I am HUGE Week 5 picks and write ups - Will show you 8 picks this week!

[iamhuge]

3-2 on the year, +3 units

Bonus pick for extra credit

Since I am going to Vegas this week, I'll show you 8 picks....starting with my bonus pick. I'll provide my other write ups later in the week.


LSU – 46 over Eastern Michigan

LSU will cover this in the first half, and EMU won’t score a point with their backup QB. In 2 of its 3 losses, Eastern Michigan has given up 38 points to Old Dominion and 58 points to Army - both teams which would lose lots of games in the FCS. LSU put up 45 points against Auburn, they can get as many as they want against Eastern Michigan and EMU won’t score more than 6 points – so this should be an easy cover.

Furthermore, Leonard Fournette has 631 yards rushing in 3 games with LSU. He is averaging 8.6 yards per carry. LSU had their first game cancelled because of crazy weather and won’t be able to make it up. So they will only play 11 games this regular season. The only way for Fournette to win the Heisman is to get more yards against teams that can’t stop him. Eastern Michigan is ranked dead last in FBS in rushing defense, giving up 313 yards per game. When you watch this game, Fournette is going to look like Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo.

Oh by the way, Eastern Michigan’s backup QB is going to be throwing in the first half, because EMU will be behind. He will be throwing against the best secondary in the FBS who will be pick crazy chasing after those fluttering ducks like a bunch of crazed dingo dogs. Expect at least 5 interceptions which will be converted into more rushing yards, and TD’s by Fournette. The Bayou cage is going to be going crazy at night as all of the LSU students will be howling at the moon. No plans, just booze. Watching LSU ring up the points in the first half will be like Scud shouting TOUSAND TOUSAND TOUSAND at the Wheel of Fortune slot machine.

Laying 2 units on the chalk for the Tigers to cover the big wood.

 

[iamhuge]

NORTHWESTERN – 6 Over minnesota

Coming into their Big 10 opener at 4-0, Northwestern is strutting around Lake Michigan like Brutus the Barber Beefcake. Just because Zurn dropped $60,000 a year to send his kid there, and just because it’s a better school than Stanford, there’s no reason to assume that the Wildcat football team is any good. Then again, Northwestern did play a home game against Stanford and throttled them by the score of 16-6. Since then, the Tree has put up 113 points in its next three games (31-7 over UCF – although the Central Florida coach is still claiming he won that game, 41-31 over USC and 42-24 over Oregon St). So it looks like Northwestern’s defense is the real deal.

Then, after wiping their ass with Eastern Illinois by the score of 41-0, Northwestern defeated Duke by the score of 19-10. In its other 3 games, all wins, Duke averaged 42 points per game. Did I already tell you that Northwestern’s defense is good? Well it is, they are averaging less than 9 points per game against them.

Normally the Golden Gophers know how to go go go. But not this year’s team. Their offense usually says “No No No” when it comes to getting first downs. Minnesota’s offense ranks 109 out of 128 teams in total offense. Minnesota, averaging about 19 points per game, could easily be 0-4 this year, eking out 3 point wins against Colorado State, Kent and Ohio combined with its loss to TCU in the weekly opener. Although they did a serviceable job against the TCU passing attack, last week Minnesota lost their starting corner to a knee injury and also their starting safety to a hamstring injury (status questionable for Northwestern game).

It’s really difficult to fathom Minnesota scoring more than 10 points against Northwestern which means covering the 6 points shouldn’t be tremendous challenge, particularly with the fact that Northwestern beat Stanford by 10 and Duke by 9. The Gophers don’t quite measure up to these two vanquished opponents..not even close. If you don’t want to lay the points, parlay this one on the money line with the under as there is no way this total goes over 40 points as Northwestern prefers to grind it out.

Laying 6 points on the Wildcats for 3 hundy.

 

[Nascar_Bobby]

Have not seen NW play. I believe Ball State was well rested and super hyped for NW. Even though NW beat a top PAC-10 team and a top ACC team, those 2 teams can wear a team down for more than a week and can take time to recover in my strong opinion. I don't think NW will have a hangover from home game with Ball State like they did from away Duke game. I believe NW is only a 6 point favorite because they struggle with Ball State and Minnesota some how keeps a game close. I believe NW is the real deal and will make sure they win this game. I have to agree with your NW pick.

LSU may play their 2nd and 3rd string players and they will try to prove something. ND did this last Saturday against UMass and won 27-62. UMass is much better than EMU. LSU 4th string could beat EMU.

Edit.
Thanks for the write up.

 

[iamhuge]

I was researching my Northwestern pick on another site and found these hilarious write ups. Warning: They are somewhat inflammatory and definitely politically incorrect. So please skip over if you are easily offended. Having said that, I agree with all of the picks, so I figured I'd include on this thread for now. Obviously this person will be in Vegas as well this weekend. I have 6 more picks to write up later this week.

BYU -17.5 over Connecticut - If you want to win big this Friday, just make the sports-betting area of Aria become the Book of Mormon. I like Big Love in a big way. UConn's offense is as effective as Chris Christie in an Ironman Triathlon (or Bobby Jindal in the Iowa caucus), while its D, by game's end, will be exhausted and panting like a pack of Huskies not from UConn, but the Yukon……after a 950 mile Iditarod race. Of course, as the late Sapphires game, we'll have fun watching the beginning of this one as we will go from seeing Cougars run up the score to mingling with them at Del Friscos bar. Take BYU and trust me, you'll be so happy with the result, you'll looking to buy Lavell Edwards a lap dance by the time it's over.

UNC +10 over GaTech - This past Saturday, Duke exposed and dismantled the rambled wreck who looked so bad, Randolph and Mortimer themselves could've put in standout performances for Blue Devils in this game. This week the Yellowjackets will run into more Orkin from the Raleigh-Durham area as the Tarheels come to town. Don Best must have had a bout of dyslexia when setting this line as the plus before the 10 should've have been a minus ‎because there's no way GaTech can keep scoring with UNC’s high powered O. Once GaTech gets down, they'll be in trouble as completing passes in their offense is as rare as finding a Rutgers football player who actually doesn't beat up his girlfriend. The embarrassment he will suffer on Saturday will be so bad, GaTech coach Paul Johnson will think a career as a male model offers more promise for him than football coaching.
‎
Northwestern -6 over Minnesota - I love the wildcats at home over Mini-Scrotum in this Big 10 match-up. By the time this game finishes, Pat Fitzgerald's squad will make Minnesota look like the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And I'm going to bet so big on NW that, instead of Jerry Kill, it'll be the cashiers at Aria having a seizures when they see how much I take away from the window. NW will treat the Gophers like they were Beansie trying to pour Richie Aprile a cup of coffee in his pizza shop. Forget the Go Go Gophers…..Secret Squirrel would have a better chance in this one.

West Virginia +9 over Oklahoma - West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen is a dead ringer for Jimmy Buffet and like Mike Price after a big win, he'll be looking to get wasted away again in Margaritaville when his squad posts a live dog upset on the road. The post-game drinking binge will be so big, rumor has it USC coach Steve Sarkisian (aka Foster Brooks) will be spending his bye week in Norman just to get in on it. WVA has a potent O and for first time in a while, a strong D as well. Meanwhile, Oklahoma has yet to be truly tested. The Sooner Schooner horses may have run wild in wins over Tulsa and Akron but after the lack of activity in this Saturday's game, they'll be getting sized up to become entree selections on the dinner menu at Shun Lee Palace.

Mississippi -6.5 over Florida - Mississippi has shown its mettle by taking down mighty Alabama on the road while Florida has barely survived against much weaker competition, which is why I like the Rebels in this one. Rather than ferocious alligators, Florida's docile O more resembles another well-known everglade animal -- Gentle Ben (a TV show about an Alaskan Grizzly Bear in its natural habitat....a Florida swamp! Who the f*ck was the genius who came up that one!). If we drink a beer every time the rebels score in this game, we'll all have to Ole Miss in the pool often!

Notre Dame +2 over Clemson - in this week's marquee match-up, I like the Fighting Irish over Clemson on Saturday night. ‎As witnessed on many a Vegas weekend, Clemson has a long history of shooting itself in the foot in big games. In fact, the only thing more certain than Clemson, "Clemsoning" thru a long list of screw ups and poor coaching decisions in an important game, is that any person on the planet named Wang will have a Math SAT score at least 2X higher than Clemson coach Dabo Sweeney's. On the other hand, ND, led by QB DeShone (is that Irish?) Kizer "Wilhelm", is often prone to clutch performances in these big games. Expect ND to pull out all the stops. For example, with the Pope in the US last week, ND attempted to have him address the team prior to the UMass game. However, due to a scheduling mishap in the AD's office, instead of Pope Francis, it was a different Pope, in the form of Mikey Rourke, who addressed the team prior to taking the field. Rourke must have thought former ND coach Weiss was present in the locker room because he ended his speech with his cousin’s famous line: "Charlie, they took my thumb!!!"

 

[iamhuge]

ok..enough silliness...back to the real deal. Here's two more picks to chew over:

San Jose State +20 over AUBURN – Somewhere out there is a humanoid who still believes that Auburn is a good football team. Unfortunately, we keep track of such things based on what happens on the football field. Let’s go to the video tape, shall we? Opening game vs. Louisville – Auburn wins 31-24. Nice win, hardly impressive. Next game is a home game against Jacksonville St. Now don’t get me wrong, Jacksonville State is a very good team…a very good FCS team. When the dust settled, Auburn was lucky to escape with a 27-20 victory. Next game, Auburn got pasted at LSU by the score of 21-45. Seems like their defense has issues. So in their next game, they tighten up their defense and lose to Mississippi by the score of 9-17. So now in comes San Jose St. The bookmakers are asking Auburn to cover a 20 point spread. Now San Jose State isn’t great, but they are every bit as good as Jacksonville St. One thing San Jose State can do is score points…in fact they are averaging 32 points per game. Even if they score only 24 points against Auburn, that means Auburn has to score 44 to cover. And the most Auburn has scored all year is 31 points. I don’t think San Jose St can win this game, but after putting up 49 points last week against Fresno, I really think they will find a way to get into the end zone against Auburn. With Auburn looking ahead next week to their game against Kentucky to get back into the SEC hunt, I see them saving some of their powder and going plain vanilla in their playbook against San Jose St. If SJU can play a clean game, I see value in these points and the back door cover will be in play until late in the game. Take the points on San Jose State for 400.

Michigan -13 at Maryland – Sometimes the lines come out and they are so suspiciously weird that you can see the word “sucker” getting spelled out on your forehead as you head to the betting window. On the other hand, you never know what the next card is going to be, so you might as well play your hand. One thing that is true in football is that momentum plays a big role in how a team is going to play in the next game. Right now, no team is on a bigger Samari rolle than Michigan. The Wolverines have clearly bought into what Jim Harbaugh is cooking, and their defense is playing out of its mind. Michigan has given up less than 5 points per game in its last 3 games. In it’s last game, Michigan destroyed a BYU team, which is considerably better than Maryland, by the score of 31-0. Previously they beat Oregon State, another team which is better than Maryland, by the score of 35-7. Michigan also beat UNLV, which is almost as good as Maryland, 28-7. So in their 3 victories, Michigan won by an average of 27 points. 27 points is a lot more than the 13 point line here.
Taking a look at Maryland, we find that the Terps lost by 21 points to Soylent Green (that’s Bowling Green for all of your novices). Bowling Green is pretty good, but they ain’t no Michigan. But wait, last week Maryland played a West Virginia team which is playing around the same level as Michigan. Well, Maryland didn’t really play them. They lost by a score of 45-6. Senor Smote. Maryland did have one good game, beating the Richmond Spiders 50-21 but these Spiders are no better than the Spider who Joe Pesci shot in Goodfellas. Sports book traditionalists would say that this game is Candy from Babies. In fact, I am going to get so much Candy from Babies from betting Michigan that I’m going to get diabetes. I am laying the wood and taking the Wolverines for 500.

 

[iamhuge]

DUKE – 6 ½ over bc – Here’s a shout out to all of you BC fans. This is 2014 calling the BC Eagles, the bus left town and your offense is still drinking in the bar. It’s bad enough that BC started the season with two meaningless games against Maine and Moe Howard. When they actually had real football, they got shutout by Florida State 0-14 and then eked out a win against Northern Illinois 17-14. So, against FCS competition, BC is averaging 8 points a game. There’s a reason for this, they lost their QB and now they are being led by Fraudulent Flutie, Doug Flutie’s nephew and BC’s freshmen backup QB. Now BC must leave the shadow of Mary Ann’s bar in Chestnut Hill, MA and travel to North Carolina to face the mighty Dukies. That’s right…it was the Dukes it was the Dukes. It’s one thing for a freshman backup QB to play in the friendly confines of home field, it’s another thing for him to travel on the road in a conference game. What’s the first thing you have to do when you’re on the road in front of a hostile crowd to quiet them down? That’s right, you need to run the ball. Oh, by the way, BC’s number one running back, Jon Hilliman, was injured last week and is also out for the season. Hmmmmm….that’s not good for the offense, is it?

Now then, Duke opened the season with two cupcakes and then took on two teams which are clearly better than BC. They lost to a tough Northwestern team, but then got it turned around in a hurry in a conference game against Georgia Tech, where they crapped all over the Yellow Jackets 34-20. While BC does sport a physical defense, Duke has a balanced offense with a precision passer completing over 65% of their pass attempts. Duke is the better team, playing at home, with a real offense to take the field. BC is the inferior team, has no offense and is on the road. That 6 ½ points will be an easy cover, especially since it’s unlikely BC is going to score more than 10 points. Lay the 6 ½ points and putting 600 on the Blue Devils.

 

[iamhuge]

APPALACHIAN ST -24 ½ over Wyoming – Somebody has to be the worst team in college football, and this week it is poor Wyoming ranked 128 out of 128 teams. What did the Cowboys do to deserve this? First of all they are 0-4 and have already lost to FCS North Dakota 13-24 and the former worst team in college football, Eastern Michigan, by the score of 29-48. Since then they have played better against better teams, losing by 17 to at Washington State and by 10 to New Mexico at home. The bad news is that, after playing 3 of 4 home games and still going 0-4, Wyoming has to go all the way across the country to confront Appalachian State, which just so happens to be the best team they will square up against thus far.

Last week, Appalachian State smashed Old Dominion by the score of 49-0. What is the significance of this? Old Dominion beat Eastern Michigan earlier in the year. Yes, the same Eastern Michigan which smashed Wyoming. The Mountaineers are very tough against the run and they love to run the ball. That’s a good combo if you want to establish dominance in front of a frenzied home crowd. This is bad news for Wyoming since their starting RB is out for this game and his backup had an abdominal injury last week but may play. It’s not good to come into the game with a lame running back and no backup. Wyoming also has injuries to their starting WR and starting right tackle, so the passing game is going to have its challenges as well. So far this year, Wyoming is averaging 4.3 yards per rushing attempt, a number which will be seriously reduced by their injury problems. Combined with the fact the Mountaineers only give up 2.3 yards per carry (which includes a game against Clemson), this spells doom for the Wyoming running attack. On the other hand, App State averages 5.6 yards per carry and Wyoming has been yielding 5.2 yards per carry (including games against North Dakota and Eastern Michigan). Wyoming is going to be forced to throw and without their starting tackle and with a back who probably doesn’t know his blitz pickups, it could get ugly for the Wyoming QB. Mind you, 24 ½ points is a lot of points to lay down, but since Wyoming is giving up 35 points per game, I don’t think the Mountaineers are going to have trouble finding the end zone. It won’t be an easy cover, but if you have to lay the points, you might as well lay them against the worst team in the country who is filling 1/3 of their offense with its JV. Laying the 24 ½ points on the Mountaineers for 900.

 

[iamhuge]

Toledo – 6 ½ over BALL STATE – Holy Toledo! The Rockets are un fuego and they are fired up for the commencement of their Maction schedule. Toledo is 3-0 on the campaign and shocked the world with their 16-12 road victory over Arkansas in their season opener. To prove it was no fluke, they topped Iowa State in the following week by the score of 30-23. Note that both of these teams are superior to Ball State. When Toledo finally played someone more their size, they smashed Arkansas State last week 37-7. Most power rating services have Arkansas St about equal to Ball State. It’s hard to find any holes in the Toledo performance this year.

On the other hand, Ball State is 2-2 this season. Both of their wins were against cupcakes, beating FCS Virginia Military Institute 48-36 and also pathetic Eastern Michigan 28-17. Even in these victories, Ball State showed a leaky defense. Wow, congrats they won. When they stepped up in class, Ball State got destroyed by Texas A&M by the score of 56-23. Just last week, Texas A&M struggled with Arkansas…yes the same Arkansas team which was defeated by Toledo. The only result which might give you pause on this wager was Ball State’s game at Northwestern last week, where they lost a close 24-19 game. The game wasn’t really as close as it looked, as Northwestern had 546 yards of offense and 3 turnovers in that game.

Ball State is now all deflated after losing that game and has to tighten their chinstraps one week later for the Rockets who are arguably as tough as Northwestern. Two of Ball States three starting defensive linemen were injured last week, which should allow Toledo to take control of the line of scrimmage, which is always good to do on the road. Laying the 6 ½ and riding the Toledo Rockets for 700.

 

[iamhuge]

utsa – 3 ½ over UTEP – Every year we go to Vegas with the hopes of finding a rubber band game. A rubber band game means you take a wad of hundreds, put a rubber band around it and leave it at the window when you make your bet. You don’t have to count it because you know you’re going to get two of them back in about 3 hours. Rubber band games don’t come easily, and sometimes you have to dig deep to find them. Deep dive we go, looking at two of the worst teams in the country.

The power ratings services are showing both UTSA and UTEP with a similar power rating of 51. I think this calculation is flawed and that UTEP has an inflated rating based on the fact that UTEP won 2 games and UTSA didn’t win any. Let’s look at their schedules and results. UTSA on top, UTEP on the bottom.


Take the 3 games UTSA played against the 3 good teams. They lost by an average of 31 points. They were more than respectable in a 10-point loss, 42-32, at Arizona, and were only down a touchdown to 10-3 Kansas State late in the third quarter before things got away from them. Now take the UTEP scores against the two best teams they played….even though not quite as good as the 3 good teams that UTSA played, they lost by an average of 42 points. This means to me that UTEP’s defense is not as good as UTSA’s defense.

Even more revealing is when you compare how they played against lesser teams….UTSA lost to Colorado State by 2 points but Colorado State has a power rating which is 26 points better than the two crap teams that UTEP beat by an average of only 7 points. It makes sense that if UTSA had played teams such as NM State or Incarnate Word they would won those games, and won them more convincingly than UTEP did.

When UTSA played Colorado State, they ran the ball for 279 yards and put up almost 500 yards of offense. In other words, by hanging with Colorado State, UTSA proved that it could play with a team with a power rating of 64, but UTEP really played down to the level of the teams with power ratings of around 40. UTEP really can’t stop anybody, and had to come from behind in the second half to beat a really bad FCS team - Incarnate Word, which was supposed to be UTEP’s body bag game. UTEP had 32 rushing yards at the half with a 1.8 yard per carry average, finishing with 81 yards and a 2.6 per carry average for the game. UTEP's offense struggled early and a telling sequence was when UTEP's first four drives averaged their own 44 as a starting point, but only managed 3.5 yards per play, and only put up three points after three Incarnate Word turnovers in the first half. UTEP sucks.

Another way to look at it is if you ignore out each team’s best played game, you get:

UTSA performance rating: 48
UTEP performance rating 36

If you ignore each team’s worst played game, you get:

UTSA performance rating: 62
UTEP performance rating: 41

Three of five starters that sat out against Colorado State are expected to return this week for the UTSA. Oh by the way, UTEP’s starting quarterback, best running back and starting safety are out for this game.
This week, UTSA is stepping down in competition while UTEP is stepping up. UTEP is going to feel like running against paper to UTSA compared to Kansas State and Oklahoma State. It seems to me that UTSA is actually about 20 points better than UTEP, but they only have to cover 3. Laying the field goal and looking for the first win of the season for the Roadrunners in the RUBBER BAND GAME for 1000 TOUSAND!!!!

 

[ML Dog]

Good Work. Maybe "not applicable" certainly seems it shouldn't be really applicable vs. Wyoming but it'll be Homecoming at App St. some bettors tread more lightly in this spot...Homecoming. After I've narrowed my Sides down its a thing I check on...Homecoming....so not sure what others (if any) amongst these are also Homecoming games & I'm also unsure what ATS is for Homecoming but I've got an inherent fear of it, hesitation so its prolly not positive and/or I guess I've had a few "bad experiences" with Homecoming games...GL & enjoy Vegas :toast:

Oh Yeah also in sendacash's injury thread UTSA is said to be sitting 9 guys http://www.therxforum.com/showthread.php?t=1026084&page=6

 

[indiana]

I/am..........nice write ups..........BOL this week and enjoy your Vegas trip..............indy

 

[RonSwanson]

Great write ups....I lost it when I read "Charlie, they took my thumbs" Good luck on your picks.

 

[mudman]

Have fun and BOL with your picks. Good write ups also

 

[Hotpizza]

Good Work. Maybe "not applicable" certainly seems it shouldn't be really applicable vs. Wyoming but it'll be Homecoming at App St. some bettors tread more lightly in this spot...Homecoming. After I've narrowed my Sides down its a thing I check on...Homecoming....so not sure what others (if any) amongst these are also Homecoming games & I'm also unsure what ATS is for Homecoming but I've got an inherent fear of it, hesitation so its prolly not positive and/or I guess I've had a few "bad experiences" with Homecoming games...GL & enjoy Vegas :toast:

Oh Yeah also in sendacash's injury thread UTSA is said to be sitting 9 guys http://www.therxforum.com/showthread.php?t=1026084&page=6

That was last weeks game, not this week.

 

[CoachCB]

Very good write-ups.....I hope you're right on most of them...and wrong on some of them!

GL this weekend.

 

[Lando21]

I was researching my Northwestern pick on another site and found these hilarious write ups. Warning: They are somewhat inflammatory and definitely politically incorrect. So please skip over if you are easily offended. Having said that, I agree with all of the picks, so I figured I'd include on this thread for now. Obviously this person will be in Vegas as well this weekend. I have 6 more picks to write up later this week.

BYU -17.5 over Connecticut - If you want to win big this Friday, just make the sports-betting area of Aria become the Book of Mormon. I like Big Love in a big way. UConn's offense is as effective as Chris Christie in an Ironman Triathlon (or Bobby Jindal in the Iowa caucus), while its D, by game's end, will be exhausted and panting like a pack of Huskies not from UConn, but the Yukon……after a 950 mile Iditarod race. Of course, as the late Sapphires game, we'll have fun watching the beginning of this one as we will go from seeing Cougars run up the score to mingling with them at Del Friscos bar. Take BYU and trust me, you'll be so happy with the result, you'll looking to buy Lavell Edwards a lap dance by the time it's over.

UNC +10 over GaTech - This past Saturday, Duke exposed and dismantled the rambled wreck who looked so bad, Randolph and Mortimer themselves could've put in standout performances for Blue Devils in this game. This week the Yellowjackets will run into more Orkin from the Raleigh-Durham area as the Tarheels come to town. Don Best must have had a bout of dyslexia when setting this line as the plus before the 10 should've have been a minus ‎because there's no way GaTech can keep scoring with UNC’s high powered O. Once GaTech gets down, they'll be in trouble as completing passes in their offense is as rare as finding a Rutgers football player who actually doesn't beat up his girlfriend. The embarrassment he will suffer on Saturday will be so bad, GaTech coach Paul Johnson will think a career as a male model offers more promise for him than football coaching.
‎
Northwestern -6 over Minnesota - I love the wildcats at home over Mini-Scrotum in this Big 10 match-up. By the time this game finishes, Pat Fitzgerald's squad will make Minnesota look like the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. And I'm going to bet so big on NW that, instead of Jerry Kill, it'll be the cashiers at Aria having a seizures when they see how much I take away from the window. NW will treat the Gophers like they were Beansie trying to pour Richie Aprile a cup of coffee in his pizza shop. Forget the Go Go Gophers…..Secret Squirrel would have a better chance in this one.

West Virginia +9 over Oklahoma - West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen is a dead ringer for Jimmy Buffet and like Mike Price after a big win, he'll be looking to get wasted away again in Margaritaville when his squad posts a live dog upset on the road. The post-game drinking binge will be so big, rumor has it USC coach Steve Sarkisian (aka Foster Brooks) will be spending his bye week in Norman just to get in on it. WVA has a potent O and for first time in a while, a strong D as well. Meanwhile, Oklahoma has yet to be truly tested. The Sooner Schooner horses may have run wild in wins over Tulsa and Akron but after the lack of activity in this Saturday's game, they'll be getting sized up to become entree selections on the dinner menu at Shun Lee Palace.

Mississippi -6.5 over Florida - Mississippi has shown its mettle by taking down mighty Alabama on the road while Florida has barely survived against much weaker competition, which is why I like the Rebels in this one. Rather than ferocious alligators, Florida's docile O more resembles another well-known everglade animal -- Gentle Ben (a TV show about an Alaskan Grizzly Bear in its natural habitat....a Florida swamp! Who the f*ck was the genius who came up that one!). If we drink a beer every time the rebels score in this game, we'll all have to Ole Miss in the pool often!

Notre Dame +2 over Clemson - in this week's marquee match-up, I like the Fighting Irish over Clemson on Saturday night. ‎As witnessed on many a Vegas weekend, Clemson has a long history of shooting itself in the foot in big games. In fact, the only thing more certain than Clemson, "Clemsoning" thru a long list of screw ups and poor coaching decisions in an important game, is that any person on the planet named Wang will have a Math SAT score at least 2X higher than Clemson coach Dabo Sweeney's. On the other hand, ND, led by QB DeShone (is that Irish?) Kizer "Wilhelm", is often prone to clutch performances in these big games. Expect ND to pull out all the stops. For example, with the Pope in the US last week, ND attempted to have him address the team prior to the UMass game. However, due to a scheduling mishap in the AD's office, instead of Pope Francis, it was a different Pope, in the form of Mikey Rourke, who addressed the team prior to taking the field. Rourke must have thought former ND coach Weiss was present in the locker room because he ended his speech with his cousin’s famous line: "Charlie, they took my thumb!!!"

How much $$$ on these Huge? BOL

 

[iamhuge]

NORTHWESTERN – 6 Over minnesota

Coming into their Big 10 opener at 4-0, Northwestern is strutting around Lake Michigan like Brutus the Barber Beefcake. Just because Zurn dropped $60,000 a year to send his kid there, and just because it’s a better school than Stanford, there’s no reason to assume that the Wildcat football team is any good. Then again, Northwestern did play a home game against Stanford and throttled them by the score of 16-6. Since then, the Tree has put up 113 points in its next three games (31-7 over UCF – although the Central Florida coach is still claiming he won that game, 41-31 over USC and 42-24 over Oregon St). So it looks like Northwestern’s defense is the real deal.

Then, after wiping their ass with Eastern Illinois by the score of 41-0, Northwestern defeated Duke by the score of 19-10. In its other 3 games, all wins, Duke averaged 42 points per game. Did I already tell you that Northwestern’s defense is good? Well it is, they are averaging less than 9 points per game against them.

Normally the Golden Gophers know how to go go go. But not this year’s team. Their offense usually says “No No No” when it comes to getting first downs. Minnesota’s offense ranks 109 out of 128 teams in total offense. Minnesota, averaging about 19 points per game, could easily be 0-4 this year, eking out 3 point wins against Colorado State, Kent and Ohio combined with its loss to TCU in the weekly opener. Although they did a serviceable job against the TCU passing attack, last week Minnesota lost their starting corner to a knee injury and also their starting safety to a hamstring injury (status questionable for Northwestern game).

It’s really difficult to fathom Minnesota scoring more than 10 points against Northwestern which means covering the 6 points shouldn’t be tremendous challenge, particularly with the fact that Northwestern beat Stanford by 10 and Duke by 9. The Gophers don’t quite measure up to these two vanquished opponents..not even close. If you don’t want to lay the points, parlay this one on the money line with the under as there is no way this total goes over 40 points as Northwestern prefers to grind it out.

Laying 6 points on the Wildcats for 3 hundy.

That was like taking candy from a baby...so much candy I have diabetes.

 

[iamhuge]

ok..enough silliness...back to the real deal. Here's two more picks to chew over:

San Jose State +20 over AUBURN – Somewhere out there is a humanoid who still believes that Auburn is a good football team. Unfortunately, we keep track of such things based on what happens on the football field. Let’s go to the video tape, shall we? Opening game vs. Louisville – Auburn wins 31-24. Nice win, hardly impressive. Next game is a home game against Jacksonville St. Now don’t get me wrong, Jacksonville State is a very good team…a very good FCS team. When the dust settled, Auburn was lucky to escape with a 27-20 victory. Next game, Auburn got pasted at LSU by the score of 21-45. Seems like their defense has issues. So in their next game, they tighten up their defense and lose to Mississippi by the score of 9-17. So now in comes San Jose St. The bookmakers are asking Auburn to cover a 20 point spread. Now San Jose State isn’t great, but they are every bit as good as Jacksonville St. One thing San Jose State can do is score points…in fact they are averaging 32 points per game. Even if they score only 24 points against Auburn, that means Auburn has to score 44 to cover. And the most Auburn has scored all year is 31 points. I don’t think San Jose St can win this game, but after putting up 49 points last week against Fresno, I really think they will find a way to get into the end zone against Auburn. With Auburn looking ahead next week to their game against Kentucky to get back into the SEC hunt, I see them saving some of their powder and going plain vanilla in their playbook against San Jose St. If SJU can play a clean game, I see value in these points and the back door cover will be in play until late in the game. Take the points on San Jose State for 400.

Michigan -13 at Maryland – Sometimes the lines come out and they are so suspiciously weird that you can see the word “sucker” getting spelled out on your forehead as you head to the betting window. On the other hand, you never know what the next card is going to be, so you might as well play your hand. One thing that is true in football is that momentum plays a big role in how a team is going to play in the next game. Right now, no team is on a bigger Samari rolle than Michigan. The Wolverines have clearly bought into what Jim Harbaugh is cooking, and their defense is playing out of its mind. Michigan has given up less than 5 points per game in its last 3 games. In it’s last game, Michigan destroyed a BYU team, which is considerably better than Maryland, by the score of 31-0. Previously they beat Oregon State, another team which is better than Maryland, by the score of 35-7. Michigan also beat UNLV, which is almost as good as Maryland, 28-7. So in their 3 victories, Michigan won by an average of 27 points. 27 points is a lot more than the 13 point line here.
Taking a look at Maryland, we find that the Terps lost by 21 points to Soylent Green (that’s Bowling Green for all of your novices). Bowling Green is pretty good, but they ain’t no Michigan. But wait, last week Maryland played a West Virginia team which is playing around the same level as Michigan. Well, Maryland didn’t really play them. They lost by a score of 45-6. Senor Smote. Maryland did have one good game, beating the Richmond Spiders 50-21 but these Spiders are no better than the Spider who Joe Pesci shot in Goodfellas. Sports book traditionalists would say that this game is Candy from Babies. In fact, I am going to get so much Candy from Babies from betting Michigan that I’m going to get diabetes. I am laying the wood and taking the Wolverines for 500.

I laughed so hard winning this Michigan cover my stomach hurts

 

[iamhuge]

2-0 and +800 on the day so far with Michigan and Northwestern covers

 

[iamhuge]

Held my own in the 12:30 games. Duke couldn’t punch it in at the goal line and App St gave up too many points…..The Rockets and Spartans came through:

4-2 on the day and up $250