How to bet on NCAA Football Games...correctly: VOL 1

Wow, 5 months in the making and now I have to put this whole thing to paper or computer or whatever. I'll try to be succinct, organized, and helpful...but some or most of you may not care. I'm trying to share what I learned over the last 5 months to help us all - take it for what it's worth.

First - why am I doing this? It should be fairly obvious...on our front page I have last year's standings...118-137 last year 46%...yep, not a winner. Even our champion Mr. Roe only went 132-123 for 51%...not a winner in Vegas, but a winner with us. So I sat down and said, how can a guy improve on this and avoid those painstaking decisions every week that I undoubtably second and third and fourth guess myself on until finally submitting a pick. Well, one thing I was going with is my Thursday night rule...bet the home team - it's f*cking simple, just pick the home team no matter what - especially an underdog. I wanted to find more rules like this so my picks could be more accurate and I could win more and have something to show for the ridiculous amount of time I put into this great sport each week. So without further adieu, here we go:

1. I started by taking every game from last year and figuring out if maybe it actually as simple as "bet the home team"...it's not.

Home-Road, FAV-DOG both ended at nearly 50/50 splits for the year, so if you're happy with 50%, then read no further and just pick one way to go and follow it religiously. But I'm shooting for 75%, so I moved on to some more analysis.

2. I made a list of rules, I figured by looking at the schedules and results from last year I should be able to come to some conclusions - listed below:

• Rule 1 - Bet home team on Thursday night: 14-4 in 2008, road FAV never covered
• Rule 2 - Rivalry Games - pick the DOG, unless it is a HUGE mismatch (OSU-MICH 08)
• Rule 3 - Coach Situations - 1st year guys struggle in the first 4-6 games, exiting coaches or presumed to be exiting coaches typically cover at the end of the season
• Rule 4 - Opening Weekend - bet against the big off-season hype team in the year's 1st big game (ALA over CLEM, USC over AUB a few years back...)
• Rule 5 - BCS Busters - Identify these teams early and bet them ever week(Boise, TCU, Utah, Ball St. in 2008 went 37-12 ATS (against the spread)
• Rule 6 - Team Expectations/Tradition - Bet against traditonal powers having a down year (AUB 2008), bet against extremely bad BCS teams (WASH, WASU: 5-19 ATS), bet for Nat'l title contenders (FLA, OK, PSU, TEX, ALA: 50-12 ATS)
• Rule 7 - Conference Games - in a parody conference (ACC in 2008) always take the points if it's >7
• Rule 8 - Let down Rule - after a Major BCS team's first loss of the season or loss in a big game they will have another non-cover soon after especially on the road
• Rule 9 - Power Rating Rule - this is the final rule, and it's when I realized where I needed to spend my time throughout the season...using my power rankings at the end of the season I would have hit 78% if I had used them for every game at the start of the year...so nailing these at the beginning of the season is the key and just do some minor tweaking throughout the season.

What are my power ratings, you may ask? Well, I assign each of the 120 teams a ranking 1-12 at the beginning of the year and use this to determine what I think the spread would/should be for every game throughout the year. 1 full point = a TD, 1/2 a point = a FG (3.5 to be exact). For example...MN is a 6.5 at WIS who was a 7...plus adding in an extra 1/2 point for the home team I have the line at WIS -7...actual line was WIS -13.5, so I pick the Gophers and make cash.

So my next question is how can I make the power ratings more accurate and what drives them? Well, this is where I had to dig in and find some key indicators to figure out why these ratings would change and how to predict them. I found a very telling correlation between point differential and power rating...like almost a 95% correlation - so that was it, point differential - figure out where that will be and we should know how a team will perform.

This was challenging simply because there are so many moving parts to these numbers. But I narrowed it down to a few keys indicators for overall performance, offense, and defense.

OVERALL

• Turnovers - impossible to predict, but it can help you gauge if a team was lucky or unlucky last year based on how this net # turned out. For example - MN was a -15 in 2007, obviously you have to think that will turn around and they ended up being a +12 in 2008...and their point differential went from -11 to even...a 1.5 point swing in the power ratings.
• Is there room to improve? An offense that averages 35+ is at the peak and really, no matter what, shouldn't expect to improve and therefore their offense could only be worse the upcoming year. Same goes for a defense that gives up 20 or less.

OFFENSE

• QB - obviously a huge component - returning starter is good, upperclassman is good - conversely starting a freshman is bad, or a first time starter is bad...remember these are just generalizations and all factors work together toward the overall pt. diff change.
• OL Returning - how many starters are back? this is huge.
• New OC/HC within the last 3 years - can have a huge impact on which direction the pts. scored goes for a team based on scheme and coaching acumen

DEFENSE

• DL/LB returning - DL is most important, but overall front 7 is also an indicator
• New HC/DC last 3 years - same as above, can completely change a team's performance

One other over arching note is strength of schedule - this doesn't have much of an impact as some people think, but it can add an extra W or L is your schedule changes drastically from year to year.

Now when looking at these numbers obviously it's impossible to say, "new OC, they should score an extra 1 point per game." What I am looking for is the large measureable changes...7+ points one way or another. In 2008, this amounted to about 30 teams getting a drastically worse offense and 30 being drastically better. Defensively, there were less changes, only about 20 increases and 10-15 decreases.

Here are some examples to explain what I'm talking about:

AUBURN was a 6.5 in 2007, starting a 1st year Soph QB in 08 = BAD, 5 OL coming back = good, brand new OC with new scheme = BAD, 5 of front 7 back on D = good, new DC = not sure. So with the new QB and new scheme, the offense dropped 7 points from 2007 and the defense was the same....AUB 2008 rating was a 5.5, one full point below.

Obviously, this doesn't work out beautifully for every team, there is some subjective work that goes on, but that's what makes it fun. For example - USC

2007 - rated an 8 at 11-2, +17 in points (33-16) - brought back a new starter at QB (Jr) = bad?, 1 OL returning = bad, 4 of front 7 back = indifferent, no new coaching = good. So with all of this, you'd think the offense would maybe drop off a bit and the defense would hold. What happened? Offense added an extra 5 ppg, defense allowed 8 fewer ppg for a +13, but I actually had them ranked as an 11 for 2008. Some teams just have so much talent that they can overcome the lack of experience in some situations - this is one of those exceptions.

WV, as another example, was an 8.5 in 2007 (40-18) +13 in TO, returning Sr at QB, 5 OL back, 4 of front 7 back, but a brand new coach and OC. They dropped to a 7 in 2008 and pt.diff went to a +8 instead of a +22. Really the only change was the offense was 16 ppg worse...but why? Great QB, 5 OL back, but they have a new coach who is not good...so we have to apply weights to the different factors if they have this kind of impact. These weights can very for each situation, and I don't actually compute them but I do try to walk through them in my head when coming up with the final rating.

Also - these ratings can change throughout the year with QB injuries/changes. Or any OL/DL injuries. Other than that they should stay pretty stable.

Confused yet? Well, I just felt that I had to share this background for how I will be rating out each team coming into the 2009 season before I shared the team previews in the upcoming summer weeks. For a final reference, here's a look at how the B10 ratred out in 2008, and how what kind of record I would have had betting on them with these ratings throughout the year:

• ILL - 6.5 (9-2)
• IND - 4.5 (9-2)
• IOWA - 8 (7-4) - they got much better as the year went on, so I try to get the most accurate based upon the end of the year
• MICH - 4.5 (10-2)
• MSU - 7 (11-1)
• MN - 6.5 (9-2)
• NW - 7.5 (7-4)
• OSU - 9 (9-2)
• PSU - 9.5 (9-2)
• PUR - 6 (9-2)
• WIS - 7 (9-2)

That's a 98-25 record, or cut in half since most of these games were against each other 49-13 or 79%...that's how you make money and that's what I'm shooting for.

So, now you know. You might be asking yourself, what exactly do I know?

1. Tree has devoted way too much of his time to this.
2. There is a way to win at betting on NCAA football without being lucky
3. All of my secrets for how I will be building my bankroll this year
4. I will be doing all of this work and providing guidance throughout the year, but I did finish in last place in 2008 so do you listen or continue to go with your gut?
5. Season previews starting with the SEC coming soon.

Longest post ever. Hopefully you find some time on Friday when there is nothing else going on and you get a chance to read it. Happy weekend - I'll see a lot of you at JG's on Saturday, so until then....some intense PJ (SAVE YOU), which might be me Saturday night when JG tries to get me to leave!

Gonna save you fucker,....not gonna lose you

Feeling cocky and strong,.. can't let you go,...

Too important to me

Too important to us,... we'd be lost without you

Baby, let yourself fall,... I'm right below you now

And fuck me if I say something you don't wanna hear

And fuck if you only hear what you wanna hear

Fuck me if I care,... but I'm not leaving here

Tuesday Thoughts

Hey Guys - two days in a row with updates, wow I must be getting less busy all of a sudden...or maybe it's just that we're getting close to that magical time of the year - College Football Preview Magazine time!! woo-hoo!!

Not sure what the rest of you do, but I have been committed to one preview magazine for the last 4-5 years...and for my money it blows away everything else. Phil Steele's College Football Preview provides the most detailed teams previews, complete betting information, history, and accurate predictions. I think it comes out on June 9th - grab a copy if you care. I also take a lot of my information from there and use some of his ideas to develop my own set of predictors etc. If you're into the betting side of it, and I think all of us are, this is the one you want.

Anyway, onto the notes from the last few days that I thought were interesting:

Jonathan Crompton, TN QB from last year, is now coming out saying that he was receiving death threats throughout the difficult season in 2008. He never said anything because he just assumed it was part of the gig as the Vols QB. Wow - I wish people in MN took their college football this seriously...maybe not THAT seriously, but definitely cared more than they appear to right now.

Iowa had a pair of brothers on the squad last year Shaun and Shane Prater. Well, these guys have had quite an eventful summer (BTW, isn't it nice to have Hawkeyes in the news all the time and not a single Gopher incident for quite a while?). Shaun was arrested for DUI and made a convincing argument that the bartender must have been sneaking alcohol into his cokes without him knowing...that Iowa education starting to kick in early for this fella. Well, his brother appears to be of lesser or equal intelligence. He had the choice to take a 3-week summer school course and be eligible for next year or transfer out and go to a JUCO. So instead of suiting up for a B10 team he chose Iowa Western to "get his GPA back up". But my favorite quote of all:

“With the party life, football and all kinds of stuff going on, it was kid of hard to cope with,” Prater said. Dude! You're in Iowa City! Besides football, what the hell else could possibly be going on! He went from an honor roll student in HS to flunking out as a Freshman in college. Another great story from Cap. Kirk and his cast of characters. Keep the defections coming Hogeyes!

On the other border - our Becky friends are experiencing some problems with their "devoted" fan base. Season ticket sales are dropping quite a bit, and Bulemia is on a very hot seat right now. I think as true Gopher fans we need to do all we can to keep Big Bret in his chair as Becky's head man, so I am proposing a season ticket buy for anyone that wants to keep the pendulam swinging toward our favor in this series for the next 10 years. I think Alvarez is a sharp guy, and he will likely soon realize the mistake he made and stop the trend dead in its tracks...but until then, let's make sure they continue to get buried farther and farther down in the standings before the new leader takes over.

Now for a little insight on our beloved Gophers - philsteele.com has posted some early charts and figures around some leading indicators for success in 2009...here's how our guys rank out nationally:

OL career starts returning - 8th in nation, 1st in B10
Total experience returning - 28th in nation
% of lettermn returning - 8th in nation
% yards returning - 8th in nation
% tackles returning - 20th in nation

These are all very good indicators that we could be in for an improvement in 2009. We do appear to have the toughest schedule in the league this year, so that might temper enthusiasm a little bit.

I read a quick preview from an AF site about the opener on Sept.12 at TCF - he, of course, is picking the Falcons to spoil our opener, but his reasoning is comical and makes his prediction pretty much worthless. I can't find the exact quotes, but it went something like this:

MN lost a lot of skill position players that will be tought to replace, and their defense also lost lots of playmakers. They will be in a rebuilding year and AF should win.

Hmmmm....the skill players we lost were, um..., Jack Simmons? And defensively we lost Hightower and probably Brock I guess. Yep - this guy is right on - WE HAVE NO CHANCE.

That's all I got.

Anyone catch PJ on Conan last night? I tried, but passed out about half way through the Ferrell interview. Here's the clip if you're a fanatic.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHTvoOdC9I8

Weekend Notes

The weekend is over, as is the dream for your Gopher baseball squad. LSU is good, we made a nice comeback to get into the final, but it wasn't meant to be once again. But there were some fun thing that happened over the weekend.

Jim Tressel and his club were embarassed 24-6 against GEO and 37-6 vs. Bobby Bowden and the Noles yesterday. Wait...it's June...this isn't football. Yep - that was THE Ohio State baseball club giving up 37 to FSU yesterday...somewhere I know Mr. Kobow is smiling and laughing hysterically right now. He's a closet OSU fan, but he pretends to hate them.

I was reading CFN this morning and they posed this question...which current coach do you pick if you had to win one game? The sharp guys threw out the obvious names...Meyer, Carroll, even Tressell. Then we get down to Jim who runs a site called Hawkeyenation.com - who do you think this d-bag selects out of all the coaches in the country?

"Well, with talent being equal I'd take Kirk Ferentz - he's done more with less talent than anyone." Are you kidding me? I'll give it to you that the guy can coach, but out of anyone in the country to win one game you pick Mr. Ferentz from Iowa?!?! Ok. Not Urban Meyer who has won 2 Nat'l Titles in 3 years - not Pete Carroll who has won the P10 10 years in a row and is the BEST big game coach around. I can't believe CFN would include this douche in their roundtable when it's quite obvious that he, like all Iowa backers, is too much of a homer to make any logical conclusions. This guy should be removed immediately and replaced with James from MN, who would have easily answered this one with the correct answer...Pete Carroll.

Listening to PA this morning...Cheech Harvin will win ROY. God - this guy gets a little old with his Viking blabber sometimes. Seriously, he's gone through one minicamp and he's ROY now?!? I hope he does well too, and I do cheer for the Purple - but come on PA. Picking Harvin as ROY is basically saying he will have Moss-like impact, which I just can't see happening. It almost always goes to a RB/QB depending on who gets a chance. WR's just don't win this award very often - and I definitely couldn't predict Harvin as the winner after one mini-camp, injury concerns, and weed issues.

Did you know Colt McCoy completed 78% of his passes last season? Do you realize how ridiculous that is. I haven't come up with any official predictions yet, but he's my Heisman lean right now just because Bradford and Tebow will not win 2, so he's the last of the current Big 3 to get one.

Since we started with Gopher Baseball, we will also close with a tidbit I found out recently. My old roomie David Roach, who I think many of you knew during college, is not an accountant anymore. Roach went back to FLA and according to my mom (probably over-hyped by her and Sally Roach) but he is Asst. AD at USF. Yes - that USF, the D1 program. If it's true, nice work. Just a little known fact that I thought was relevent to a College football blog. So when we're cheering for or against USF this year depending on where your money lies, remember Mr. Roach and blame him for what happens.

I will be posting my much anticipated "HOW TO BET ON NCAA FOOTBALL" post this week. It might be multiple parts - and it may be a little lengthy...but it's 5 months in the making.

Other than that, I'm actually working all week and getting ready to raid the big city of Rochester this weekend. JG - the Roe's and Rollins' are coming sans children - it could be ugly. See you then!

One other quick note - VEGAS 2009 is starting to be top of mind for me. I looked at current pricing for the same package we went with last year, and it's looking cheaper, by about $100/guy right now. I'm thinking it should hold close to that - but I might think about locking in early so let's start discussing it this weekend.

Later.

Past and present of Gopher Sports

First - let me start with this link to a TCF Video from yesterday - it's really starting to wrap up and be ready for September.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3qzG9mzkFWg

Next, let me tell you about my morning.

So I'm staying home on vaca today with Jace - he starts daycare next week, so Anna and I are each taking one last day with him at home...awwww. Anyway, woke up with him this morning at 6am and started flipping around, then I get to the BTN and find a back to back Gopher double header that really gives us a nice summary of the last 2 regimes in Gopher sports...Monson and Mase.

First, I was treated to IND at Gophers in hoops from 2000. Remember - the Vanilla Gorilla scores 33! and the Gophs beat the nationally ranked Hoosiers. Good memory, right? Well, I remember that this was Przy's last game in college before he realized his squad/coach sucked and might as well quit rather than risk an injury and huge payday. Second, this team still finished with only 4 B10 wins that year - nice. I started looking at the roster - check out this cast of characters:

#4 Nick Sinville - this guy looked like a player maybe, but transferred the next season

#11 Mitch Ohnstad - smoked his way off the team - I'll always remeber my first night at college, GDick and I went out to a hockey party and I saw Ohnstad there smoking weed and absolutely hammered...should have read the writing on the wall at that point.

#12 Kevin Burleson - a notorious figure in Gopher Hoops history - I love that he was recruited as the best bud to a star player in Washington as a package deal...except the star didn't come here and we only got Big Kev.

#33 Ryan Wildenbourg - remember this big oaf! I saw him on the bench and couldn't remember his name, so I had to look this one up. Nice recruit Monson - he didn't play 4 years either.

#34 Shane Schilling - drank his way off the squad after 2 years...sensing a trend yet?

#41 Mike Bauer - I generally liked this guy - can't say anything bad about him.

#45 Dusty Rychart - the Moondog was quite a story. When a walk-on ends up being one of the better players and only 4 year players of your era (Monson) you know you're in trouble. He was from GR, and friends w/Dick so he hung out with us occasionally...I think he actually still plays in Austrailia or something.

#50 Pryz - somehow he scored 33 in this final game - I think that's more than the offensively challenged one scored the rest of his career. Would have been a legend if we had any kind of coach or program at that point.

#51 Kyle Sanden - quite possibly the funniest looking guy I have ever seen. Seriously, the guy remined me of a cartoon...and he was terrible.

#54 John Aune - another filler big man for Monson. I think he was a military guy, so gotta give him credit there...but it doesn't mean he should be playing D1 hoops.

So how the hell have we gone from this type of roster with maybe 5 guys that should actually even be playing D1 hoops to being a likely Top 15 preseason team next year? Simple really.

TUBBY. thanks.


Part 2 of my morning Gopher double header was a classic - MICH vs. MIN Oct 10, 203.

So the game started with the announcers talking about last week's game where Ellerson caught a long TD vs. NW and Asad threw for 300+. I started thinking, I remeber seeing parts of that game in the airport...where was I? I asked Anna, and got the look...yeah, that was our honeymoon. Kind of sad when I remember the meaningless Gopher-NW game but not Jamaica.

Anyway, we all know the story on this one. Run for 400 yards, huge lead, lose painfully. No need to relive all the gory details, but a couple things I did realize:

The fatal flaw in Mason's plan all along - defense. Although I complained about the offense regularly throughout his tenure, the team scored points. We didn't have the ability to throw and come back at all, so we had to play ahead. But the fatal flaw to this strategy was the lack of defense. If you don't have the ability to come back and score any points you must make sure that you compliment your great running game with a defense...but we never did. I used to think it was a coordinator issue, but I'm more convinced than ever that we just had garbage players. Mason, like Brewster, made lots of position changes by moving guys up a level - DB to LB/DE, LB to DE/DT kinds of changes. The difference is that Brewster's guys have the size to play those spots and most importantly have SPEED! The one thing Mr. Mason never realized a defense needed or maybe he just wasn't able to recruit any in his 10 years. I'm not sure how many times I watched Chris Perry take a screen pass and run past 2 LB's because they are just too slow. Perry was by no means a speed guy, but he looked like frickin' Cheech Harvin out there against our pathetically slow defense.

One other thing I had forgot about was the terrible Asad pick that he throws which aids the MICH comeback. I also forgot about the 3 clipping penalties Ellerson took which cost us yards at 3 critical times, and the 3 INT's that were very possible but we failed to actually convert even one of them. Too many chances to win...I was very tempted to turn it off at 28-7, but I guess I continue to watch in hope that something might change? Or maybe I just like pain?

Anywho - hope everyone is having a great week. In some shocking news that is just coming down...Memphis Hoops might be hit with some major recruiting violations. What? You mean Calipari didn't turn a nobody into a National Power in 3 years by doing it the right way? No way. I never suspected this.

Finally - a little football talk. I am dangerously close to wrapping up all of my pre-season previews for all 119-120 teams, which I will be throwing at you soon. I dedicate one entire post to my logic behind my rating system and how it has evolved over the last 5 months. I think I've found a way to hit 75% without bringing in emotion every week - but I'll explain it all in a future post before I start posting conference previews.

One things I was thinking about regarding out favorite football conference after reading a few previews...does everyone think Dick Rod's club will be that much better this year? I really don't. He's likely going to go with a freshman at QB, and the defense was terrible last year. Let's review why he got this job in the first place - he rolled into WV, had a few crappy years, turned things around and dominated for about 3 years. I have 3 major reasons why Dick Rod will not succeed and be out within 5 years at MICH:

1) Pat White was a special QB who was a PERFECT player for this offense. I don't think there are many like that.

2) He was playing the Big East. Seriously, when it comes to football - the Big East ain't exactly high on the list. You have 7 conference games, and only about 3 of those are even worthy of being called a conference game each year. Basically, the guy didn't really play anyone and still couldn't win a Nat'l title.

3) His quirky offense doesn't work in the B10. I think this has been proven by our very own Gophers. What teams are successful...OHIOST, PSU, IOWA, Old MICH, WIS - all run a very basic pro style offense. Why? Because that is what works in the B10. Too much talent, speed, and bulk to have much success with any kind of a gimmicky offense. NW has run their unique spread, but I wouldn't say they have been a huge success...some ups and downs but not competing yearly with the Big Boys.

That's my take - it has changed since last year where I said he would struggle for a couple of years but eventually be a power again. I really don't think it can happen - he will be a flash in the pan, a flavor of the month, and he'll be back running his quirky offense in a smaller less competitve conference by 2013.

What do you think? Let me know - have a good weekend guys.

107 days until kick-off at TCF...

Lotto Preview

7.6% - that's our chance to get #1 tonight...

But when figuring out our actual chance do you have to factor in the last 20 years of brutally bad luck and make our odds much closer to .76% rather than 7.6%?

As we all know - the lottery is rigged, so let's figure out which way the scripted WWE, I mean NBA will shift the fortunes this year:

First - Sacto will not win it - the worst team never does. I think the logic here is they have too far to go, so we can't give them the #1 marquee guy, but they will land in the top 4 obviously.

Washington - my odds on favorite to land #1 tonight. Why you may ask? Flip, Arenas, actual living, breathing playmakers on the roster, a big market ready for a winner.....it's all coming together for Washington tonight.

Clippers - no. The NBA continues to not help the other LA franchise at all, so it defintiely will not start tonight.

OKCity - definite possibilities here. They have some guys who will be or already are big-time, so why not give them Mr. Griffin. They are not as big as they should be with Durant and Westbrook, but Griffin gives them a Big 3...lots of options and potential here.

MN - well, we've never moved up before - why start now. No chance. 2 or 3 player draft so we'll be picking 4th or 5th I'd guess.

MEM - nope. I think they are blackballed in the NBA as well so they have no chance...unless the NBA is holding their stock in the OJ Mayo Corp...then they might have a shot - but I think his ship has sailed already until he leaves MEM, so it's not their year.

GS - maybe. They are still up and coming I guess - but I think the luster is fading fast after their disappointing year in 2008...but they have a chance.

NY - always an option, but they might be too low to make it work without a conspiracy theory being built a la Pat Ewing Draft in 1985. They could be a lotto team, but not #1 - the whole world might figure out the crookedness of the NBA if that happened again, and that's too big of a risk.

TOR - no - NBA still regrets going into Canada.

MIL - nope - they got a shot with the Bogut pick, that turned out well. But it was a bad draft year, which is the only time the NBA will allow a MIL type team to get #1 - Griffin is marquee, so they will not be winning the lotto.

NJ/CHA/IND/PHOE - too low - the NBA has made it seem statistically impossible for these teams to win it, so unless an absolutely perfect situation comes around, these teams will not have a shot.

So what's gonna happen - this is almost easier than predicting the actual game results:

Lotto teams - WASH, OKCity, (SAC or LAC)
I can't pinpoint the #1, #2 order...but I'm convinced it will be WASH/OKCity in some order followed by one of the token garbage teams falling into the #3 spot.

115 days until TCF Kickoff - too early to start tailgating?

That's all I got - it's been a slow week but B10 baseball tourney start tomorrow, so I know you're all excited for that.

PJ - perfect description of our favorite NBA team
It's a hopeless... situation
And I'm starting to believe
That this hopeless... situation
Is what I'm trying to achieve
But I tryTo run onTowards
All or none,... all or none

Here's the selfless confession
Leading me back to war
Can we help that,.. our destinations
Are the ones we've been before
I still tryTo run onTowards all
Or none,... all or none
To myself I... surrender
To the one I'll never please
I still try,.. to run on
But I still try,.. to run on
But it's All or none,... all or none.

Game #1 - W

---------------------------------------------------->

So we've got the 'Cuse on the slate for game #1 in 2009. Not a great team to begin with, they have a new head coach so they'll likely be going through a little transition phase...but to top it all off I read this:

GREG PAULUS to play QB at Syracuse - he will be competing against a red-sirt freshman for the job.

Wow, how deperate are you for a spark on offense? The guys hasn't seen the field in 4 years, and now you bring him in with the expectation of having him possibly start in week #1?

I like the Gophers by 14 points already in this one - if Paulus plays I'll take Gophers -20.

Only a little bit of other news to report - first of all, for all the original members of past seasons of the football challenge - here is the long awaited money breakdown of who owes what to whom:

TREE - $10 owed to ROE
JG - $10 owed to ROE
MK - $90 owed to ROE

That's it. Roe ran through a clean sweep by taking the regular season and bowl titles last year - which put him far into the black. MK has the biggest debt to pay - but still this is over about 2+ years without payment, so really still not too crazy.

We can reveiw the money situation for this upcoming season. Which brings me to the next point - we've got some new members. Bomb is locked and loaded for next season, and I also have a buddy from work Mark Heinert who will be entering the challenge for the first time next season. More to come I'm sure - I'm thinking of growing from 4 to around 8-10...then we can decide what our plan will be for the cash. In the past we have done $20 for the whole season, winner take all (best record) - then another $20 for the bowl with winner take all once again. I'm thinking maybe we double it or put it to $50 - I know, kind of crazy - but then if we have 8 guys the payout will be a solid $320-$400...makes it worth your time. Or we could do weekly payouts if you would prefer - just to keep it interesting throughout even if you have a crappy record.

We will discuss as we approach the actual season - but for now feel free to post your own material, comment on what I write or others write, or just completely ignore me altogether...your choice.

As is tradition for me - closing w/ a little PJ...sometimes relevant, sometimes just what's in my head:

I admit it...what's to say...

yeah...I'll relive it...without pain

...mmm...Backstreet lover on the side of the road

I got a bomb in my temple that is gonna explode

I got a sixteen gauge buried under my clothes, I play...

Once upon a time I could control myself

Ooh, once upon a time I could lose myself, yeah...

Oh, try and mimic what's insane...ooh, yeah...I am in it...where do I stand?

Oh, Indian summer and I hate the heat

I got a backstreet lover on the passenger seat

I got my hand in my pocket, so determined, discreet...I pray...

Once upon a time I could control myself

KC Chiefs QB Situation

How confident are the Chiefs that Matt Cassell can stay healthy this year?

Well, they brought in Drew Tate, yes the former 3 time Heisman winner from the Hogeyes for a tryout.

No word on whether or not Tate had to take time off from his job at Burger King to go to the tryout.

If this guy is getting a shot why don't they bring in Billy Cockerham, Asad, Cupito - all would be higher on my list than Mr. Tate.


That's all I got right now - nothing is working at work today...so I'm searching for fun stuff :)

Take it easy fellas.

End of an era?

Is anyone else sad to see the end of the JDB era becoming a reality very quickly? If and when the Purple decide to sign this new guy, the hearalded JDB will likely be tossed aside for the old man in wranglers. Remember how excited we all were (sort of) when the Purple drafted this guy and he looked like that nice long-term project that we're all about around here? Well, looks like it was a 1 and done for JDB...I'll miss him.

Is there any doubt that the old man will be on this team next year? We've gone from "not interesed" to "no comment" to "meeting this week" in the matter of about a month or less. What do I think of the move? Well, I suppose he gives us the best chance to win something significant, and in the "boom or bust, all or nothing" year for Chilly and crew, I think it makes sense. We've all seen the issues discussed over and over for about a year now, but bottom line is that he's instantly the best option on the team so you have to go with it.

What the hell is up with JoePa? All of a sudden he's speaking out against the Big 10 for not expanding to 12 teams, which I totally agree with. And today I see a headline that he's speaking out against the BCS and demanding a Playoff. Wow, the 82 year old has never been a quiet legend, but I think he's maybe seeing the end of his run coming soon so he feels he has nothing to lose by throwing out any and all opinions about why things suck. Nice work JoePa.

Almost the most exciting time of the year again for your T-Wolves...draft lotto night!!! woo-hoo!!! Obviously, it won't turn out well for us once again, but right now we can have a little hope to land a star. Enjoy the excitement for the next few weeks, as soon as we come out of the #6 envelope it will be back to normal.

Jimmy Gjere, big OT who verballed to the Gophs, was recently moved up to #49 in the overall player rankings by Rivals. If we can land Mr. Henderson on the other side this could be the best offensive line we've seen in quite some time. Let's hope Seantrel turns down the song girls and Mr. Carroll and stays put at TCF...what kind of bizarro world would it be where the Gophers land the #1 overall player in the nation...am I dreaming, maybe.

Picked my TCF seats yesterday - upper deck, 4th row, 45 yard line, on the aisle. September can't get here soon enough. I'm working on throwing together some early conference previews to publish on here for your feedback/opinions. Unfortunately, with the 2 children in the home I have about 3 minutes and 38 seconds of free time each night where I'm not attending to their needs. So at that rate, I'll be through all 12 conferences by December. We'll see what happens.

No time on the course yet for me - hope you guys have gotten out a little bit. I figure I'll be able to start playing closer to June once Anna gets back to work and our schedule looks a little more normal. I will be defneding the trophy at the Roe/Joe on August 22nd, but besides that I have nothing booked for gold outings. I am trying to plan a golf/cards date for a bunch of us at my place this summer. Once I get my summer schedule from my personal planner I will line up a date and let you know.

Hope all is well - talk to guys later.

PJ - for the old man

holier than thou, how?
surrendered...executed anyhow
scrawl dissolved, cigar box on the floor...
a truant finds home...and a wish to hold on too...
he saw the trapdoor in the sun...immortality...