The Official 2014-2015 Football Season Thread

[haunted]

I'm having a good start... I finished pretty well last season with college/nfl betting and cashed out. I've already increased my number almost 9x from $50, it's by far the best I've ever done in a short time(3 days). I've been writing down my picks the last few weeks and not betting, then decided to give it a go(gotta have something to pass the time working 12 hours 7 days a week).

I am super drunk, but I seriously over-simplify most of it and get consistently lucky. Two realities, 1) I break it down in a similar fashion concerning style clash, coaching, qb, defense yada yada to the best of MY ability. or 2) Their last meetings in the past 3-4 years or so, reflecting on what has changed in those years, how it reflects to home/away etc. etc.

I know I'm not telling you or anyone else around here anything new, but having good luck with it is pretty fun

[haunted]

Agreed about Philly and vick haha. And yeah, fast setup threw them off their game eventually... I'm looking at this saturday's games in college now deciding which to put money on.

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/scoreboard?confId=80&seasonYear=2014&seasonType=2&weekNumber=4
http://scores.espn.go.com/ncf/scoreboard?confId=80&seasonYear=2014&seasonType=2&weekNumber=4

[haunted]

'upsets':

Utah over Michigan
Rutgers over Navy
Wake Forest over Army
North Carolina over ECU
Miami over Nebraska
N. Illinois over Arkansas

I'll put a lesser amount on FIU beating lousiville, parlayed with two teams that'll win for sure. I doubt THIS will happen, but I'll do something similar with VA over BYU. Same with Tulane over Duke. Add WVU over oklahoma to this category.

Teams that will win that nobody wants to watch:

Marshall over Akron
Boston college over Maine
Maryland over Syracuse
Memphis over Middle Tennessee
VA Tech over GA Tech

--

I'll probably put money on anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 of these games. Maybe I'll throw in a&m and baylor not running up the scoreboards too or something.

[|iR|Focalor]

I dunno about VT over Ga Tech. I wouldn't put my money anywhere near GaTech this year. They're so god damned oddball it's insane. Unpredictable. You start watching them play and think they're gonna get creamed or they're gonna cream their opponent... and the opposite happens. And yet even when these no-one-gives-a-shit-about-us teams like Georgia Southern shows up and actually turns it into a war, they still find a way to come back. So far, they've won them all, and what has me scratching my head is... are they lucky enough to continue that trend? Should I bet on that? If I do, will it piss in my face when they end up losing badly when I damn well knew better?

Rutgers over Navy, I'd take that one.

Wake Forest over Army? As bad as Wake Forest is... it's possible. Unless I'm mistaken, Navy and Army are both these boring as hell 90% run option teams. They often tend to get ass-fisted by any school with a traditional offense, even ones that aren't terrific at it.

Miami over Nebraska? Hell naw.

Pretty surprised when I saw the rankings. UGA loses to South Carolina and falls to #13 while South Carolina only comes up to #14. I don't fault that logic too much though. I suspect that South Carolina will do this year what they've done in years past... perform really well when MY team gets a shot at them, then underperform and lose several games to schools even worse than Georgia, effectively fucking themselves out of any big bowl games.

And speaking of run option schools... at this point, if I were the coach, I'd convert Georgia to a run option offense. God knows they ain't getting shit passing. They damn well know that too which is why they don't pass too often anymore. And since defensive coordinator Todd Grantham left to go to Louisville I think, they need to get MORE points per possession to make up for the awful defense. But maybe if Georgia starts losing a lot of games this year, they'll finally fire head coach Mark Richt and (crosses-fingers) promote OC Mike Bobo to head coach.

[haunted]

The rankings are fucked. Apparently, the ACC beating top teams, then exchanging wins/losses within the conference, is TERRIBLE for the acc when it'd be great for any other conference. ECU is being underrated as hell also, the result is that VA Tech gets shafted: http://espn.go.com/college-football/team/_/id/151/east-carolina-pirates ... ECU has destroyed one opponent, lost to SC @ sc's home field 33-23, and beat VA Tech who just creamed ohio state @ their home field. Yet, VA tech losing to them drops them 2-3x more as boston college beating usc. Virginia gets edged out by top ranked team UCLA 28-20, they destroy a team, and they beat louisville 23-21. Louisville gets the shaft, because losing to virginia is just soooooooo bad apparently. Pittsburgh is the only team to beat BC, yet this whole exchanging wins in the ACC thing with teams who have beaten top seeded teams just means the ACC is inconsistent and bad, yet when the SEC or PAC does this, it means how stacked the conference is lmfao. Louisville beat Miami who is about to beat Nebraska..... it'll barely matter. NC gets hurt because body bag game teams score on them, yet it's been happening to ranked teams in other conferences and it doesn't make them drop at all, lol.

This is why I made that post about conferences.  How the rankings go, you'd think their weighted(scaled) like this

Good| SEC/PAC......Big12.............Big10....ACC |Bad

These are the 'conference power rankings':

http://espn.go.com/blog/ncfnation/post/_/id/98898/sec-extends-lead-in-conference-rankings

Only PAC gets the same treatment the SEC does, and the big 10 gets better treatment despite being ranked below the ACC.

END OF RANT.

[|iR|Focalor]

This is just my opinion and speculation, but I'd guess the SEC gets some favoritism these days due to the higher number of star players they put into the NFL draft, the larger average size of their players, and also because the conference has claimed the National Title more times in the last 10 years than anyone else. Not only that, but a few times it's been TWO SEC schools competing in the National Title bowl. Sometimes it hasn't made much sense... like when Alabama and LSU met in the BCS bowl a couple years back, because SEC West champs LSU had to face an SEC East opponent in the SEC Championship game while Alabama (the #2 SEC West team) sat that game out - which basically meant LSU had one extra opponent to get through in order to get to the BCS Title game. That's kinda fucked up. You don't win your conference division, you lose to the school that DOES win the division, and you STILL get to play them AGAIN in the National Title game. It was really weird that year though. Losing to LSU dropped Bama to #4 or something, and then #2 and #3 ended up losing a game which made Alabama the one team in the top 4 under #1 LSU to not have lost a game that weekend.

So in respect to that clusterfuckery, I suppose this playoff format might be a slightly more logical way to go about things... although I'm sure within the first 5 years of it, something on par with the aforementioned will flesh out to make it look like the stupidest idea college football has ever seen.

I'm more inclined to want to extend the season and make all the individual conference champs get a spot in some kind of seeded bracket playoff system rather than using two long-established bowl games to serve as the playoffs. Technically that means two other schools won't get a bowl game because the eventual National Champs and who plays against them will now be taking up space in the Rose Bowl, Orange Bowl, Sugar Bowl, whatever Bowl, before going on to the National Title game a week or two later. On the other hand, literally more than 50% of all schools get some kind of "bowl" game to play in, even the ones that end up with a 6-6 and 5-7 record. I mean,... I don't really mind, I positively love watching all the assloads of bowl games on a daily basis right around the christmas holidays and consider it my favorite time of the whole year just for that reason. But still, I gotta admit it's kinda retarded how they basically reward all these teams season of mediocrity with a bowl game. But, ...whatever, I'll watch, sure.

And I don't think the ACC gets quite the bad rap that you think. Honestly, anyone paying enough attention to college football like the pollsters obviously do, they know that the Big10 is probably the worst of all the major conferences. Ohio State's been great in the past 10 years. Nebraska is always decent on the other side. But all the others are pretty much consistently inconsistent. Although Penn State's got an excellent opportunity to finally win the Big 10 East and can thank VT for it at this point. Of course they'll have to handle them personally too in order to secure it. If they can, they'll probably be on the fast-track to winning the East because nobody else they're facing is nearly as good as Ohio State and might even find themselves with a 12-0 record by December.

And even though the ACC might be 4th on that list of 5 conferences, the Big12's lead on them would be very slim as it stands right now.

And just basing it on "stats", I'd have to agree that the Pac12 is tied with (or better than) the SEC. Part of what they look at when determining how fucking awesome a school is and how much they deserve their rank is the whole points-for/points-against margin and totals. You check out the numbers that the Pac12 is accumulating, and they've probably got the SEC beat. On the other hand, like I said earlier, the SEC is full of bigger dudes and better pro-level oriented defenses and offenses, and that plays into it when they weigh them against each other. You'll be hard pressed to find a pollster that would pick the top Pac12 team to beat the top SEC team. The Pac12 is built for speed, but the SEC's got speed AND size.

But I suspect the days of the SEC reigning unchallenged as the kings of the NCAA are starting to come to a close, at least for a little while. I'm not sure about any of the true freshmen recruits Nick Saban's keeping ineligible this year, but it kinda looks like he might wanna consider throwing his name into the hat for a job coaching in the NFL after this year while he's still considered white hot shit and can get some mega bucks out of it. Everyone (except Missouri) in the SEC East either stinks or has incomplete pieces to field a truly great all around team. A few like Georgia, Florida, and Tennessee have one or two great players while everyone else positively sucks. Georgia could potentially be unstoppable on offense this year, but they're dead-set against redshirting some of these new guys until next year and are only gonna do it if they're absolutely FORCED to... which would mean every QB on the depth chart would have to be killed in the same car crash. On the West side of the division, they seem to be bringing in more capable players at every position, but not as many elite stars as they used to. So right now, like last year, all these other conferences better take notice, take advantage, and bask in the spotlight while the SEC is falling back.

And this concludes my epic novel.

[haunted]

I was very intoxicated last night.

Well, the power rankings depict what you said for the most part by ESPN. Most announcers and pollsters would agree as well, however I can't help but observe what happens to ACC teams ranking-wise relative to the other conferences. My silly little scale might have exaggerated a bit, but this is what I think it SHOULD look like, and it sounds like you too with the exception of the SEC having a slight edge on PAC:

Best| SEC..PAC...Big12/ACC........Big10 | Worst

But, in reality, through observation, it appears that it's about a near combination between these two silly scales, and the ACC is at least disfavored by a tad more than they should be. The severe rankings drops from losing in-conference, when the teams are all intertwined with teams that have beat top teams from other conferences, was just an apparent example I thought.

I think the SEC has a slight advantage over the PAC for the reasons you stated. BC has a snowball's chance in hell at beating LSU like they did to similarly ranked USC.

And just throwing this out there, I actually think UNC _IS_ ranked where they should be currently, which is exactly on the cusp at the 26th spot(Coaches and USA today still have them ranked though lol). Oklahoma State, Nebraska, and North Carolina were all on the cusp, and NC had a bye week and has proved themselves less even though the other two haven't either much.

[|iR|Focalor]

Said I wasn't going to bet on NFL games yet, but... (if you already knew who's playing tonight, you know zackly where I be goin' widdiss, dontcha) Atlanta and Tampa Bay are on for tonight and I feel pretty overwhelmingly confident that Atlanta will succeed at looking like total failures again tonight. I'm a little ashamed to bet against my home team, but I put $100 on the Bucs beating the Atlanta Failclods by 10 or more, because easy money is the best kind of money. And watch, now that I've done this, the Falcons will probably end up playing great and winning by a score of 72 to 3 just because they know it'll piss me off.

[haunted]

I have really mixed feelings about mine. For the past 24 hours I've been thinking about parlaying the bucs winning together with k-state(home game) over auburn. Obviously I feel better about the first one, but if I were to put $50 on it and both teams win I get paid $610. 

I think that's a decent bet Foc, I hope your misgivings don't bite you in the ass. I'm feeling weird about Thursday in general cuz there's only 1 pro and 1 ncaa game to bet on...maybe I'll do the safer thing and do bucs/ auburn, not sure

[haunted]

Oh and fyi to all, kstate auburn starts an hour before bucs atl.. 7:30est, 8:25est respectively

[random]

being a huge Vincent Jackson fan I would love to see bucs take the win, but I don't trust J. McClown enough for a comfortable W vs @ATL and they also have a handful of injuries in the D. Last season the Galcons took the W, I think they will again this season IMHO.

[2d]

julio jones 2 td's tonight

[haunted]

I'm more interested in the ncaa game opposed to wondering whether Atlanta is going to get their shit together or not.

I ended up doing bucs/auburn as my main wager but contradicted it with some smaller parlays just in case.

[|iR|Focalor]

The Bucs have injuries on defense? Who fucking cares, haha! Have you SEEN how awful Atlanta is on defense themselves? And their O-line is even WORSE! People wonder why Atlanta has zero success running anymore when they used to be pretty damn good at it only 3 or 4 short years ago. It's really simple: the two things that serve you best in the run game... they have NONE. Good O-line blocking and a fast HB. Steven Jackson moves slower than a constipated turtle, and the O-line is past it's prime and weaker than wet toilet paper. Honestly the ONLY good thing about Atlanta anymore is Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, and Roddy White. And White's days as a good receiver are finitely numbered from what I've seen. He got slightly bumped during a catch in the 2nd qtr against New Orleans the other week and dipped outta the game a play or two. When he came back in, Ryan REFUSED to throw to him anymore because obviously he couldn't take anymore hits. So at that point, it was basically a game of 11 on 9. But he gets hurt so often now that you can't count on him playing a full 16 games. Dudes probably my age, which is approaching the “too damn old for this shit” zone in the NFL.

Bottom line, Atlanta is AWFUL. As bad as the Bucs are, Atlanta is worse. Maybe not as bad as New Orleans though. Pretty fucked up how in such a short time my two favorite teams can go from first to worst. Fucking GM's must be mentally retarded with some of roster moves they've made in the last 3 years.

[haunted]

Agree with foc. But yeah, Atlanta could very well win Random. But it wouldn't be from how you just deduced it, imo.

Bucs have a good secondary QB that's proven himself quite a bit, so just because McCown has the rep for choking in the clutch at times  (decision making, vision) , which is what EVERY MEDIA HEADLINE is saying right now "McCown is the x factor of tonight's game", doesn't mean that that's actually the determining factor for the game. Maybe the coaches will be dumbshits and make it seem like that possibly(if atlanta wins), but really it isn't. Bucs v. Falcons game doesn't have an individual x-factor, other than the teams, leadership, and coaches.... just how I see it. And the Bucs are looking better than atlanta marginally as a whole.

I ended up doing first quarter bets, over under bets, and several game lines on this game tonight haha, as well as the k-state v. auburn. I've been doing some yard work and stuff to keep me busy before 7pm... I'll share all my wagers a bit later.