390 in your pocket and you give someone $1.)
Thoughts?
This and that
- A federal judge threw out a concussion lawsuit against the WWE brought by as many as 60 former wrestlers and ruled that the wrestlers had to pay the WWE attorney fees.
- Nice win for the Braves, who have a magic number to clinch the NL East of six. Just like we all expected, right?
- Maroon 5 announced as the halftime act for Super Bowl 53. Thoughts?
- The Wall Street Journal and others are now digging into whether Gene Smith Smith and Urban Liar deleting text messages is in violation of state law. Hmmmm, Ol' Coach Liar still has some hurdles to clear.
- Browns-Jets tonight on Thursday night football. You know what, we're going to lay the 3 (buy the half) and take the Browns to end their winless run and unlock those Bud Light coolers across Cleveland. Dilly! Dilly! (And here's betting there's not going to be a lot of work get done in Cleveland tomorrow if the Browns deliver.)
Today's question
On this day in 2001, W declared a war on terror. We are stilling fighting that war friends.
Wow, The Cosby Show premiered on NBC on this day in 1984. With the lone possibility of O.J., no celebrity in my lifetime has had an image 180 more than Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable.
It was 45 years ago today that Billie Jean King toppled Bobby Riggs in the battle of the sexes tennis match.
Red Auerbach would have been 101 today.
Rushmore of people with a color in their name.
Go and remember the mailbag and the Survivor Pool. (Seriously, it does exist, Fat Vader. We swear.)