I feel like I remember there being a handful of great games every Saturday in recent years. This year has been ultimately disappointing, and not just because I only know how to pick losers. The matchups just aren’t there from week to week. Actually I just had a bit of a revelation. I hope everyone enjoyed college football because next year the elimination of the BCS may ruin what makes college football great.

I know I am in the minority on this one but I am a BCS supporter. I understand some fans want teams to earn their right to play in the championship game. While there are too many of them to ignore, those are the types of fans that only watch the end of an NBA game. They don’t grind out the college football season, they just want to watch the end. Since “the end” of the college football season can be argued as being just one game, they want a playoff system put in place. That is going to dramatically decrease the quality of the regular season. Teams are already doing it.

Look at Ohio State. They came into the season with a lot of hype behind them, put together a cupcake schedule and are now in the championship hunt just by default. While it isn’t their fault that the Big 10 sucks this year, check out their out of conference schedule… vs Buffalo, vs San Diego State, @ Cal, vs Florida A&M. That is an absolute joke. Basically in the future, all you are going to need to have a chance at winning a title is a little hype behind you going into the season and a cupcake schedule you can clean up and boom you are in the playoffs. While you could argue teams that do that will get bounced in the first round of the playoff, instead of ruining the national championship, I would argue that the BCS is an unbiased system that force teams to prove themselves.

Hopefully Ohio State isn’t rewarded with a trip to the BCS National Championship this year, but they are already set up nicely for next season. I hope I am wrong but I can’t help but think that the top tier of teams are now just going to load up with weak out of conference games, knowing that the people voting already have them penciled in as “great” instead of needing them to prove it to them. While I am glad they only decided to make it a four team playoff instead of something much larger, it is almost certainly going to ruin the regular season. We won’t see big programs scheduling games against other top notch schools outside of their own conference. Why bother if you are already looked at as great?

Now that I am good and depressed, let’s take a look at who I am going to suggest you bet, so you can go the opposite way and win yourself some money.

Games of the Week:

Georgia Tech vs Virginia Tech 7:30pm *Thursday

Georgia vs LSU 3:30pm

Notre Dame vs Oklahoma 3:30pm

Alabama vs Ole Miss 6:30pm

Ohio State vs Wisconsin 8:00pm

Locks of the Week: (3-13)

Oklahoma -3.5 @ Notre Dame

Notre Dame’s defense tamed a very weak Michigan State offense last week and escaped with a win. This week they draw a much tougher opponent in the Oklahoma Sooners. Not to mention they have had two weeks to prepare for this matchup. I’m thinking Oklahoma wins big.

South Carolina -7 @ UCF

I know this is a sucker bet, but I’m going to do it anyway. If South Carolina is legit then they should clean up this Central Florida team. UCF is quite underrated hence the line being so low. You almost never want to be on the public’s side, but in this case I think it’s a safe play. They should outmuscle UCF and really beat them up in the trenches. As long as they can avoid any flukey nonsense early, they should run away with this one.

Teaser of the Week: (1-2)

Ohio State -.5 vs Wisconsin

South Carolina -1 @ UCF

Moneyline Specials: (2-4)

USC +145 @ Arizona State

Funny how being a public team can work. People are so down on USC, that the oddsmakers seem to have factored in that the general public is in agreement that USC sucks. That isn’t necessarily the case. While their offense has really struggled their defense is only allowing an average of 11 points per game. They lost to an underrated Washington State team and now Trojan nation is freaking out. Obviously they need to shake things up big time but I wouldn’t go as far as to say they suck. Arizona State is coming off an asswhooping at the hands of Stanford, in which they allowed 42 points. USC may have an opportunity to reboot their season with a win this week, all the while maintaining that status of “USC sucks”. The damage already done may make for a nice value play from here on out.

Bet of the Week: (0-3)

Ohio State -6.5 vs Wisconsin

Yes I ragged on Ohio State for having a cupcake schedule, and yes Wisconsin is ranked in the top 25, but that doesn’t mean that Wisconsin doesn’t suck. The Big 10 is the most overrated conference in all of sports. Now Ohio State gets Braxton Miller back and they should clean up the Badgers, who will be in over their head.

mlz

Thursday, September 26, 2013