Ultra Sports Bet » College Football

It’s all about perspective

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 14:51:49 +0000

This isn’t directly related to sports betting, but it is just so ridiculous that I had to share it. I live in Canada, and my hometown of Calgary has a Canadian Football League team, the Stampeders. We are the former home of NFL greats like Doug Flutie and Jeff Garcia. There are those up here that would argue that it is a better brand of football than the NFL or college football. Simply put, it is not. It is entertaining – a great way to spend a sunny afternoon – but it is full of Division II players and NFL rejects. Never before, though, has our relative position to the American leagues been made as clear as it was today.

The Saskatchewan Roughriders won the Grey Cup, the CFL championship, this year. Saskatchewan is home to the most rabid fans in the league, and it had been a long time between championships, so coach Kent Austin, who was in his first year as a head coach, was positioned to ride that glory for years to come. He was a former CFL player,and he had played in Saskatchewan, so the game was in his blood. He was offered a new long term contract and a salary that would put him at the top of the CFL pay scale. Instead of taking that and settling into what would essentially be a job for life, though, Austin headed off to greener pastures. He is going to Ole Miss, where he will be offensive coordinator. Yes, being a coordinator at a second rate SEC school that didn’t win a single game in conference last year and is notably short of anything approximating offensive talent is seen as a step up from being the head coach of the defending Grey Cup champions. That is a blow to the ego of my homeland, but it sure bolsters what I have been saying about the relative position of our league on the football pecking order for a long time now.

To be fair, Austin did play for Ole Miss, so this is a homecoming, but that doesn’t lessen my point.

Post from: Ultra Sports Bet

Looking back on Bowl Season

Thu, 10 Jan 2008 00:45:04 +0000

Now that the smoke has cleared and I have had a day or two to reflect on what was a pretty decent bowl season, it’s time now to look back at what happened and how I did in my predictions. In a word (two, actually), not great. My final record was 15-16-1. Though that’s obviously a slight loss, I feel okay about it. I would obviously would have looked to have done better, but it should be equally obvious that I would normally never play all 32 games, nor would I make all my picks a week before the first game was played like I did here, so I feel reasonably solid about the outcome.

Here are some of the highlights of the three weeks of action:

Best game: Central Michigan and Purdue. My beloved Michigan thrashing Florida came a close second, but the Motor City Bowl gets the nod for the fireworks, the back and forth action, and the edge of the seat drama right up to the very end.

Best bet I made: I knew that Missouri (-3 vs. Arkansas) had a big edge, but I had no idea just how big of an edge it was. I felt good going into the game, and at no point did I have to break a sweat over the outcome.

Worst bet I made: I fell into the classic public trap with Oregon. They lost two quarterbacks, and I wrote them off entirely because of that. A deeper look would have identified their class advantage over South Florida, and the Bulls’ total inability to stop Jonathan Stewart. At the very least I wouldn’t have been enthusiastically in support of South Florida if I had slowed down and turned my brain on.

Most expected outcome: Rutgers over Ball State. This was a gigantic mismatch on paper, and it was a gigantic mismatch on the field. A gift from the bookmakers.

Least expected outcome: Michigan over Florida. I never would have guessed this outcome in a million years. I was positive that my team would be flat and, would at best, be able to keep it close. They did ten times better than that – they dominated the Gators and the game wasn’t near as close as the score. I truly have no idea how the Wolverines did it, and amidst my giddiness is a bit of frustration that the team hadn’t shown that kind of creativity and relentlessness before now.

Worst trend: I won just one of the six games before Christmas. I should have spent more time shopping. That means that I was a profitable 14-11-1 after the holiday.

Best trend: 5-0-1 in the first six games after Christmas returned me back to respectability and saved me from a big embarrassment.

Best overall performance by a team: Tulsa. there were much higher profile teams that played almost as well, but no team was more prepared for their game than Tulsa, and no team more thoroughly dominated their relatively evenly matched opponent. Tulsa was unbelievably focused and determined. Bowling Green never knew what hit them.

Worst overall performance by a team: Illinois. I took a risk that the Illini would play like the did against Ohio State and not ike they did against Michigan. they look poorly prepared, intimidated, and totally outmatched. Don’t get me wrong – the best team clearly won the Rose Bowl. Illinois had every chance to make it close, or at least respectable, though. They didn’t show up, and they should be ashamed.

Post from: Ultra Sports Bet

Bowling for Dollars – BCS Championship Game

Sun, 06 Jan 2008 14:27:17 +0000