Facepunch Bowls

[Facepunch]

Last year I won DSI's College Bowl Contest. A nice little chunk of change.
I Do not have any allusions of winning again this year (and the contests are for considerably less money), so I thought I would post my picks here.

Might be Jinxing myself, but figured it might be fun to bounce them around. I essentially bet on every bowl game, I like the challenge of taking two teams that I may or may not know that much about and comparing the stats, strengths, weaknesses etc.

[Facepunch]

Game One is Temple V. Wyoming.
This is a simple story of 2 run heavy teams, one of which can stop the run, and the other that simply can't
Temple offense averages around 255 yards a game, while Wyoming gives up around 230 .

I am looking for this one to stay on the ground Temple is abysmal through the air, and while Wyoming offers a bit of a more balanced attack, they will not find much luck against a 19th ranked pass offense in Temple.

The common opponent here of Bowling green is a bit of a mystery to me. Any insight would be helpful.

So Far I have come up with Temple -7 + Under 50.5

Temple 28
Wyoming 17

[Facepunch]

Utah state V. Ohio
Lot of line movement here.
Have to say that I think it might be in the wrong direction.
Utah state has won 5 in a row, I watched them play a great game against Nevada (who I think is much better than Ohio).
The line may have also creeped a bit high, for how much running I believe will be taking place.

Utah State -1.5 Under 60.5
Utah State28
Ohio 20

[Facepunch]

Louisiana Lafayette Vs. San Diego State
Essentially going to be a home game for LL
My play on this game is going to be a continuation of my fading of SdSt.
They are not very good when they are favored. Last 5 games as a favorite = 2-3 (including UNLV where they only covered by .5)
Just a simple play on a team that I see is undervalued against a team that I believe to have been serially overvalued throughout the season.

LL +4 Under 59
Louisiana Lafayette 26
Sand Diego 29

[Facepunch]

Can't believe how excited I am for these crappy first bowls.

[Facepunch]

ULL up to +5.5 Might get a TD by gametime.

[Facepunch]

3-3 after Day 1 ,
2-1 on Sides
1-2 on totals.
Wouldn't you know the only side I put in for the SBR contest was the one I lost. Typical.
Totals were a killer today. One lost on a meaningless 2 pt conversion, and one after a game winning field goal, all together missed by 4 pts.
Oh well, such is the nature of totals.
May be focusing on sides and not trying to cap complete games. Gets me into trouble.

[On Top]

Any plays tonight?

[Facepunch]

Yeah, just started a new job today, and had a long day of orientation.

Not enough time to write this morning, but tonight I have Marshall +4.5 and Marshall +170
Basically a play on Marshall"s bowl success (6-1), strength of schedule, and a little stat that Statfox provided Florida international is 2-12 off of a bye week. I think that 4.5 puts it right in the value area, even if you think that Florida International has the home edge, the 4.5 kind of nullifies that.

Although I think this is going to be a low scoring game, I am not going to pull the trigger on the Total, I have had pretty bad luck NFL and College this past week in that Dept.

Play
Marshall +4.5

[On Top]

Nice play keep them coming

[tcarn01]

good work. wish i would have seen this yesterday

[Facepunch]

All of the blogs and posts I have read today are saying that TCU has no motivation going into this game.

I disagree, while the bowl situation is less than what they had hoped for their fires will still be lit at the prospect of a move to the big 12. They will be playing with a chip on their shoulder, and this could get out of hand fairly quickly.

TCU will dominate on the ground and eat up some valuable clock, while I believe that Louisiana Tech Will be stymied on offense with their star rusher Lennon Creer Doubtful for the match-up. To further Louisiana's offensive woes their star wide receiver is listed as Doubtful.

Getting closer to game time we will find out what their statuses are, but with your top receiver and top rusher less than 100% I think Louisiana Tech has little to no chance of covering the number.
The -12.5 open was a bit jarring but the -9 number puts it right in the realm of no-brainer.

Play:

TCU -9

[tcarn01]

I locked them in a couple days ago. Glad to see you on the TCU side... BOL.!!

[Facepunch]

[MikeT007]

Tough beat...the first half killed it

[Facepunch]

Yeah, it was a pathetic showing by TCU should have easily been a cover.

[Facepunch]

Feeling a little snake-bit over last nights loss.
Now only
3-2 on sides

Nobody has a crystal ball, and there was a lot in last night's game that you really can't handicap.

On to tonight.
Two high powered offenses and heavy passing. An interesting note going into tonight is that both teams are absolutely dreadful against the spread. Boise has a hard time covering the number and Arizona state has a hard time winning games that they are supposed to win. Boise is set up as a 14.5 favorite at this time and it is the lowest spread that they have seen since their opening game against Georgia where they were -3.

The last four games on Arizona st's schedule were
Cal -6 Lost by 9 (15 point differential)
Ariz -10 Lost by 4 (14 point differential)
wshst -11.5 lost by 10 (21.5 differential)
and
UCLA -8.5 lost by 1 (9.5 differential)
What this says to me is that they have been grossly overvalued for their last 4.
boise is also 8-2 in their last 10 bowl games.

I like Boise st. -14 my book has them at 14.5 now and I guess I will bite without buying the hook.
Loved them at 13.5 and am a bit pissed that I did not have the foresight to buy in when I had the chance, but in my opinion this is not going to be close and barring some ridiculous shenanigans (IE the TCU game last night) Boise should have no problem covering.

Play
Boise st. -14.5

[Facepunch]

Nice easy win last night to make it 4-2 on the bowl season so far.
got in a little halftime over 29 action as well.

Tonight I like Southern Mississippi, their win over Houston made them stand out in my mind.
That and, the laundry list of probable and injured Wolf-pack players is pretty extensive.
The line movement has been pretty crappy on this game too, but it seemed to work out for us last night.

Tonight

Play
Southern Miss -8

[Powderguy]

Southern Miss plays tomorrow (x-mas eve)

[Pickem2win]

The line has actually really been moving on the so miss vs nevada game. Just 2 days ago so miss was -6.5 and now its -8.0. Personally I think so miss covers this one easy. They are solid on both sides of the ball and with the nevada injuries I don't think it will be close

[NeverBackDown]

[Facepunch]

Southern Miss plays tomorrow (x-mas eve)

Right you are.

[Facepunch]

Now 4-3
Like north Carolina +5.5

[Facepunch]

Now 4-4
Got
W. Mich +3(-120)
Lou +1.5 (-110)

[Facepunch]

Notice that the lines have changed considerably since I put in my bets last night. W.mich now +1.5 Louville now +2. I still like both plays. I have been on the road posting via iPhone. I will most likely continue my write ups after today.

[Facepunch]

Picking these dogs is killing me.
4-6
But today, I have

Air Force +4.5
California +3.5

[Facepunch]

5-7

Today

Florida St. -3.5 + Over 46.5
Baylor -9.5

[Facepunch]

7-7 on sides
An abysmal 1-3 on totals. Hopefully will have time to do a write up tomorrow afternoon.

[Facepunch]

Woke up a bit late and missed my chance to put in BYU+2.5 (won't count it either way)

Rutgers Vs. iowa State

Rutgers played like complete crap against UCONN and it may have swayed my decision more than a little bit. I had a bit of coin riding on Rutgers as a -3.5 favorite and watched them get systematically demolished by a mediocre UCONN team. I am a West Virginia fan and a BIG EAST fan (Until next football season), and I have watched Rutgers under achieve and rely on their deep threat (sanu) too much this season to not go against them in this bowl.

Play
Iowa St. M/L +100

Iowa Vs. Oklahoma.

I was really on the fence with this one, I figured Oklahoma as the preseason #1 after falling so far might come out flat. I was impressed by Iowa's defense all season, and thought that Oklahoma was being overvalued quite a bit. The +16.5 open for Iowa seemed like it was going to be a good spot to take, but then the line dropped.
Oklahoma under 2 touchdowns @ 13.5 is just too good of value to pass up. They lost by more than that to Michigan state, They lost by 13 to Nebraska in their last game, and they lost by 10 to Penn State. I believe that Oklahoma has a much better offense than these three, and with Coker out I think that this game could get pretty out of hand pretty quickly.

Play
Oklahoma -13.5

Wake forest vs. Mississippi State.

The battle for a winning season. both teams at .500 I am going with strength of schedule on this one. Mississippi state has the 18th hardest schedule in College football where Wake Forrest has the 54th.

Play

Mississippi St. -13.5

[Facepunch]

For the sake of honesty, I will say that I ended up getting Iowa St. M/L @ -110

[Facepunch]

I think if there is any lesson to be learned this bowl season, it is that you really need to pound those opening lines.

[yisman]

Last year I won a few thousand from that contest. Finished top 5.

Too bad they tightened up this year. Their contest pays out a lot less.

[Facepunch]

2,000 bucks is still a lot of money but 10,000 actually made me scrutinize every pick. I would probably have joined a contest for 10 gs for a buy in of ten or fifteen dollars. It would definitely drum up business. If they did it through SBR they could even offer the choice of a 1000 point buy in.

[Facepunch]

Unreal. Missed extra point and a million turnovers to not cover by a half a point. Definitely tilting right now