Tuesday, September 8, 2015

College Football week 1 recap

Well that certainly didn’t go as planned.  It seemed like the stars were aligned, and money was going to grow on trees.  Ah the wonderful delusional thoughts we all have at the start of the season.  I knew it was going to be a bad night when UNC threw a pick in the end zone on the opening drive after marching down the field.  Continuous shots to the foot allowed South Carolina to hang around long enough for the inexperienced quarterback to figure some things out.  Of course they had the chance to win the game driving late, needing a touchdown, and then getting away from the very plays that got them down the field for a turnover on downs, game over, loss.  Of course that wasn’t the first time the offense stalled in field goal range, it happened over and over again.  Should’ve been an easy first win and ended up being loss 1.

Meanwhile, a little further south in Orlando, FIU did the inevitable and won at Bright House Field.  UCF takes a lot of pride in defending their home turf, so this is no easy feat.  I called for them to cover the spread, but the one upped it with a straight up win as a 2 td dog.  Remember the line on this game opened as FIU +17.5, and closed around FIU +13, so the sharp money was all over this game from the get go.  That’s a good thing to look for, sharp money that still shows JMG value.  1-1

Next we get to Vanderbilt +2 home against Western Kentucky.  This was another tough pill to swallow.  Vandy controlled this game, +13 minutes in time of possession and 131 more rushing yards.  But with the good come the ugly and that’s 3 turnovers, 2 interceptions and 1 fumble.  Finally with 33 seconds left in the game WKU stops Vandy’s 2 point conversion and gets the win.  We got a push. 1-1-1

Thursday was closed out with an absolute demolition of Tulane by Duke.  I either grossly overrated Tulane or completed underrated Duke.  Probably both judging by the outcome of the game.  It was ugly, hope you didn’t stay up to watch like I did.  1-2-1

Friday was a better day.  We stayed away from all the big boys, went with the low key game in the afternoon and Charlotte brought it home.  This was a classic example of a line mismatch.  As I pointed out in the Friday blog last week, there isn’t much difference between Charlotte and Georgia State, especially not 7 points worth. 2-2-1

Saturday, the day that money gets printed around America.  We started out with Georgia and they ran like crazy, just like I said they would, and the Bulldogs were on there way to a dominate and a sure cover.  The weather on the other hand had different ideas and lightning caused the game to be called with just under 10 minutes.  Vegas requires a game go 55 minutes to become official.  Can’t get paid on it, can’t claim a win.  2-2-1

Arkansas showed they’ll be a force to be reckoned with when they ran away with this one.  No recap needed, complete game domination.  3-2-1

Should’ve stayed laying the heavy chalk with Florida, but I recommended going with New Mexico State and the points instead.  See the Tulane/Duke explanation and fill it in here. 3-3-1

Closing out the night was a great contest between Mississippi State and Southern Miss.  This was another underdog pick, but they hung on to cover in this one, letting us go to bed happy and ahead of the man. 4-3-1

I didn’t include this game initially, but I posted it so I’m counting it.  Hopefully you all were to hung over to read my Sunday Funday blog and didn’t follow along.  It was a great play though, and I got completely robbed.  Purdue was all over this Marshall team.  They controlled the clock and started shutting down the powerful Thundering Herd offense.  They even had the lead with 10 minutes to go and started running the slow down get out of this game mode and ended up punting.  Marshall takes a lot of time off the clock, but scores a touchdown to take the lead with just under 3 minutes left.  We got this game covered, up 4 and our team is getting the ball, what could go wrong?  Tiquan Lang is what happened.  He not only got the game deciding interception, he returned it 55 yards for a touchdown, and we get another loss.  Why couldn’t he be more sportsmanlike and take a knee?  They had the game won, why go for individual fame?  Greedy Tiquan cost me. 4-4-1

Finally, Monday night.  This was the game that I was most confident about.  No way VT was going to lose by more than 14 points.  No WAY!  Well they did.  They had this though, they really did.  Then Brewer got injured in the 3rd and VT no longer knew how to move the ball on offense.  That hurt.  I can take losing a bet, but when you’re on your way to a cover, and maybe a big upset, then a young man gets hurt and completely changes the game is saddening.  4-5-1

There it is, a losing record 4-5-1.  A couple of things different, and it’s a completely different outcome.  Realistically, I was 1 play away from a win on Sunday, 1 or 2 plays from a win with UNC, 1 play away for a Vanderbilt team that dominated the game having another chance, and 1 injury with VT from a win.  Oh year and the fucking lighting in Georgia cost a win too.  That 4-5-1 record could easily be 8-3-1 if we got a few different bounces.  But that’s why they play the whole game.



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