Monthly Archives: December 2009

Bowl Chronicles: Pac 10/Mountain Challenge Part 2, Poinsetta Bowl

December 23, 2009
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It sure will be interesting to see if I can make a worse pick the remainder of the bowl season, than the one I made last night. Cripes, did that suck. Darn near sucked the Christmas spirit right out of me, for at least a night. The fact that I really like the Oregon State program, Mike Riley and the Rodgers brothers made watching them get waxed by a fired up BYU squad all the more depressing for me. Oh well, you win some, and you lose some. Cant do anything else by keep on, keeeping on.

Today is travel day, so this will be a short post, light on analysis and player breakdown. I promise I will make it up to with a 4,000 word treatiste on the Cotton Bowl or something down the line.

Poinsetta Bowl: California vs Utah. LInes, Cal -3.5, O/U 52

Tonight is the second Pac 10-Mountain West Challenge, this time in the Poinsetta Bowl, between the Cal Golden Bears and the Utah Utes. I am predicting a MWC sweep in this de facto challenge. Well, at least against the spread. I will be taking a stab with Utah +3.5 this evening.

Mainly, its out of habit. Utah has always been one of my favorite underdog programs in the country, especially against teams from the BCS leagues. Overall, in the last 11 years, Utah is 19-9 ATS against teams from BCS leagues. And, they’ve won nine bowl games in a row. So, we have one of the better underdog teams and one of the best bowl teams in the country going off the board tonight. I dont really need any more nudge that that to take a stab with Utah.

This is a pretty even game. I dont think Cal shows up with an obvious talent edge. Both teams are going with backup tailbacks who replaced injured stars earlier in the year. Both teams get up and down quarterbacking. But, one team stands out with the better defense and that is Utah. Hasnt it seemed like all the good teams on Cal’s slate this year basically named their own score? To me, it has. Utah, meanwhile, harassed the likes of Oregon’s Jeremy Masoli into a 3/18 day passing. I think the Utes secondary shuts down the Cal wideouts and their front seven creates enough havoc, forcing Cal QB Kevin Riley into the mistakes the eventually decides the game.

The Pick: Utah +3.5, 2 Units…..we saw last night what a good Mountain West defense can do against a high caliber Pac 10 offense. Tonight we have another really good MWC Defense, in fact better than BYU’s last night, but this time they’re going up against an inconsistent, mistake prone Pac 10 offense. Also, never mess with a streak. Utah has won so many bowl games in a row, that I assume they’ll be the better prepped and motivated team tonight. No reason to doubt them in December or January.

Bowl Chronicles: Pac 10//Mountain West Challenge, Part One: Las Vegas Bowl

December 22, 2009
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Pac 10 meets Mountain West Conference in the next two nights of bowl season, giving us a classic battle of regional conferences looking for respect from one another. The site of tonight’s challenge is the Las Vegas Bowl with Oregon State and BYU carrying the flags for their respective leagues. Frankly, its going to be one of the better games of the bowl season.  Its one of only two non-BCS bowl games between teams ranked in the top-20, the other being Penn State-LSU in the Capital One Bowl.

LAS VEGAS BOWL. BYU vs OREGON STATE. Lines, OSU -2.5, O/U 58. Moneylines: OSU -140, BYU +120

The first three bowl games of the season treated us to high scoring, big play affairs. With Sean Canfield, James and Jacquizz Rodgers for OSU and Max Hall, Harvey Unga and a wide assortment of receiving targets for BYU, you dont need to stretch the imagination far to see another repeat. The stars on these teams have been prolific at hitting paydirt during their careers and you probably can go ahead and book 4 TDs apiece from each club’s starting QB/RB tandem. Dont be surprised to see the Over hit for the fourth straight game to start the bowl season.

HALL VS CANFIELD, HIGH END QB DUEL

This will be one of the more exciting QB duels all bowl season, as both senior QBs are playing at the top of their games and look to cap their collegiate careers with a statement win in a bowl game. The Cougars Max Hall took over for the departed John Beck in 2007 and the BYU offense never looked back. Hall has tossed 91 TDs in his three seasons as a starter, including 30 this season. He knows how to spread the field with seven targets catching more than 20 balls this season, six with multiple TD catches and plenty of big play potential with four guys averaging mroe than 13.5 yards per catch.  Hall’s bread and butter is playing catch with his pair of TEs Dennis Pitta and Andrew George, with the duo combining for 87 catches, over 1,100 yards and 12 touchdowns. The Couagrs also have a legit deep threat in McKay Jacobsen, who missed close to half the season with injury, but still managed over 500 yards receiving and over 25 yards per catch. He will be the most dangerous deep threat on the field for either team tonight. Hall will test the Beavers pass defense all night. Oregon State has had issues all season defending the pass. They’re breaking in a new CB tonight in the wake of Tim Clark’s injury in the Civil War two weeks ago. That’s not good. Expect Hall to put up plenty of highlights, with some predicting at least 10 Cougars catching balls,  in his college swan song.

 Oregon State’s answer to all this may be to trump the Cougars with even more offense. The Beavers have one of the best offenses in the country as well. They are the best passing team in the Pac 10 and they balance that out by having one of the more game breaking tailbacks in the country in Jacquizz Rodgers. They’re the 22nd ranked scoring offense in the country, but they’ve actually boosted their production in league play, averaging a few decimal points below 35 points per game against fellow Pac 10 teams. In the two seasons since the brothers Rodgers have been on the field together for Oregon State, nobody in the Pac 10 has really been able to stop them. Jacquizz is the tailback, who in addition to more than 1,300 rushing has caught over 60 balls and scored 21 times. His brother James is the wide out, who is flirting with a 100-catch season. The two are 1-2 in the Pac 10 in all purpose yards. I know this isnt a Pac 10 game, but its worth pointing out that OSU is 15-3 in conference play with these two on the roster. Considering I believe the Pac 10 was the best league this season, I dont take those numbers lightly nor do I consider them flukey in any way. The Rodgers brothers will be a focal point of the BYU defense, but they’re not the only threats OSU has. Teams would be wise not to double team the WR Rdogers as the Beavers Damola Adeniji and Joe Halahuni, both have had solid seasons, combining for more than 80 catches and over 13 yards per pop. Read more »

Bowl Chronicles: New Orleans Bowl Edition

December 20, 2009
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The ninth annual New Orleans Bowl between Southern Mississippi and Middle Tennessee State shapes up to be a fun game between mirror images of one another. Both clubs spread the field with high, quick scoring offenses. Both clubs have good, yet vulnerable defenses, that are active at the line of scrimmage. Both teams are among the leaders in the nation in turnover margin. Both teams beat a lower division ACC club on the road. Both clubs were head and shoulders above most of their league competition, but werent good enough in head to head showdowns against fellow contenders and fell short of a conference crown. Both have been hot moneymakers down the stretch, combining to go 11-1 ATS in their respective final six games of the season.

The entire New Orleans Bowl history has been a Conference USA-Sun Belt matchup and CUSA holds a 5-3 advantage. The Sun Belt took a lot of lumps early on in this tie-in rivalry, absorbing double digit losses in four of the first five matchups. But, they’ve won two of the last three and the betting public hasn’t been buying this as a mismatch, evidenced by the Sun Belt club being favored the last two years in this game. But, the league is back to catching points today, albeit just 3.5 points, as we figure out who is better today, the second best team in the Sun Belt or the third best team in the Conference USA. Screw the Vikings-Panthers.

 The coaching identities of these teams offer compelling storylines. You remember Tony Frankling, dont you? He was the ill-fated Offensive Coordinator hire at Auburn heading into the 2008. It was a disasterous season on the Plains. Brought in to revolutionize the Tigers offense with the spread, it ended up being the worst season of the decade for Auburn, resulting in Franklin’s ousting in mid season and eventually brought down the Tubby Tuberville regime in the process. Well, Franklin finally landed in Muffreesboro as the Racers OC and he’s pioneered an experienced offense this season that increased their scoring production by almost 10 points a game and can score as quickly as anyone else in the country. Now that he’s proven himself again at this level, you have to wonder if a more attractive and visible job opportunity will come his way. That could be deja vu all over again for longtime MTSU observers. There was a sense this program was ready for a leap back in 2001 when it surged to a 9-3 mark just three years after joining the FBS level. But, the hotshot offensive coordinator who designed the attack left for a bigger job and the program has been inconsistent at best, making just two bowl appearances, since then in adjusting to FBS life, even in the Sun Belt.

That hotshot offensive coordinator from years ago happens to be roaming the other sidleline tonight in Southern Miss Head Coach Larry Fedora.  After succussful OC stints at Florida and Oklahoma State, Fedora took over in Hattiesburg last season. Despite bowl seasons in 10 of 11 seasons, the school forced longtime coach Jeff Bowers into resigning, thinking the program had grown stale to a certain point. Fedora was brought in the liven up the program and the offense. And, while he’s done that, the overall win-loss record his first two years hasnt really been much different than the last stretch of the Bowers Era, a record which led to ‘why come’ grumblings of it not being good enough.

I see Southern Miss, in many ways, as the Conference USA’s version of Fresno State, a program featured yesterday in Bowl Chronicles. The Golden Eagles adhere everybit to the anytime, anyplace, anywhere motto that’s become the ID of the Fresno outfit. They regularily make trips into the houses of SEC and Big 12 teams. They havent fared as well straight up or against the spread the way Fresno has in the exercise, but you can make a strong case that Southern Miss has more than held their own against against strong competition during the process. Despite the respect earned by playing above themselves against BCS teams, Southern Miss, like Fresno, has not been able to parlay that into legit CUSA success, in terms of coming in first place. Neither team has won a league championship despite being among the upper class of mid-majordom. Neither, in most years, can often claim to be the second best team in the standings. It was the desire to bring Southern Miss back into the local championship mix that led to the transition from Bowers to Fedora. So far, its looked like that same old  Southern Miss, same old 7-win season. But, ending his second year with another bowl win would be a nice exlcamation point to the season. Read more »

Bowl Chronicles: St Petersburg Bowl/Pre Christmas Favorites Edition

December 19, 2009
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St. Petersburg Bowl: Rutgers -3 over Central Florida, O/U 44.5. Moneyline, Rutgers -145, UCF +125

In each of the last three years, a Big East team has mauled a Conference USA team by double digits in a pre-Christmas Day bowl game. In the Papajohns’s Bowl, USF crunched ECu 24-7 in 2006 and Cincy outraced Southern Miss 31-21 in 2007. Last season in the debut of the St. Pete Bowl, USF routed Memphis 41-17.  That history of head-to-heads between the leagues has me listening to Rutgers laying the small chalk tonight against UCF.

So too does the simple bowl philosophy that many people like to follow this time of year. It’s a chronological pattern. Basically start out by betting the favorites through Christmas Day. For the rest of December jump onto the Underdogs, but when the New Year hits get back on the chalk train. Admittedly, the numbers dont back this up enough to go out and do this blind from start to finish. But, I find it at least a good jumping off point when breaking down the entire bowl slate.  One reason is because it seems every year the underdogs howl on a big run at some point. And, since the glut of bowl games typically takes place in that week after Christmas, many bettors have got fat betting late December underdogs.  So, keep an eye for that run and dont be hesitant to play an underdog if you like the side during the post Christmas portion of the program. That’s about as far as I will go in preaching the virutes of starting and stopping your analysis with this chalk to dog to chalk path for the bowl season.

When I say the numbers dont back up doing this on the blind, I am talking about the fact that pre-Christmas Day favorites are just 28-26 ATS the last 10 seasons. If you bet a unit, with standard vig applying, on each game, you would actually be down 0.6 units. I’ve never really put too much stock in this end of the theory. I am on the other end of the theory in January if only because I always seem to do so ‘blah’ on New Year’s Day and a lot of it stems from taking eventually outclassed dogs in those big games. Full confession, if you’re looking for the sucker whose been betting the Big 10 in the Rose Bowl the last few years, your search is over. I is sucker. Nice to meet you.

Getting back to the pre-Christmas Day end, one reason I dont buy into the theory whole heartily is due to the overall explosion of bowl games, particularily on this end of the slate. I have several rules about assessing the effectiveness of systems and trends. One of them is to beware when a system that crops up two or three times a season suddenly pops up a bunch on one Saturday. I have the same feeling here. After beginning the decade with just four pre-Christmas Day bowl games, the number of contests held on or before December 25 have increased so much that the average number of games over the last ten seasons is actually more than six during this part of bowl season.

Through the end of the 1990s and into this decade, there basically was just a couple of these games a season. The MAC and WAC met in the Las Vegas Bowl and then a Christmas Day Aloha Bowl between teams from BCS leagues pretty much was it. A second game in Hawaii was added, played sometimes on Christmas Eve  or as a Xmas Doubleheader. It too typically included a pair of BCS teams. That pretty much was it and it all but started the bowl season. We saw some good efforts in those games, such as Akili Smith making millions even though his team fell short in a shootout against Colorado. And, who in their right mind could forget Washington dropping 52 on Sparty in the 1997 edition. Man, I think I just saw Rashan Shehee score a touchdown.

In 2001, the New Orleans and GMAC Bowls debuted. And, even though the second bowl game in Hawaii was contracted, the number of new bowl games added overall and the subsequent scheduling challenges of getting them all on TV has created the need to expand bowl season to the size it is today where the games begin on a daily basis a full week before Christmas Day. This is the seventh year in a row there have been at least a half dozen bowls on or before Christmas.  To me, we’re still learning about the different motivation levels and matchup issues created in these early games, which often pit mid majors against each other or with a middle class team from a BCS league. Read more »

Bowl Chronicles: Pokes/Dogs In New Mexico

December 19, 2009
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Ho Ho Ho, Happy Bowl Season, Everyone!

Another bowl extravaganza is upon us, a sprint of postseason exhibitions virtually every day from here on out, culminating with the BCS Title Game between Texas and Alabama 20 days from now. We get started today with a doubleheader with the New Mexico and St. Peterburg Bowls. As important, is the debut edition of the 2009-10 Bowl Chronicle series. Here’s the routine, we will have a Bowl Chronicle Edition for every day there is a bowl game, and, in some cases, like today, when there are more than one game, we will have multiple posts. Each post will include at the end of the commentary and breakdown, a prediction or two, against the spread, on the games in question in the post. I did this last year at MGoBlog and, the season before that, did something similar at a more point spread topical forum. Both times ended with a profitable bowl run, so lets try to keep the positive bowl tidings rolling for another season.

We begin the bowl march this afternoon with the New Mexico Bowl, pitting Fresno State against Wyoming. Some arent too enthused about this game. But, I say hogwash to those naysayers. I mean, what’s not to like about this matchup? We finally get to solve a bitter fued thats been dividing college football fans all season long: which has the stronger middle class of 6 to 8 win teams, the Mountain West or the Western Athletic Conference? Debate ends today. The Bulldogs and Cowboys will battle this afternoon with all the evidence on the line. That, and they play off for a pretty sweet looking set of trophies.

Wyoming? Wyoming!

For the third year in the four-year history of the New Mexico Bowl, a team with a losing record from the year before pulled in enough wins this go around to net bowl eligibility and a spot on this field. In 2006, San Jose rose up after five straight losing seasons to qualify for this game and, last season, Colorado State shook off consecutive losing campaigns to earn a pre-Christmas weekend in New Mexico.

This season, its the surprising Wyoming Cowboys out of the Mountain West who’ve gone rags to riches on us. Heading into the season, the Pokes had just one winning season this decade, averaging less than four wins a season. Bowl games have been rare in Laramie. This is just their first since 1994, their third since 1990 and only their fifth in the last 32 seasons. Until they upset UCLA in the 2004 Las Vegas Bowl, Wyoming’s most notable bowl accomplishment this generation was being on the other end of a Barry Sanders whooping stick in the 1988 Holiday Bowl. Sanders went off for 222 yards and five scores in just three quarters of work, showing no signs of the Heisman Jinx that has betrayed many of his brethern. Read more »