What we learned

Things we got right, things we got wrong, and things that we think we now know that can help line our pockets.

- SEC home dogs (not counting VANDY) are lethal. MISS ST. is a better team than AUB, but AUB was motivated and the talent level on a bad AUB team is still crazy high relative to a down year at a lesser school. Motivation in college football is a key, and AUB had it on Saturday and won outright as a big home dog.

- Don't fall for the hype of a close call against a perceived good team. This applies to most of us on our Gophers bet from last week. They looked great in the 2nd half against a USC team that we all saw as elite. The truth is that they are a very average USC team and our 2nd half performance was more of a fluke than anything. I told myself coming into this year that this Gopher squad was going to be below average, year 1 of a coach at a school like this always is. But obviously, I wanted to believe after the USC game and bought in thinking NMST was bad enough for us to house them. The truth is that we're not there yet, not even close. This team will be better the 2nd half of the year than they are now, but this year as a whole will be a struggle. New schemes, new QB, lack of depth, and frankly a lack of talent in some spots will keep the Gophs as a wildcard team each week. They will have moments where they step up and play with or even beat a WIS or IOWA, but they will also have lapses like we saw on Saturday. Everyone was excited and hoping the Kill program was accelerated after USC, but we should no better than to react to 1 half like that.

- ALABAMA has an NFL defense...a good NFL defense. On Kiper's big board of the top 150 for next year's draft, ALA D has 8 guys!! This is ridiculous. I still didn't hate my PSU bet, because I think they have a great D as well and if the turnovers fall a different way they would have covered...but ALA is unreal. If they don't turn it over and put up a few points they shouldn't lose.

- Great teams bounce back from an embarassing performance. Case in point this week = TCU. They were undressed by RG3 and they came out at AF this week and housed. Good coaching, good players, and motivation = bet on this team. The anti to this is ND. A great team would have bounced back from the USF debacle and housed a less talented MICH team that is going through a transition. But they didn't, ND played the same as last week and lost. All the 10 win predictions for this team are insane, considering they only have about 2 gimmes on the slate.

- OREGON minus anything against a slower team is a good bet. Put them against a fast D (AUB, LSU) and they struggle. But when they are faster, look out. They threw up 69 against NEV this week and I bet this isn't the last time they hit 60+ this year.

- Don't let huge 1st week scoring numbers fool you. CIN put up 72 in week 1 against Austin Peay, and their line at TN last week opened at +6.5 and shrunk to +4.5. I like the talent, but seriously, getting less than a TD at a good SEC team? Lines like this just don't make sense. If CIN would have struggled with Austin Peay, they would have been a 10-14 pt dog at least and not have been taking on "smart" money. You better really believe in a team to take them at an SEC opponent.

- Gators are back? I'm still not sure. They look like they are competant once again on offense under Chuck Weis and the D, as always, is outstanding. But are they back...we'll know after this week.

- 1st year HC on the road at a FAV are dangerous. Example, NILL at KAN. KAN was horrible last year, NILL was great. NILL looked impressive with new coach Doeren in game 1, KAN looked okay. NILL is favored by 5.5 at KAN...it's a trap. 1st year coaches (especially small schools) on the road as FAVs early in their 1st year are not a good bet. KAN wins 45-42.

- Emotional hangover teams are great to bet against. This is not a new concept, but worth repeating. My exmaple for this week is MDTN, who almost had a big win over PUR in week 1 but lost on a last second FG. That emotional hangover carried over as they were +11 at home against GT. GT came in and housed them 49-21.

NFL

- Points are at a premium. PURPLE +9 and BILLS +7 were the biggest dogs on our slate and both covered. Once you get into the double digits it gets even more interesting. Beating any NFL team by 2 TD's or more is hard to do. The favorite needs motivation to make this happen, which isn't there every week. You have been warned.

- IND is one of the worst teams in the league without Peyton. Not much else to say about that.

- Don't pick average teams in a Suicide Pool. CLE, KC, DEN are the prime examples of this. Especially in week 1, take a playoff team that will win - I didn't do this...damn you Colt McCoy!!

- You have to pass to win. 39 yards passing...wow, didn't see that one coming. Look at all the crazy passing numbers from week 1 - Purple must improve this a lot to win games. I still like them, the D is fine and AD will get his yards, but DMc needs to be better and the receivers need to be better. SD is really good, and I expected them to win - but the statistical joke of 39 passing yards seems like we played this game in 1941. Purple will be fine, all the panic will stop with a better game this week.

- MIA will still be a nice team this year. NE is the outlier - Brady is ridiculous and they would have beat anyone last night. I think Henne looked nice, the Fins offense is nice, and the defense can be really good. They will continue to surprise people in the AFC, just not NE.

Week 3 lines coming soon.