MyTurn's week 5 CFB (9/28-9/30)

[Your Mom]

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just wondering if getting auburn at -14.5 makes a difference to you and T.Cu> -6 thanks

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You can get 13.5 now at pinny

[mulebennett]

FYI: TCU has 3rd ranked rush defense, BYU has 68th ranked rush offense.

As for passing offense, BYU has 4th best in the country, and TCU's pass defense is around 56th.

[MyTurn2Raise]

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POTW tOSU -6 @ Iowa

3-1 POTW ytd

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The most overrated team in the country runs into reality this week.

Seriously, I'm trying to understand how this line is so low. I cannot believe it isn't 2 TDs or more. I've investigated and found no injury rumors on the Buckeye side.

Anyway, here is my take:
just to refresh everyone what happened when these two teams met last year in Columbus:
Ohio State 31 Iowa 6
Ohio St had 60 carries for 314 yards and were 14 of 21 for 216 yards. Iowa had 18 carries for negative 9 yards! Iowa was 22 out of 39 for 146 yards and 1 pick. Iowa was +1 on the turnovers.

2 'Secrets' to this game that should be obvious. First, and most importantly, Iowa is much, much worse this season. On offense, Iowa doesn't have any straight forward rushing attack. Iowa was the first Illinois D1A opponent in 12 games to not average over 4 ypc. Even in Iowa's most impressive game, the 27-17 win verse Iowa St in Kinnick, Iowa's running success came to the outside and not up the middle. When Tate was out verse Syracuse, Iowa couldn't just roll over an inferior Syracuse team.

When it comes to passing the ball, the Hawkeyes also have some issues. There is absolutely no big play potential here. The WRs are not burning anyone deep. Let's face it, if you cannot burn Illinois, you cannot burn anyone. In addition, Drew Tate has not thrown one pass more than 25 yards downfield since his injury earlier in the year....Yikes! Iowa has chipped away with 5-12 yard passes and runs to the outside. Neither of those methods seems to be particularly effective verse tOSU.

Against the Buckeyes, Iowa will not be able to run at all. It seems unnecessary to cover this, but secret #2 is that this year's Buckeye D is top 5 in the nation even with 9 new starters. Let's look at some Buckeye D stats
Opponent-PA:Yards Rushing-Carries:Pass Comp-Pass Att-Pass Yards-INT
NIU-12:155-33:16-30-169-1
Texas-7:186-31:19-32-154-1
Cincy-7:56-22:20-25-216-3
Penn St-6:149-39:16-25-87-3

cliff notes: tOSU is giving up 8 points, 167 pass yards, and 115 rush yards per game while only allowing 3 TDs and creating turnovers and TDs. The Iowa team will not be able to run up the middle here, which is the one chink that has been seen in the Buckeye D. tOSU just has too much speed for Iowa to beat them running to the outside, especially so since tOSU's secondary can come up and aggressively play the run since the threat of the Hawkeyes throwing over the top is minimal. The lack of a deep threat will also encourage Buckeyes to jump the shorter routes that Iowa has lived on so far this year. It will also be interesting to see how the Iowa offense responds to pressure in their own backfield, which is something they haven't faced much of this year. The Iowa offense verse Buckeye defense is a complete mismatch...10+ points would be a victory for the Hawkeyes IMO.

When trying to figure out why the line was so low, one of the few things I could pinpoint was the lack of offense by tOSU verse Penn St last year. I attribute that more to the monsoon than anything else. In the other 3 games, the Buckeyes rolled. That includes a great performance at Texas, whose D has looked pretty good in other games (it's made me $$$ with the Rice under total and Iowa St under total [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]).

Iowa's D has continued its bend-don't-break vanilla scheme with success this year. The problem is they don't have the athletes to keep up with the talent on the Buckeyes side. Iowas returns much the same unit that the Buckeyes torched last year, except that the Hawkeyes lost the heart (Greenway and Hodge at LB) and the corners. This year's replacements are not as good and the unit is down as a result. For one, expect CB Shada to get beat over and over again. He made four pass interferences just this past week against the overwhelming talented WRs that Illinois throws out there. Iowa continues to not really force turnovers. Only against lowly Illinois did it turn their way.
All in all, expect 30+ from the Bucks

OK, so Kinnick is a tough place to play. Dankhank pointed out to me that Iowa is 27-6-1 ATS in their last 34 at home IIRC. Guess there is a systematic bias that underrates Kinnick. Kinnick has just been renovated and is supposedly right up there with Penn St as the second most intimidating road game in the Big10. Well, tOSU is used to this and used to the big stage. I find it hard to believe that the renovated Kinnick is any tougher than the renovated stadium down in Austin that the Buckeyes visited just 3 weeks past.

This game will be ugly...I see 34-10. Iowa gets exposed in front of the nation.

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adding Iowa u17.5 v Ohio State
logical follow-up to my analysis

[MyTurn2Raise]

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I'll give credit to BobJoeJim for pointing this one out

Thursday night
TCU -5 v BYU

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I've seen TCU v Baylor
saw BYU v Arizona and Boston College


TCU's defense is for real. It's one thing to shut down Baylor, another to crush BYU. BYU struggles when it cannot get it's passing game going. That's what I see TCU specifically stopping. Watch this game and you'll be impressed with the caliber of player on both sidelines but especially TCU's


one of four Thursday picks


Auburn -14
S Carolina u11.5
Auburn/S Carolina u40
as well

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BYU 31
TCU 17

bad pick...BYU scorched TCU through the air all day.
0-1 Week 5

[MyTurn2Raise]

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Auburn -14 @ S Carolina
Auburn/S Carolina u40
S Carolina u11.5


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Auburn 24
S Carolina 17

loser, loser, loser

I got my ass handed to me here

I would personally like to thank Will Muschamp for being a complete [censored] idiot and only rushing 3 guys all night. Sick!


0-4 week 5


oh yeah...I'm now 1-8 on the 3 games that I've made 3 picks on

[Donk4Life]

My Turn, this week isn't starting out so well for you my friend. I think you're going to have to re-evaluate Illinois. Either they aren't that bad, or Michigan State's hangover is worse than expected.

[MacGuyV]

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My Turn, this week isn't starting out so well for you my friend. I think you're going to have to re-evaluate Illinois. Either they aren't that bad, or Michigan State's hangover is worse than expected.

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Or maybe the Cuse is back! Rofl, wow - notorious underachievers in Lancing no matter who the coach is.

[MyTurn2Raise]

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My Turn, this week isn't starting out so well for you my friend. I think you're going to have to re-evaluate Illinois. Either they aren't that bad, or Michigan State's hangover is worse than expected.

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JUICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Illini defense is better

Michigan State is the most embarrassing program in the country

I don't care about the bet



JUICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MyTurn2Raise]

the heater is over

fade, fade away


I am now teh suck


woot


I don't even care with Illinois and St. Louis winning

eDIT: oh yeah, I'm on my way to a wedding reception (silly people with regular life events), so I'll miss the final sinking of the titanic.

[MyTurn2Raise]

I cam flying back with a vengence from a pretty craptacular Thursday and early saturday

POTW tOSU -6 @ Iowa Winner
Iowa u17.5 v Ohio State Winner

tOSU 38 Iowa 17

Sharp money on Iowa my ass. Anyway, I was drunk, only getting the occassional update, but I heard the game went as expected. I'll have to watch the tape to see how Iowa scored that much. The boxscore makes it seem like they were playing catch-up and Ferentz decided to open up the game.

Michigan -7 @ Minny Winner

Michigan 28 Minnesota 14

Didn't watch more than 4 plays. Michigan seemed in control every time I saw the score. Godd job by the Wolverines to avoid a trap game.

Penn St -15 v Northwestern Winner

Penn St 33 Northwestern 7

Game was worse than the score as Penn St thoroughly dominated but settled for lots of FGs early. Man, the big10 has some real crappy teams. Speaking of which:

Mich St -24.5 v Illinois Loser

Illini 23 Sparty 20

It hurts so good. For anyone living under a rock, I'm a huge Illini supporter/alum. After only winning 1 in the last 25 big10 games, 12 straight big10 road losses, 12 straight D1A losses, and 10 straight losses to Michigan State, I'm on cloud nine after the Illini stun the Spartans in the second largest upset in recent college history (this is backed up by biggest spread favorites). Michigan State dominated early but came away with a FG on one drive and fumbled at the Illini 1 on another. Illinois, then, took control behind a spread run attack that racked up over 200 yards. I saw something I haven't seen in the last 3+ years at Illinois: coverage sacks. The Illini got to Stanton and shook him up. So much so that Stanton had to leave the game (too bad his replacement, Hoyer, was better). Juice looked good leading the Illini. He threw a bad pick6 when he stared down his WR on an out route that got jumped, but responded well by leading the Illini back down the field to go ahead again right afterwards. Juice also led a 2 minute drill with both his scrambling ability and throwing the ball. This was a glorious bet to lose.

USC/Washington St u54 winner
USC 28 Washington St 22

A flurry of 4th quarter activity fell short of making the over. Must've been an entertaining game and I'm sorry I missed it.

Alabama/Florida u39 loser
Florida 28 Alabama 13

This one was close, but the over was the right pick and it was only a couple of easily makeable missed FGs that kept the total bet in doubt.

Mississippi St/LSU u40.5loser
LSU 48 Mississippi St 17

Hell, LSU scored enough by themselves and Miss St scored much more than anyone expected. Bad pick.

Baylor/Kansas St u42 winner
Baylor 17 Kansas State 3

Don't know nothing about the game, but the boxscore makes me feel like I nailed this one rather easily. woot

Washington/Arizona u43 Winner
Washington 21 Arizona 10

Who was that fool bragging up Arizona back in week2? Well, whoever he was, he learned the error of his ways. You could see last week that Willingham turned the corner. A big road win and the Huskies look like their program is a team that you have to put your hat on to play against. BTW, don't tell anyone but I hit 2 pac10 unders this week. That's right...Pac10 unders. Just something to think about.

Mizzou/Colorado u40.5 loser
Mizzou 28 Colorado 13

damn 1/2 point loss. I hate that. Actually, this wasn't a very good pick and it took a late scoring drought by both teams for it to remain this close to the total.

Wyoming/Syracuse u39.5 loser
Syracuse 40 Wyoming 34 2OT

terrible pick. It was 27-27 at the end of regulation, which is more than 2 TDs pass the total. Syracuse's rush success was a huge shocker here. Wyoming's pass success was somewhat surprising. Wyoming must be inconsolable after outgaining the Orange by nearly 300 yards and still losing...yikes!

Oregon -2 @ Arizona State winner
Oregon 48 Arizona State 13

Oregon offense was truly awesome again. The pass rush got 6 sacks! Arizona State had 33 yards passing and was unable to exploit the Ducks weak rush defense. I nailed the keys to this game and feel good about identifying the mismatch here.




8-5 Saturday
8-9 Week 5 [censored] Thursday!
4-1 POTW
2-2 Illini Picks
39-32 NCAAF ytd

A good comeback and some interesting observations. POTW was solid again and I really feel comfortable identifying the big edges of the week. Including last year, I'm 13-6 on POTW...nice. By wagering and winning what I consider an obscene amount on Ohio State (4.75% of my bankroll), I even booked a small win for the week despite finishing a pick below .500. Oddly enough, this was my 3rd POTW this year including Iowa. I also went 3-0 on the Pac10, so, maybe I'm starting to turn the corner on the conference that mystifies me so.

Now, to the negatives. SEC unders died this week. I'll blame BobJoeJim and say he jinxed it. This pick has been the golden goose for the past season and first few weeks this year. This week, I went 0-4 on picks involving SEC unders. Looks like the money tree stopped giving.

I also got creamed on an Illini game. While personally enjoying the game, I don't ever remember my forecast on an Illini game to be so off. This bothers me.

Finally, how could I not see the value in Wisconsin this weekend? I walked into my parents house just before kickoff of the 11AM games and all my family was big on the Badgers.
Side note: Given what I do with my time now, I wonder if my father regrets having season-long game and ATS picking contests for NCAAF, NFL, and NCAAB with my brothers and I.

I whiffed on the Badgers and I see quite a few intelligent folk around here did not. Good call

Oh well, I escape another 'bad' week with only a marginal losing record. Time to kick ass next week