Monthly Archives: December 2009

Let’s take a quick review of the bowl season with nine of 34 games in the books already. Against the closing lines, underdogs are 6-3 ATS. The only line movement that could alter that record was yesterday’s UNC/Pitt game. The line was -2.5 Pitt in the morning, but closed at -1 Pitt.  If you use the morning line, which i actually bet on, or use the lines I got on the games and picks posted in the prior Bowl Chronicle, then the underdog is 7-2 ATS.

You would think that would music to my ears. Anyone who has followed my posts this season here at the JCB or in previous seasons in my various postings at MGo, know that I heart underdogs. I rarely play favorites, and when I do, I almost never lay heavy chalkChalk is another name for the favorite team to win.. I am not a ChalkChalk is another name for the favorite team to win. Eating Mo Fo. Then, why come I’m not putting up a big early profit in bowl season with puppy covers in seven of nine games? Mostly because I have not been shy with the chalky goodies this holiday season. And, naturally, its backfired on me. I’ve gone to the window with six favorites so far in the bowl season. The move has bit back with a 2-4 record. Included in this is hitching wagons with a pair of double digit favorites (seriously, I dont think I took more than 5 double digit favorites during the whole season) and a MAC favorite, despite the league’s shaky bowl history in recent seasons. I feel like I changed stripes in the last week and its cost me money. The good news? I am 3-0 picking dogs, 3-1 overall on double plays (wins with Rutgers, Utah and UNC. A loss with Oregon State) and the JCB’s 5-4 bowl record has us up 1.9 Units.

The better news? Bowl season is just beginning to get cranked up. There’s plenty of games left. And, I’ve learned my lesson. Know your identity and be comfortable with it. Mine is a love of puppies. So, from here on out, starting as soon as tonight, dont expect too many chalky buys. I’m running with the dogs for most of the remaining bowl season.

MUSIC CITY BOWL: CLEMSON vs KENTUCKY. LINES, CLEMSON -7, O/U 54

Doesn’t Kentucky vs Clemson sound like a second round game in March Madness? Instead its a football bowl game, a rematch of the 2006 event on this same field. And, it gives investors the tempation of taking an SEC team catching points against an ACC team. That sounds intriguing.

Kentucky is playing in a bowl game for the fourth straight season, a first in program history. UK won their previous three bowls on this streak, besting East Carolina, Florida State and Clemson. Can they win a fourth in a row and another one over Clemson? I think they can. I know I give UK a better shot at winning, not to mention covering the spread, than the general betting public does. Read more »

Bowl season kicks into high gear later today as we finally get matchups between brand name, BCS league schools. After the mid-major lid lifter in the Motor City Bowl, the football eyes will turn to Charlotte and San Francisco for the Pitt/UNC and Boston College/USC matchups. Truly these teams are channeling Dante from Clerks, undoubtedly once or twice uttering their own spin on his famous phrase, ‘we’re not supposed to even be here.’  Pitt was seconds away from a BCS bid,  but shouldnt they still be in a more high end postseason locale? Shouldnt the Butch Davis era in Chapel Hill be further along than a repeat bid to the bowl game they played last year?  The Trojan players are wondering if they took a wrong turn and missed the exit to Pasadena as they play in a mid-tier bowl for the first time in years. As for Boston College, they’re the only one who can utter that phrase from a perspective of disrespect. Dont we always think this is the year Boston College falls down and has a losing record? Yet, here they are, another 8-win season in the books, laughing at all the people  who thought they werent supposed to here. Today we’ll see which coaches were able to recharge and motivate their teams the most in the wake of disappointing bowl locales.

Meineke Carquest Bowl: North Carolina vs Pittsburgh. Lines, Pitt -3, O/U 45.5

To me one of the bowl seasons more intriguing matchups takes place in Charlotte this afternoon when Pitt plays UNC in the Meineke Carquest Bowl. Both have been adding layers of recruits with solid classes for several years and they’re beginning to hit their stride on the field. I wouldnt be shocked to see this game rematched in a BCS bowl one year from now. Pitt has earned its first back-to-back 9-win seasons since the Dan Marino Era. UNC has had consecutive winning seasons for the first time since Mack Brown elevated the Heels to national contention in the 1990s.  Both teams had higher end seasons within their grasp. Pitt lost three games by a combined 11 points and famously lost the Big East Title in that classic against Cincy three weeks ago. UNC could have 10 wins already in the books if not for losing late leads and dropping heartbreakers against FSU and NC State. In fact, six of the Heels combined 9 losses the last two seasons have come by three or less points. 

The coaching matchup intrigues as well. With Dave Wannstedt and Butch Davis, you have the two of the more bigger names and highest paid in the profession. They are both direct branches of the Jimmy Johnson coaching tree. Wanny’s club on offense resembles the famed Triplets on Johnson’s Cowboys with QB Bill Stull, RB Dion Lewis and WR Jonathan Baldwin the focal points of a basic, pro-style offense. Davis’s UNC defense has leaned on the blueprint of Johnson’s past defenses built on speed and depth, especially up on the front four. Both teams are loaded with star players who will help be the face of college football for the next couple of seasons. Today, one of them looks to spark momentum headed into the offseason and the long prep for the 2010 season.

UNC is bearing the fruits of an uptick in recent recruiting efforts since Butch Davis was hired in 2007. His first three classes have been ranked at an average of 19.66 in the country. The three years prior to his arrival that average was over 37. The 2007 class saw the first jump in recruiting rankings as the Heels settled in at #19 and had more 4-stars signed that the three previous year combined. That haul has netted this year’s leading rusher, its #1 and #3 receivers, and, arguably its two best players on defense, DT Marvin Austin and LB Quan Sturdevant, both bigtime NFL prospects. This year’s freshmen class ranked in the top-10 and already has seen contributors emerge, including the teams #2 receiver, a starting offensive linemen and linebackers. Half of the team’s starting units was born out of the last three recruiting classes, with loads of underclassmen waiting in the backups wings ready for a chance when the seniors this year leave campus. Read more »

 Bowl season took a break for Christmas, but resumes the day after with a tripleheader of servings of the most wonderful time of the year. I’m splitting the day’s Bowl Chronicles into two parts, with the first part here focusing on the nooner.  I’ll try to get the second part up tomorrow morning, or at least during the Motor City Bowl, at the latest.

An interesting mid major contest in the Motor City Bowl gets the tripleheader started. Athens and Huntington are less than 70 miles from each other, so this is a little bit of a natural, geographical rivalry game that gets played thanks to the wonders of bowl season.

Neither Ohio U or Marshall look like a bowl team when breaking it down on paper through various statistical rankings. But, both played a tough slate, featuring a total of five non-conference bowl teams. Each faced two from BCS leagues. Ohio played all the four other MAC bowl teams, the only team in the league to do that. Marshall played four of the other five CUSA bowlers. I’m not sure your standard middle class mid major can cultivate a bunch of good-looking team stats up against slates like that. Besides, both teams found a way to win throughout the schedule, enough, at least, to get here. Ohio went 3-1 against those fellow MAC bowlers, scoring 44, 38 and 35 points in wins against BG, Northern Illinois and Temple. Marshall also beat BG in non conference play, and while they went 1-3 agaisnt fellow CUSA bowlers, all three losses were by less than a touchdown. The win? Over SMU. We saw what the Mustangs are capable of doing the other night. SMU earned Marhsall a lot of by proxy respect in my book in the process.

I am intrigued by mindset of both squads. Ohio is one of many teams that are trying to rebound in a bowl game after losing a conference championship game. A lot of times–and we’ve seen it already with Oregon State–those clubs have  a hard time cranking back up the motivation. Marshall, on the other hand, finally broke through with their first ever bowl bid since upgrarding into the Conference USA. Yet, all is not right with their ship as the bowl invite was not good enough to save Mark Snyder’s job. So, they enter this game a bit in flux, with an interim coach, with many players likely wondering about the future of the program.

I give that motivational edge to Ohio. Of  all the conference championship game losers, the Bobcats were the only ones who were significant underdogs and didnt lose in heartbreaking fashion. I dont think they’re playing the ‘woe-is-us’ card that some teams do after the inevitable downgrade after that kind of big loss. Their coaching staff is way more set and smooth right now than Marshalls. I think the Bobcats will be better prepped and motivated than a Marshall program wondering why they’re being led by an interim coach.

There are a few on field matchups that I think favor Ohio as well.  I love the special teams play of the Bobcats. I see a hidden yardage advantage in the return game. Look for Chris Garrett and Lavon Brazill to set  OU up with field position off of each kick. I dont see this game being a shootout. Neither offense is truly that explosive. The return yards will be the Bobcats extra gear in this one.

I think each offense is going to have some trouble with the defense across from it, making those return yards for OU all the more important. The Bobcats are going to have tough slogging running the football against the active Marshall front seven, inlcuding LB Kellen Harris and Mano Harvey. Marshall is going to have a hard time with a ball hawking, aggressive defense of OU. I wonder how their somehwat mistake prone QB Brian Anderson is going to overcome the turnover bug against an OU defense that is one of the best in the business at hawking takeaways. They’ve forced 36 turnovers, including 20 interceptions. The safety combination of Gerald Moore and Patrick Tafua might be the defensive players who swing this game. Read more »

The main story line behind tonight’s mid-major clash in Hawaii between Nevada and SMU is the return to postseason play of the Southern Methodist Mustangs. The Ponies from Dallas have not been bowling since 1984, when after that season they were discovered to be running a pay for play scheme and the NCAA threw the book at them, giving the program the Death Penalty, banishing them from play for several years. When they were allowed back on the field, they were nothing more than the worst expansion team you can envision any pro league fielding. For 20 years they searched for that winning mojo they once had. At least for one season, they have rediscovered that touch. A program that was among the nation’s elite–the last time they were relevant their Pony Express Backfield of Eric Dickerson and Craig James was unstoppable–is back with their first accomplishment to hang their hat out since the NCAA hammer belted them out of the game a quarter century ago. Coincidentally, the last bowl game the Mustangs were in was played in the same stadium tonight, back in the 1984 Aloha Bowl, where they upended Notre Dame 27-20. LOLIrish. In honor of their achievement, I wont make any mention the Dickerson and James were also the highest paid backfield in the game. Or joke about wondering how much money did boosters pony up to get favors from the Lady Islanders for their boys on the football squad. Because that would be rude and not in the propert spirit of the season.

HAWAII BOWL: SMU vs NEVADA. LINES: Nevada -11, O/U 70.5

The star of this SMU turnaround is undoubtedly head coach June Jones. He’s ending the decade the way he ended the last decade, by engineering an historic turnaround. And, he’s returning home the triumphant hero. He took over the Hawaii program in 1999 after a winless season, immediately installed his Run ‘N Shoot offense and authored an historic one-year turnaround, leading the Bows eventually to a bowl victory over Oregon State to cap off his first season. He created a nice program in Hawaii and took over SMU last season. The Mustangs had a one-win season when he took over and any quick fix turnaround was dashed when Junes club went 1-11 again in 2009. The fruits of the labor came this season with wins in four of the final five games to get to bowl eligibility and a return trip to Hawaii for Jones.

This team pretty much does what you’d expect a Jones team to do: Pass, pass, pass and, then for good measure, pass even more. They’re 26th in the nation throwing the football, despite some flux this season at the B position. Incumbent Bo Levi Mitchell was pegged as the star that Jones could ride to a bowl season in Dallas, but he went down in midseason. Redshirt freshmen Kyle Padron took over and the offense got better as he showcased not only better big play potential, but also less ability to throw the ball to the other team. Mitchell is healthy and it will be interesting to see if Jones pulls any strings if Padron struggles.

In the end, I dont think it will matter. SMU is a one-trick pony (see, what I did there), and, with all due respect to their accomplishment this year, surged to this bowl game on the backs of wins over some of the worst teams in Conference USA. The problem the Ponies have is they dont have a good defense and its not nearly enough on the side of the ball to stop Nevada’s churning rushing attack. Read more »