I am beginning to wonder if this will be the year I get my comeuppance during bowl season. After two consecutive profitable bowl seasons as a degenerate blogger, so far this year its been a fight on the Bowl Chronicles front. Not only have I made some lousy picks (UTEP, Ohio U and Navy. Take your pick, which was a worse selection?), but last night had the pleasure of watching the team I picked blow a 17-point halftime lead. Another loser, this time on the Rockets. But the game between Toledo and Florida International did at least prove one of my main adages about the college postseason that bowl games are like NBA games in that every team makes a run. So, yeah there’s that, right?
Will Tim Jefferson and the Pilots keep the chalk rolling this bowl season?
You know the bowl season spells trouble for somebody like me when eight games are in the books and the underdogs have barely scratched the win column. The Chalk on the closing line (note that FIU was actually -1 when the game went off last night) is 7-1 ATS so far in the postseason. Usually money underdogs like Fresno, Utah and Navy all got worked by at least three touchdowns in their games. I have not been shy calling myself an underdog whore. If you look at my picks throughout the season it trends at least 80 percent on underdog selections. If you’re a chalk player, you’re not getting a ton of advice from the JCB during the course of football season. Despite the chalks dominance, we’re not hemorraging cash here at the JCB. At least not yet. We did pick two of the favorites getting winners with Northern Illinois over Fresno and Louisville over Southern Miss. And the one underdog that did cover–Tulsa over Hawaii–was on the JCB card as well. Toss in a few winning prop bets on the bowl season’s opening day and we actually have a winning 5-4 record and are a nose in the black, up 0.15 Units. That’s a whopping 15 bucks if you play $100 Units like we do here. That’s not going to pay any Christmas shopping bills, but if you had told me 10 days ago how dominant the chalk would have been this first week or so of the postseason, I would have assumed I’d be donating blood for cash or turning in aluminum cans for cash or both to keep us afloat.
Seeing the favorites dominate the early bowl action makes me a little nervous about what the next week will bring because I dont expect to change stripes. We’ll be spending much of the final days of 2010 dancing with dogs. Here’s hoping that one major underdog run that bowl season always seems to deliver starts sooner, rather than later. Perhaps even with tonight’s game.
Independence Bowl: Air Force vs Georgia Tech, 5:oo, EPSN. Lines, Air Force -3, O/U 56
It’s too bad I’m not putting this contest into the Pick-4 hopper. We’d have so many off the wall props to choose from. We could do time of game, O/U 2 hours, 10 minutes. With the way these teams run, run, run and chew up clock, expect this game to be over before dinnertime, despite the start a little after 5 o’clock. We could do total combined rushing yards and put some obscene number on the board like 700 yards or something. We could go the other way and be diabolical asking players to pick over/under on any passing stats. Just waiting for a passing play between these teams is going to be frustrating, let alone keeping track of them for an under/over prop. But, alas, it wont be part of Pick-4 lore. The contest will start back up tomorrow with a prop in the Iowa/Missouri game, in honor of the first Big 10 game of the postseason. We’ll send out the contest later today. Read more »
South Florida at Florida, 12:21 ET Saturday, ESPN3- Might be tough to catch this one, but ESPN3 is highly recommended. Great picture quality, easy to use, and you can watch other games at the same time on your TV! So while you’re watching Georgia and South Carolina on ESPN2, fire up the computer and see if Florida’s offense can turn it around after a scary-bad performance last week against Miami OH. Florida is certainly teasing us by playing the wrong Miami, then the wrong school from southern Florida in back-to-back weeks (just play the Hurricanes!), but the Bulls should provide a good test. Under Skip Holtz, QB BJ Daniels and the offense provide much more of a scare than the Redhawks did last week. If Florida struggles offensively again, we could be in for a big upset. Daniels was able to knock off Florida State last year in his first start, so at least he has some relevant experience. No matter the result, it will be interesting to see how Florida responds after a rough first week.
