After Cheez-It Bow

You know, I’ve been doing this pool for quite a few years and for most of the time, it’s kind of on autopilot.  Once games are done, I just put the winner in my spreadsheet and everything updates.  Today is the first time I’ve ever had to take a game completely out of the pool.  I’ll get into what I did to make it fair to everyone in a little bit.

So, I was at work today, and I wanted to see what the score was of the First Reponder Bowl, and ESPN at first said it was in a delay because of lightning.  When I checked back in a few minutes later, they had announced that it had been cancelled.  I expected it to maybe postponed or something, but no.  They decided to just send everyone home and not announce any kind of make up date.  I went on-line to see what happened, and they said there was lightning ion the area, and that the weather was not going to prove for the foreseeable future, so they just gave up.  Vegas returned everyone’s money.  No one will be allowed to keep the stats that they had racked up in the 9 minutes the game was going.  In theory, this would count if you phrased the saying, “Boston College has made it to a post-season Bowl X years in a row” since they were technically invited even though they didn’t play.  All in all, it was a strange set of circumstances.  Still sucks for the seniors on both teams, any fans that travelled to Dallas over Christmas break to watch the game or any other people such as vendors.  I’m sure it would suck especially hard if you bought a ticket on the secondary market.  Ouch…

Anyway, what I did for everyone effects the current standings, but only slightly.  Depending on how many points you had on this game, I took this game out, and shifted any game with more points down 1 point.  For instance, if you had 20 points on this game, there is no change to your 1-19 point games.  The game you had for 21 is now worth 20 points.  Your 22 point game is now worth 21 points, and so on until we get to the max point game, which will now be worth 39 points instead of 40.  This preserves the order that everyone had put their games in, and reflects the fact that there were 39 games to pick instead of 40.  The effect on the scores.

As I was checking the internet to see what happened in this game, I came across a Tweet about the appropriateness of the sponsor ServPro.  As I understand it, ServPro is a company that comes in a fixes up you home or place of business if you have water damage.  Their slogan is “Like it never even happened”.  Seems amazingly prescient.

That wasn’t the only game on the day.  The second game turned out to be a disaster for my, as I had max points on Georgia Tech, and from what I could see, they never were in the game.  Yuck.  After this game, I think I was next to last in net points.  I let my allegiance to Georgia Tech (and their -6 Vegas Line) blind me to the fact that Minnesota’s coach was the coach for Western Michigan when they went undefeated a few years ago.  He’s a really good coach.  I expect big things from him in the upcoming years.

The last game of the day was maybe the worst game I have seen all season.  At one point late in the second half, the TCU QB had <10 passing yards, 4 INTs, 0 TDs and a negative QB rating.  I was not even aware that QB ratings could be negative.  It seemed pretty deserved.  He was terrible.  It wasn’t like the Cal QB was any better.  There were 9 INTs total in the game.  It seemed appropriate that it went into OT.  Then in OT, TCU almost blew it when some guy in a suit on the TCU sideline ran onto the field during yet another INT return and ran into a ref costing them 15 yards.  That guy wasn’t even a coach.  Terrible….  The whole game is best to forget.

There wasn’t  ton of movement in the standings after the Minnesota / Georgia Tech game because most people got 0 points.  10 people managed to go 2/2.  18 people managed to go 0/2 including yours truly.  That means the average entry only got 0.88 games right for 12.06 points and lost an average of 19.14.  I kind of like that as a score.  You should be rewarded for being able to predict these games, and quite a few have been impossible to get lately.  Makes things interesting.

Our top 5 point gainers on the day were:

1.       Becky H. (43 points / 2 wins)

2.       Mike N. (37 points / 2 wins)

3.       Dustin B. (35 points / 2 wins)

4.       Josiah T. #3 (34 points / 2 wins)

5.       Mike S. (33 points / 2 wins)

3 of those same people made up the biggest upward movers in the points standings:

1.       Becky H. (45^th to 29^th)

2.       Josiah T. #3 (39^th to 24^th)

3.       Mike S. (36^th to 23^rd)

OK.  Most people don’t actually read what I write, so here are the standings:

1. Dylan B.: 290 (-44)

2. Nick S.: 281 (-230)

3. Andrzej R.: 269 (-55)

4. Marc R.: 233 (-118)

5. Hutch H.: 223 (-65)

6. Pete J. #1: 223 (-67)

7. Grant F.: 217 (-132)

8. Michelle L. #1: 214 (-92)

9. Jay H. #1: 209 (-90)

10. Jim D.: 203 (-72)

11. Scott Has.: 200 (-47)

12. James P.: 199 (-109)

13. Pete J. #2: 198 (-92)

14. Josiah T. #4: 196 (-75)

15. Tim N.: 195 (-194)

16. Harrell R. #2: 193 (-108)

17. Josiah T. #2: 192 (-98)

18. Matt N.: 191 (-122)

19. Ben S. #2: 189 (-104)

20. Harrell R. #1: 185 (-79)

21. Sally R.: 183 (-173)

22. Dan Du.: 180 (-51)

23. Mike S.: 178 (-111)

24. Josiah T. #3: 178 (-146)

25. Emily J.: 177 (-82)

26. Adam E.: 176 (-85)

27. Brent E. #4: 174 (-102)

28. Ben S. #1: 172 (-105)

29. Becky H.: 171 (-86)

30. Peter F.: 171 (-140)

31. Jim W.: 169 (-97)

32. Jason S.: 169 (-132)

33. Eric V.: 166 (-67)

34. Kevin W.: 164 (-88)

35. Brent E. #2: 162 (-114)

35. Brent E. #3: 162 (-114)

37. Scott Her. #2: 156 (-124)

38. Ally H.: 155 (-96)

39. Josiah T. #1: 155 (-124)

40. Brad R.: 151 (-173)

41. Nichole W.: 151 (-186)

42. Brent E. #1: 150 (-114)

43. Damien R. #1: 145 (-214)

44. Michelle L. #2: 144 (-145)

45. Dan Dz.: 139 (-101)

46. Brett W.: 137 (-102)

47. Dustin B.: 136 (-65)

48. Justin H.: 134 (-63)

49. Klei R.: 134 (-230)

50. Craig G.: 124 (-173)

51. Eric L.: 119 (-36)

52. Jay H. #3: 116 (-119)

53. Ryan W.: 109 (-131)

54. Amos W.: 105 (-85)

55. Mike N.: 102 (-105)

56. Jay H. #2: 101 (-134)

57. Damien R. #2: 101 (-155)

58. Scott Her. #1: 96 (-159)

59. Max W. #2: 89 (-68)

60. Max W. #1: 88 (-99)

61. Bosun S.: 86 (-81)

62. Julie S.: 83 (-84)

63. Ashley D.: 79 (-145)

64. Mike W.: 66 (-92)

65. Ava S.: 57 (-110)

66. Dan S.: 47 (-120)

….and the net points rankings:

1. Dylan B.: 246

2. Andrzej R.: 214

3. Hutch H.: 158

4. Pete J. #1: 156

5. Scott Has.: 153

6. Jim D.: 131

7. Dan Du.: 129

8. Michelle L. #1: 122

9. Josiah T. #4: 121

10. Jay H. #1: 119

11. Marc R.: 115

12. Pete J. #2: 106

12. Harrell R. #1: 106

14. Eric V.: 99

15. Emily J.: 95

16. Josiah T. #2: 94

17. Adam E.: 91

18. James P.: 90

19. Grant F.: 85

19. Harrell R. #2: 85

19. Ben S. #2: 85

19. Becky H.: 85

23. Eric L.: 83

24. Kevin W.: 76

25. Brent E. #4: 72

25. Jim W.: 72

27. Dustin B.: 71

27. Justin H.: 71

29. Matt N.: 69

30. Mike S.: 67

30. Ben S. #1: 67

32. Ally H.: 59

33. Nick S.: 51

34. Brent E. #2: 48

34. Brent E. #3: 48

36. Dan Dz.: 38

37. Jason S.: 37

38. Brent E. #1: 36

39. Brett W.: 35

40. Josiah T. #3: 32

40. Scott Her. #2: 32

42. Peter F.: 31

42. Josiah T. #1: 31

44. Max W. #2: 21

45. Amos W.: 20

46. Sally R.: 10

47. Bosun S.: 5

48. Tim N.: 1

49. Michelle L. #2: -1

49. Julie S.: -1

51. Jay H. #3: -3

51. Mike N.: -3

53. Max W. #1: -11

54. Brad R.: -22

54. Ryan W.: -22

56. Mike W.: -26

57. Jay H. #2: -33

58. Nichole W.: -35

59. Craig G.: -49

60. Ava S.: -53

61. Damien R. #2: -54

62. Scott Her. #1: -63

63. Ashley D.: -66

64. Damien R. #1: -69

65. Dan S.: -73

66. Klei R.: -96

Looks like my degradation is complete.  I’m in dead last in net points.  I’m almost 100% sure I will be eliminated as soon as I do the math.  There’s no way I can win from this far back.  On the flip side, Dylan B. and Andrzej R., are really separating themselves from the field.  Still a lot of games to go, but they are in fantastic shape.

3 more games tomorrow, which is what I thought going into today  and we only wound up with 2, so we shall see.  I’m sure the 1-40 strategy has something to do with this, but so far (including tomorrow), we will only have had 2 of the bowl games in the top ½ of points wagered.  It could also be because some of the bigger point spreads are later and also teams that people are more familiar with are playing.  I’m sure it’s a combination of those things, but so far only the New Mexico Bowl (Utah State) and the Potato Bowl (BYU) have gone off so far.

Independence Bowl:

Picks:

Temple: 33 (19.79 pts average)

Duke: 33 (18.30 pts average)

Median Pick: Temple for 1.5 points.

Mean Pick: Temple for 0.9 points.

Total points wagered: 1,257 (22^nd overall).

Vegas Line: Temple (-3)

This game baffles me.  The line is only 3 points.  The picks are totally evenly split.  There is no reason for this bowl game to have so much on it.  This distribution of picks looks totally bimodal.  It’s almost as if everyone independently decided to wager more than they should on the outcome of this game.  Don’t get me wrong, that’s kind of what I want to see, but it seems strange to me.  I would have expected to see much more picking around the 1-5 range, but there’s almost no one there.

Pinstripe Bowl

Picks:

Wisconsin: 40 (20.18 pts average)

Miami: 26 (20.04 pts average)

Median Pick: Wisconsin for 6.5 points.

Mean Pick: Wisconsin for 4.4 points.

Total points wagered: 1,328 (19^th overall).

Vegas Line: Miami (-2.5)

It’s the Bowl game for 2 of the more disappointing teams that actually qualified for Bowl Games (see: Florida State, USC).  I believe both of these teams were in the top 10 at some point this season.  The Pinstripe Bowl couldn’t have been what either of these teams thought they would be playing for at the beginning of the season.  Often times, that leads to a great deal of letdown, so this may wind up being the saddest bowl game of them all if neither of the teams actually wants to be there.  I know a few years ago, I wound up winning this pool largely because I went big against USC in the Sun Bowl after they started the season in the top 5, and crashed out.  They totally mailed it in, and wound up losing.  I’m not sure how it works if both teams are like that.

Apparently, we think Wisconsin will hold up better, since the average entry took Wisconsin pretty substantially considering that Miami is actually favored in this game.  Maybe people are thinking the weather will play to Wisconsin’s advantage.  Seems like a reasonable thought….

Texas Bowl:

Picks:

Vanderbilt: 46 (17.28 pts average)

Baylor: 20 (15.90 pts average)

Median Pick: Vanderbilt for 10.5 points.

Mean Pick: Vanderbilt for 7.4 points.

Total points wagered: 1,113 (27^th overall).

Vegas Line: Vanderbilt (-4)

What happened to Baylor?  They used to be a total powerhouse in football.  They even got RGIII a Heisman trophy.  Now, they are kind of an also-ran team.  They’ve fallen off so much that a large amount of people are picking against them in a game they are playing in their home state to a team that has the football tradition that begins and ends with Jay Cutler.  Ouch.

All right.  That’s it.  We still have a few days before I get to calculate odds of winning.  In the mean time, enjoy the games!!!!