Weekly Picks of the Week - Week 11

Picks in Bold

Rankings based on BCS Standings
All lines provided by BETONLINE.ag

#10 Oklahoma Sooners (+14.5) @ #6 Baylor Bears

Thurs 7:30
Fox Sports 1

#3 Oregon Ducks (-10) @ #5 Stanford Cardinal

Thurs 9:00
ESPN

Nebraska Cornhuskers @ Michigan Wolverines (-7)

3:30
ABC

Virginia Tech Hokies @ #11 Miami Hurricanes (-6.5)

7:00
ESPN

#13 LSU Tigers @ #1 Alabama Crimson Tide (-12.5)

8:00
CBS

#19 UCLA Bruins (-1.5) @ Arizona Wildcats

10:00
ESPN

-What would happen if a freshmen or sophomore college football player decided to transfer because of a program/major he wanted to study at another school and not because football?  Sure, he would still play football, but he's not changing schools because of football, he's doing it to further his education.  Would the NCAA still make him sit out a year?  I know that if a player has already graduated there is a loophole in the rules that allows you to pull this off, but what about younger players?  What about kids who choose a school, got there, and found out that they are not offering the education he was looking for?  Would the NCAA still punish them?  The is answer is probably yes, but that's because the NCAA is stupid and couldn't govern a kindergarten class with a handful of candy.

-Why does the University of Colorado use this symbol?

Daniel Tosh brought this up on his show a couple of weeks ago and I thought he made a valid point.  It is the University of Colorado and yet they use a logo and chant "CU" for their football team.  Who is the genius who came up with that?  I just felt like this should be brought to everyone's attention so that ridicule may ensue.

-Finally, I'm back on the winning side!  The funniest part is that while watching the Mich v. Mich St game, I was pulling for Mich St and was pretty happy when they covered.  But when I went to mark a "W" on my pick sheet, I found out that I had picked Michigan.  Oh well, I still had a winning week and I feel sane again.  So, this week I guarantee a winning week (again) or your money back.

The Funniest Sign From Last Week's College GameDay

(My favorite sign said "Snape Killed Dumbledore", but I couldn't find a picture of it.)

-Alright, enjoy the eleventh week of college football.

Last Week's Results: 3-2
Season Results: 24-31-3

ESPN's Gambling Denial

Americans love gambling, especially gambling on football.  I would hazard to guess that betting on the NFL is more popular than betting on NCAA football, but the difference cannot be that much.  That being said, why don't big sports websites also highlight the lines when they have to know what a big part of the sport gambling is?

On ESPN's front page there is very rarely anything about the betting lines.  Even deeper into the site there is not much to be found for anything other than football.  When you go to the NFL and NCAA football pages the only link to the odds page is on the top menu bar.  They definitely need to make this more prevalent.  If it was more in the open I bet (see what I did there) it would be one of the more heavily clicked items on those pages.

The other odd thing is that for NFL football it is the 9th item in the menu bar versus 11th on the college football page.  Also, if you scroll over the NFL page you can get to the odds page in one click whereas with NCAA football you have to go to the front page first then find the tiny word 'odds' to get the lines.  Is this done out of some sort of homage for the holy notion of amateur athletes?  Are we supposed to feel bad about betting on college football, but not quite as bad as betting on the NFL?  Get it together ESPN, you say you are an entertainment network so give the people what we want.  What we want is gambling!

"I asked these girls how they would feel about ESPN adding more gambling information - just look at their reactions!"

Making Golf More Interesting

I love to play golf.  I play as much as I can.  I may not be the best golfer in the world and I may finish the round and be more stressed than when I began, but I still love to play.  But when it comes to watching golf, I only seem to watch the major tournaments (plus that one with the island green).  The PGA tries to spice things up during the year with the rare match-play tournament, but those get super boring because there is only one pair of golfers playing on the last day and way too many commercials.  However, there is one tournament they play every other year that I find the most enjoyable to watch (outside of The Masters) and that event is The Ryder Cup.  It has everything.  Two teams competing against each other.  Different styles of play (four-ball, best ball, alternate shot, individual pairs).  Drama.  And patriotism.  I think the PGA would benefit greatly by hosting more Ryder Cup-like tournaments each year.  The biggest question would be - who would play on the teams in these events?  A couple of suggestions:

• Veterans v. Youngsters
• Players from one college v. Players from another college
• Appoint the top two world ranked players as captains and they draft teams
• Put names in a hat and draw them out to make teams
• Snobs v. Rednecks

Who cares what the teams are, they just need to stage more of these team tournaments.  I'm telling you, this would make more people watch.  Sure, watching Tiger or Phil playing at their best during a major tournament is fun, but why is football king?  Other than the violence, it's the team aspect of the game.  You get to pull for a group of players and not just one rich dude.  The Ryder Cup is one of the rare golf events that I get totally emerged in and the PGA really needs to bring us more of these.

"Plus you can do this every time you win.  Looks like fun, right?"

NOKW - The Hunger Games

Here comes the next chapter in our "I'm Okay With, I'm Not Okay With" series (if you don't know what this is, click here for all of the past posts):

Movie:  The Hunger Games

Basic Plot:  It's the future and humans are forced by an evil emperor to make two kids from their districts fight to the death to prove something or other that makes little sense.

I'm Okay With:  The fact that this movie was so forgettable that I can't remember anything about it, so we are just going to skip this part.

I'm Not Okay With:  The fact that no one in the Capital seems to have a problem with forcing children to murder each other for their amusement.  Now, I understand why the Hunger Games were created, the government wanted to punish the population for trying to rebel, but that doesn't mean that everyone has to be okay with the idea.  You would think that at the 'Thinking of a Punishment' meeting, someone would have raised their hand and said "This is a decent idea, but kids?  Why not 20-year old guys?  That doesn't seem as fucked up as forcing children to murder other children.  Seriously, does anyone else in this room really want to watch a 16 year old boy stab a 12 year old girl in the chest with a spear?  Put your hand down, Roger, you're a dick."  I know this is fiction, but still, that is an entire universe of people who find it socially acceptable to watch a contest of kids who fight to the death and no one other than the districts where these kids come from care.  I am not okay with that.

"Damn it, Roger, what did I say!"

Stupid State Laws - Virginia

Here comes another post about a state law that still exists on the books and why it is ridiculous (to see them all, click here):

Virginia

"There is a state law prohibiting 'corrupt practices of bribery by any person other than candidates."

At first, this law kind of made sense to me, but then I got to thinking about it and it become really stupid.  So, Virginia got rid of the practice of bribery, that's a good thing, but they left a huge loophole in their law for no reason that I can think of.  Basically, this law makes it illegal for people to bribe a candidate, but it is perfectly okay for a candidate to buy as many votes as he wants?  Meaning that if you are really rich, you can just buy your way into office?  That doesn't seem fair.  Then again, I guess that's how elections work today anyways, so this law is kind of moot.  You got lucky this time, Virginia.

"Here's my bribe, so vote for me."
"One Dollar!!!  That's it!!  Well, I guess so."

Saturday's Video of Saturday

Here is our weekly funny video post.  Let's see what we got for you guys:

Set up:  A college freshman has so much school spirit she makes a music video about it!

Summary:  NAILED IT!  This girl has more school spirit than any of you.  She is so psyched she made song about it...but that wasn't good enough - she added a rap on the end that is too epic to believe.  GO COCKS!!!

Kicker Problem

Fantasy football is fun.  Really really fun.  It allows you to not only follow your team, but have an investment in almost every NFL game all season.  With fantasy football the Monday night Jaguars v. Bills game suddenly becomes watchable without having to bet a sizable amount of money on it.  Fantasy football also starts getting very competitive, with many hours going into draft preparations and at least several hours a week each week during the season researching players to add and cut.  With all of this time and commitment put towards the cause of proving our NFL player knowledge, why the hell do we leave any part of it up to kickers!?!

In my fantasy playing experience, kickers make up about 10%, if not more, of everyone's total points for the week.  That is putting 10% of your reputation in the hands of weenie kids who probably wear glasses and LARP in their free time.  Kickers are not respected by the NFL community, so why are they in fantasy?  If a stupid soccer player could do your job, then you shouldn't be on a fantasy FOOTBALL team.  The other issue with kickers is their randomness.  Because of this no one drafts kickers until the last round of drafts because they are so random and any kicker is basically as good as any other - it just comes down to opportunity.  Losing a match-up because of your kicker doing terrible or your opponent's kicker going crazy is maddening.  Leaving your team to chance just doesn't make good sense.

With that said, why don't we eliminate kickers from fantasy football.  They do no good except expose their owners for being lucky or unlucky.  Take the chance out of fantasy and keep building a moderate team an actual skill.

"How is this is swinging your Fantasy Football match ups."