Danimal vs. Mark: CFB "To The Pain" Weekly Pick 'Em

"First things first, to the death."
"No. To the pain."
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Mark and Danimal, considering themselves some sort of college football gambling savants, have decided they want to do a weekly college pick 'em post. Who are we to turn down content, so what the hell...when will we ever be in Haiti again? Let's jump right in with the Week 1 picks:

First up, Winchester's finest, whose refusal to follow the rules laid out to him by myself and the diminutive dictator mean we need to post this before Friday night's action. Thanks, Danimal, you big jerk...

W&M + 32 at WVU
At the time of this selection, Thursday at noonish, the line on the W&M/WVU game is at 32. I really want to bet W&M. I hope they make it a game, but at 32…. I. Jes. Cah. Dew’h Capn! 35.5, sure. Despite the shitshow that is Dana Holgorson and all that comes with it, I have to go with the ‘eers. I think there is a great chance I will regret this. As of just the other day, the guy wasn’t even sure who he was going to start at QB. He said he doesn’t know who his team is yet. Throw in the fact they lost I don’t know, 40 points a game with the loss of Geno? Yeah, sure, I’ll take West Virginia.

Texas Tech -4.5 at SMU
I know virtually nothing about either of these teams but I think highly of June Jones. It’s a big home opener for the ‘Stangs with two relatively high-scoring teams. This is one of those quick-look gut bets that does wonders for a bookie’s income. A home dog with imo a better coach and a home opener….I am compelled to take SMU.

Temple +29.5 at ND
This is torturous. Whatever wagering “strategy” I take with the Irish each year, I lose. Pre 2012, I was almost always betting on ND against the spread. Last year, I did the opposite…. Both were poor decisions. Last year I didn’t care though b/c they were winning.
Here’s the dillio. I like Tommy Rees. Notre Dame is very fortunate that he is the go-to guy after Golson’s temporary vacation (he’s been suspended for the semester for “poor academic judgment”) You may not realize this, but Rees played in 11 of their games last year and if it weren’t for him, they likely would have lost 2-3 games prior to getting sodomized in South Beach. Their wins against Purdue, Stanford, and Michigan had a whole bunch to do with Tommy coming in as a relief guy to get moving what Everett couldn’t. He’s 14-4 as a starter. He’s a senior this year with some pretty impressive stats – 2nd all-time completion %’age in a season (65.5%); in 2011 he completed 135 consecutive passes without an INT, ironically; if he were to end his career today, he’d be the all-time completion percentage leader at ND. And no, that does NOT include the completions he has thrown to defenders. On the flip side, this same guy threw fourteen (14) INT’s during his 2011 season. I’m trying to remember how many times were in the red zone - it was somewhere between A LOT and WHY IS HE STILL PLAYING. It wasn’t less than 6 for sure and possibly as many as 8. He fumbled the ball 5 times. He was personally responsible for 19 turnovers. N-N-N-N-Nineteen. Nineteen. Somewhat in his defense, he was sacked 13 times and was rushed at least a bazillion. His decision making was let’s say, poor.
My stance at the beginning here was that until Tommy proves me wrong, he will keep the “Turnover” moniker and thus I can’t bet on him/them. But I talked myself out of it. Tommy is going to have a terrific game. He’s all growed up. Plus he has a top-5 defense, a solid receiving corp, and oh yeah, they’re playing Temple. Temple scores a trash touchdown at the end to lose 49-10.
No, no, no. Go with initial instinct. Make him prove you wrong! Remember Tulsa? South Florida? or was it Central Florida? How about the bowl game against FSU? Stinky. They will likely lose the turnover battle. Lose it by 1 and that’s possibly a 10-14 point swing. Ten points equals Temple covering!
Fuck that…it’s TEMPLE! They could lose the turnover battle by 3 but it won’t matter because Temple will not score more than 10 points!
Irish – 42-10. Final final.

And now on to the tattooed one's selections. See Danimal, your combatant actually picked all Saturday games. Thanks for coloring between the lines, Mark.

Toledo (+23.5) over Florida: I don't bet on Florida games. I'm already too invested in the result of a Gator Football game without having money riding on it. And I'd feel dirty if I bet against Florida. That doesn't mean you should feel bad about betting against my alma mater here. I've already expressed some of my concerns with the Gator offense in the G:TB comments but to sum it up, they're missing two starting OLineman and the only experienced tailback. Not a good recipe for any offense, much less one that wants to rely heavily on the running game. On top of that, Toledo returns 9 of 11 starters on offense, including a senior QB who threw for nearly 2,700 yards last year and a tailback that rushed for almost 1500 yards. I don't expect the Rockets to win, but I do expect this game to be fairly close late. Take the Rockets and those 23.5 points and make some drinking money for yourself.

Boise State (+3.5) at Washington: Washington just finished a multi-million dollar renovation project on Husky Stadium, which was already one of the most unique settings in college football. Now, its state of the art and unique. More importantly, Steve Sarkisian has the Washington Football program headed back towards the top of a suddenly very competitive and strong PAC-10 (the second best conference in the nation this year, in my opinion). After struggling to live up to lofty expectations last year, I expect both Washington and QB Keith Price to enjoy success this season. I just don't think they beat Boise in this spot. Boise and Chris Peterson live for these types of showcase games. And they don't get many chances at them. This is the game I'm most excited about on Saturday, which is too bad because there's a 99% chance I'll be hammered by the time this thing kicks off at 10 PM EST. I doubt I'll see the end of this one but I'll take Boise and the points.




Virginia Tech vs. Alabama: (-21): 21 points is a lot of points to lay for a neutral site game between two well known college football programs. That's not nearly enough to scare me off from Alabama. Alabama has been a wrecking ball in these season opening neutral site games. The Crimson Tide also have to best QB they've ever had under Nick Saban and the best collection of skill position players since they could trot out Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson and Julio Jones at the same time. In terms of depth, you could make the case that this group is even better. On the other side, Virginia Tech has never been known for their wide open offensive style. And while Logan Thomas has every physical tool you could ever ask for in a QB, he's not very good at actually playing QB. Alabama rolls.
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