Week 1 College Football Recap

Early season college football is always tricky to bet. You don't really know a whole lot about any of the teams, and half of the teams you do know something about are playing against a community college team. There were a LOT of teams favored by a big number this past weekend, but there were also a few decent matchups mixed in. Let's go to the scoreboard:

Notable Big Favorites That Covered

• #16 Georgia Tech -41 against Alcorn State. Ga Tech won 69-6
• #17 Ole Miss -39 against UT Martin, Ole Miss won 76-3
• #9 Georgia -35 against UL Monroe, UGA won 51-14
• #12 Clemson -34 against Wofford, Clemson won 49-10
• #13 UCLA -17.5 against Virginia, UCLA won 34-16
• #18 Arkansas -32.5 against UTEP, Arkansas won 48-13
• #25 Tennessee -21.5 against Bowling Green, Tenn won 59-30
• NC State -26 against Troy, NC State won 49-21
• #19 Oklahoma -31 against Akron, Oklahoma won 41-3
• #10 Florida State -27.5 against Texas State, FSU won 59-16
• #8 USC -27 against Arkansas State, USC won 55-6

Notable Big Favorites That Didn't Cover

• #2 TCU -16.5 against Minnesota. TCU won 23-17
• #22 Arizona -32.5 against UTSA, Arizona won 42-32
• #5 Michigan State 16.5 against Western Michigan, MSU won 37-24
• #4 Baylor -36 against SMU, Baylor won 56-21
• Washington State -30 against Portland State, Portland State won 24-17 (woof)
• Wyoming -18.5 against North Dakota, UND won 24-13 (woof)
• Indiana -20.5 against Southern Illinois, Indiana won 48-47 (woof)
• #24 Missouri -41 against SE Missouri, Mizzou won 34-3
• #7 Oregon -35 against Eastern Washington, Oregon won 61-42
• #26 Mississippi State -21 against Southern Mississippi, MSU won 34-16

Other Games, Like Maybe Some Featuring Two Decent Teams

• Utah -5 against Michigan, Utah won 24-17
• #23 Boise State -12 against Washington, BSU won 16-13 (but scored 0 second half points)
• #21 Stanford -10 against Northwestern, NWU won 16-6
• #6 Auburn -10.5 against Louisville, Auburn won 31-24
• Nebraska -5 against BYU, BYU won 33-28 (on a last-second Hail Brigham)
• Penn State -6 against Temple, Temple won 27-10 (PHIL-LY! PHIL-LY! PHIL-LY!)
• Texas A&M -3 against #15 Arizona State, TXAM won 38-17
• Notre Dame -8.5 against Texas, ND won 38-3
• #3 Alabama -12 against #20 Wisconsin, Alabama won 35-17
• #1 Ohio State -13.5 against Va Tech, OSU won 42-24

Let's break that down into some trends/rules for the coming weeks:

1. The SEC is the best conference in football.

Win the only game of the week between ranked teams. Five big favorites all take care of business by a combined 237 points. Blow out a top-15 team. Beat the fourth- or fifth-best team in the ACC. The only SEC loss of the weekend was Vanderbilt, and I'm not even sure they count as a real SEC team. Kentucky even managed to take care of business. If you are an SEC hater, you might want to keep it quiet this season. 

2. The Big XII and Pac 12 stink. 

Stanford lost to Northwestern. Arizona State lost to Texas A&M. Nobody expected much from Washington this year, but they lost to Boise State. And Arizona, Baylor, TCU, and Texas all didn't cover. Your scorching hot take of the day: this year's playoff will be Ohio State and three SEC teams. 

3. Betting a big number is a complete coin flip. 

Like I said, nobody knows anything going into the season. There are half a dozen teams that are going to drop significantly in this week's rankings, and at least that many that are going to shoot up. Betting on a "good" team to cover a huge spread can make sense, or it can blow up in your face. 

4. The Week 1 Recap Big Board:

*Note: LSU was off this week because their game was cancelled due to weather.

Friday Night Football Preview

The most wonderful kind of lights. Also, a reminder that the only positions that matter in football are head coach, quarterback, and running back.

The first rule of betting on early season, "come play us so we can kick the shit out of you" matchups is NEVER bet on the shittier team. Even if you don't think Michigan State is going to cover 17.5 against Western Michigan, do you really want to be in the fourth quarter tonight rooting for a bunch of MAC scrubs to score against MSU's defense?

Another quick piece of information to keep in mind is NOBODY knows ANYTHING about any of these teams. Maybe the #2 team in the country will just barely squeak by a hockey school's football team. Who knows? Maybe the Big XII stinks and you shouldn't bet on them for at least the first month of the season?

With that in mind, here are the games tonight that feature teams that are worth watching:

#5 Michigan State -17.5 @ Western Michigan, 7pm, ESPNU

MSU is 18/1 to win the championship this year. I cannot find odds on Western Michigan to win.

#4 Baylor -37 @ SMU, 7pm, ESPN

I think ESPN might have messed up here by putting a five-score blowout on the main channel instead of something a little closer, but what do I know? Baylor's 12/1 to win the playoff, so maybe that's enough to make up for the fact that they are going to stomp the life out of SMU.

Washington @ #23 Boise State -13, 10:15pm, ESPN

Tonight's nightcap is interesting because Washington's coach spend 2006-2013 as Boise State's coach. It's also interesting because it's the first football game of the night where both teams have title odds listed on Bovada. Granted, Boise State at 100/1 and Washington at 500/1 doesn't really give either team too much of a chance, but they are both at least on the board.

The ticket tonight is another teaser (because teasers are the best in games like these*): Michigan State -11 and Boise State -6.5 for a payout of -120.

*Teasers are just the best in general.

Breaking News: TCU is OUT of the National Title Discussion

You knew it was only going to be a matter of time until we lost a teaser because of something stupid. I was hoping it would take longer than one damn night.

South Carolina covered their spread, and all we needed for a nice little teaser payday was the second best team in the country to win by double digits against a team that is going to end the season with at least half a dozen losses. 

Nope. Not meant to be. 

The two biggest reasons TCU was ranked so highly were their ferocious beatdown of Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl and their quarterback, Heisman Favorite Trevone Boykin. Let's break down how it was stupid to think those two things were going to work out. 

Lots of yards. Lots of possession. Two turnovers against Minnesota is inexcusable. Kicking 3 field goals is also inexcusable. Those drives needed to be converted for 7 points. How do you think that would have gone against Baylor or Oklahoma? That's a loss for TCU, and it knocks them out of the playoff. 

Let's talk about Boykin for a minute. If you are rushing the ball, 5.9 yards per attempt is pretty damn good. If you are throwing the ball, that is fucking terrible! Credit to TCU for running so many offensive plays, but if you throw the ball 40+ times you should most certainly end up with more than 250 passing yards and one touchdown.

That is the face of the quarterback that kept Minnesota within one possession of TCU. Leider managed the game, didn't turn the ball over (except for when he got sacked and fumbled, but that could have happened to anybody), and did enough right that Minnesota probably would have beaten a non-OSU B1G team. Great for them! Bad for TCU. You heard it here first: the Horned Frogs are officially OUT of the college football title picture. 

*Editor's note: there is no significance to cutting that list off at 20. The screen just couldn't hold all 25 at once. 

Thursday Night Football Preview

It's almost mancave season, boys! (Quick side note, I called it mancave season for the first time in a text to my girlfriend and now I think I might be single.) Let's stock the fridge and sit on the couch for four hours every night and sixteen hours both days every weekend. Let's jump right in to the college football season:

South Carolina -3 @ North Carolina, 6pm
Steve Spurrier against the ACC. Boom. Easy. If you need some numbers to back up that reasoning, the over/under numbers for season wins are UNC 7.5 wins (over -140) and USC 6.5 wins (over -120).

"But Jay, that's telling us UNC is better!" No it's not, idiot. After SC, UNC plays five decent teams all year (Ga Tech, Pitt, Miami, Va Tech, NC State). South Carolina has to play Georgia, Mizzou, LSU, Texas A&M, Tennessee, Florida, and Clemson.

Look at the title odds: South Carolina is 300/1 and North Carolina is 500/1. Neither team is beating the elite teams out for their playoff spots, but Vegas likes the Cocks significantly more than they like the Heels.

TCU -17 @ Minnesota, 9pm
Remember how I said a team in the 300/1 or 500/1 range isn't going to beat out an elite team for their playoff spot? I just said it one paragraph ago.

TCU is that elite team. At 6/1, they're second behind only Ohio State (between 2/1 and 3/1) to win the playoff. They have Heisman Favorite Trevone Boykin returning at quarterback, and they won their bowl game against an above-average SEC West school by almost 40 points.

Do we need to tease this for some wiggle room? Probably not. But we're teasing it with the early game to give us some extra juice just in case. Our ticket tonight is Cocks +3.5 and Frogs -10.5.

Bullets Blog NFL Survivor Pool

As part of the best time of the year, we're hosting an NFL survivor pool. The rules are simple:

• Pick one team each week that you think is going to win (straight up, no point spreads)
• Your pick must be submitted before the game you are picking kicks off
• If your team wins, you survive to the next week
• If your team loses, you are done (Update: double elimination)
• You can only pick each team once
• Last man standing wins - if we have to carry it into the playoffs, we will

To enter each week you can either go to this link (http://goo.gl/forms/dLuxUpdRqV) or bookmark this post and fill in this form:



We will post a recap each week on Tuesday. Good luck!

David Backes Will Not Be A Flyer

The hot sizzle from the NHL rumor mill today is the Blues are done with David Backes and they're looking to move him for prospects to grow with Vladimir Tarasenko. (That's grow, literally, as in Tarasenko has gained like eighty pounds of torso weight this summer.)

I'm not gonna say that Tarasenko took steroids this summer but Tarasenko for suuuuure took some roids this summer. pic.twitter.com/QrmGMkGhTq

— Jordie (@BarstoolJordie) August 29, 2015

But I read a scorching hot take that said two of the biggest suitors for Backes are Boston and Philly. Boston maybe? I guess? We're going to need someone who knows things about the Bruins to break down how that'd work.

Here's why Philly is not happening: we have our top two centers locked up for the better part of the next decade. On top of that, Backes is scheduled to make $4.75 million next season. The Flyguys have less than $1 million in cap space.

The only way that Backes-to-Philly works is if it's a pure cap-shedding move from Ron Hextall. If St. Louis takes back some combination of the horrendous contracts that are Vinny Lecavalier, Andrew MacDonald, or RJ Umberger, we get to wipe someone off the books a year or two early, and it doesn't matter that we are adding another center to a team that is already flush with them.

I am going to end this post by completely disagreeing with the title. I hope Backes comes to Philly in a move that continues this absurd run of Hextall being the best GM ever. Fingers crossed that we get an update this afternoon from someone who knows things telling us Ken Hitchcock really likes Andy Mac and is willing to take him and a draft pick for Backes.

Let's get that Crosby-loving bag of trash off the team and make some room for one of the youngsters.

College Football Season Preview

We're baaaaack! After a long summer of throwing money away trying to make baseball and soccer (and hot dog eating and....) interesting, it's finally time for the most wonderful time of the year to start up again. We get college football and pro football, then college basketball. So basically we have good sports to bet on from now until mid-April, and that is an absolutely beautiful thing.

Before we jump into game lines, I wanted to throw some thoughts out for the season as a whole.

FBS Championship Winner

Ohio State is the runaway favorite (+260). To put that in perspective, it's the exact same payout as Verona beating Torino in Serie A. I don't follow Italian soccer enough to know anything about either of those teams, but that kind of proves my point. It would be a mild upset if Verona won this weekend, and it would mildly surprising if OSU beat out every other college football team. They are -260 to win the B1G. They are an absolute lock. To keep the soccer parallel alive, that's in the same realm as the moneyline on Bayer Leverkusen (who you have heard of) to beat Darmstadt (who you have not).

That said, there is no value in betting OSU this year in any capacity except game lines. Alabama (+650), Auburn (+1200), and Michigan (+5000) are all better value plays because they have a reasonable shot to win it all and they haven't been bet down for six straight months.

In the end, I like Auburn at +1200. I like the ability to have Gus Malzahn and Will Muschamp running the show, because coaching matters. The last 11 champions have been led by Urban Meyer (thrice), Jimbo Fisher, Nick Saban (thrice), Gene Chizik, Les Miles, Mack Brown, and Pete Carroll. Coaching matters. I like Malzahn and Muschamp.

Recruiting also matters. For the four recruiting years before this season, Auburn had the 7th (2015), 9th (2014), 8th (2013), and 10th (2012) best classes. Yup. +1200, please and thank you.

ACC Championship Winner

The two big teams in the ACC this season are Clemson and Florida State. They've kind of created the same issue as with Ohio State. You can get Clemson at +200 or FSU at +260, but everyone knows those are the two favorites and has known that since the winter.

I like Georgia Tech at +500 as a reasonable longshot. We know they're going to be solid offensively, primarily because they are returning their Second Team All-ACC quarterback who was the MVP of the Orange Bowl.

Big XII Champion

The play here is either TCU +150 or Baylor +250. Because it's kind of a toss-up, you're going to be tempted to bet Baylor.

That's wrong. TCU is the better team. They're hungry, as evidenced by their 42-3 beatdown of Ole Miss in the Peach Bowl. And they're returning their quarterback, who #ohbytheway is the preseason favorite to win the Heisman.

Pac 12 Championship Winner

Of the major conferences, the Pac 12 is the most wide open. There are four teams inside 4/1 - you have USC, Oregon, Stanford, and UCLA to choose from.

We narrowed it down to USC and Oregon. USC to go over 9 wins for the season pays -140, and to win the conference pays +200. Oregon to go over 9.5 wins pays -130, and to win the conference pays +240. That means Vegas thinks they're both in the 9-10 win range, has slightly more faith in Oregon to get to at least 9 wins, but thinks USC is ultimately more likely to win the title game. Initially I thought it might be because of the game's location, but it's at the Niner's stadium in Santa Clara so it's about halfway between. I think. I don't know western geography.

When you roll all of that into Dag and Jay's Gambling Machine, it spits out this sentence: even if your coach has a drug and alcohol problem, having a stud quarterback returning and a perennial top-15 recruiting class is a good sign.

#TrojLife +200, put it on the board.