After Frisco Bow

Seriously, is anyone actually watching these games?  I watched tonight’s Frisco Bowl for about one drive at the start of the second half and immediately turned it off.  Turns out I made the right choice.  San Diego State got clobbered tonight by Ohio 27-0.  It’s never a good sign when the announcers are doing all they can to keep viewers interested in the game at the start of the 2^nd half.  In the short time I was watching I definitely heard, “One or two more scores from San Diego State, and they are right back in this thing!”  That’s not good.

So, we are 8 games in and still only one game has been decided by <10 points.  Actually, that’s not true.  I was looking at the scores, and the Celebration Bowl was decided by 2 points as well as the Camellia Bowl.  Even with those games decided by 2 points, the average point differential in the Bowl season so far has been 19.25 points.  That’s not a recipe for good games.  If you were hoping to use the excuse of a close Bowl game to avoid hanging out with your relatives, you must be deeply disappointed by now.

As I was thinking about the point differentials, it occurred to me that the reason I forgot to include the Celebration Bowl is that they aren’t listed on most scoreboards.  If you remember my initial review of the Celebration Bowl, I said it was one of my favorites.  The fact that even after the game is over that you can’t find much evidence of its existence just makes me like it even more.

Like the Boca Raton Bowl yesterday, this is a quasi-upset.  Ohio was favored to win this game (making Vegas chalk 8/8), but more people in our pool picked San Diego State.  I’m not sure if that qualifies it as an upset.  To my surprise, even though the Vegas favorite has won every game, only one sheet has managed to go 8/8.  That entry belongs to Hutch H..  His reward for getting tonight’s game right to go 8/8 – he drops in the standings from 2-3.  Such are the strange twists and turns of the Bowl pool.

Speaking of moving up in the standings, 4 people managed to move up 10 spots or more in the points standings:

Pete J. #2 moved up from 31 to 13 on the strength of 36 points from Ohio.

Pete J. #1 moved up from 21 to 9 on the strength of 36 points from Ohio.

Grant F. moved up from 36 to 26 on the strength of 21 points from Ohio.

Sally R. moved up from 55 to 45 on the strength of 25 points from Ohio.

I mostly put that in there because Sally R. is my Mom and she’s really been taking it on the chin with her picks this season.  She nailed this one though, so bragging rights for at least a day in my family, since my Dad, my wife and I all went with the homer picks and got crushed.

Here are the updated points only rankings:

1. Andrzej R.: 177 (-5)

2. Dylan B.: 170 (-3)

3. Hutch H.: 169 (0)

4. Tim N.: 168 (-96)

5. Nick S.: 167 (-112)

6. Josiah T. #4: 154 (-13)

7. Marc R.: 147 (-46)

8. Josiah T. #2: 146 (-1)

9. Ben S. #2: 144 (-5)

9. Pete J. #1: 144 (-5)

11. James P.: 141 (-17)

12. Nichole W.: 139 (-85)

13. Pete J. #2: 136 (-13)

14. Matt N.: 135 (-9)

15. Josiah T. #1: 133 (-16)

16. Jim D.: 131 (-1)

16. Scott Her. #2: 131 (-1)

18. Josiah T. #3: 128 (-21)

19. Jay H. #1: 126 (-6)

20. Brent E. #4: 124 (-41)

21. Peter F.: 121 (-23)

22. Harrell R. #2: 119 (-11)

23. Adam E.: 118 (-3)

24. Jason S.: 115 (-40)

25. Ben S. #1: 111 (-17)

26. Grant F.: 109 (-38)

27. Klei R.: 108 (-71)

28. Harrell R. #1: 106 (-11)

29. Brent E. #1: 106 (-38)

29. Brent E. #2: 106 (-38)

31. Emily J.: 105 (-1)

32. Brent E. #3: 103 (-41)

33. Dan Du.: 102 (-9)

34. Mike S.: 100 (-44)

35. Ryan W.: 94 (-57)

36. Scott Has.: 93 (-10)

37. Eric V.: 90 (-12)

38. Damien R. #1: 88 (-74)

39. Bosun S.: 84 (-9)

40. Michelle L. #1: 80 (-40)

41. Brad R.: 80 (-76)

42. Becky H.: 76 (-37)

43. Craig G.: 72 (-58)

44. Michelle L. #2: 72 (-71)

45. Sally R.: 69 (-102)

46. Jay H. #3: 68 (-20)

47. Ally H.: 68 (-32)

48. Jim W.: 68 (-41)

49. Dustin B.: 66 (-13)

50. Kevin W.: 65 (-40)

51. Dan Dz.: 59 (-25)

52. Justin H.: 57 (-23)

53. Damien R. #2: 55 (-20)

54. Amos W.: 53 (-35)

55. Brett W.: 52 (-23)

56. Scott Her. #1: 50 (-77)

57. Ava S.: 43 (-50)

58. Julie S.: 37 (-56)

59. Eric L.: 30 (-6)

60. Mike W.: 30 (-7)

61. Ashley D.: 23 (-64)

62. Dan S.: 23 (-70)

63. Jay H. #2: 21 (-15)

64. Max W. #2: 19 (-17)

65. Mike N.: 18 (-40)

66. Max W. #1: 9 (-35)

…and the net points rankings:

1. Andrzej R.: 172

2. Hutch H.: 169

3. Dylan B.: 167

4. Josiah T. #2: 145

5. Josiah T. #4: 141

6. Ben S. #2: 139

6. Pete J. #1: 139

8. Jim D.: 130

8. Scott Her. #2: 130

10. Matt N.: 126

11. James P.: 124

12. Pete J. #2: 123

13. Jay H. #1: 120

14. Josiah T. #1: 117

15. Adam E.: 115

16. Harrell R. #2: 108

17. Josiah T. #3: 107

18. Emily J.: 104

19. Marc R.: 101

20. Peter F.: 98

21. Harrell R. #1: 95

22. Ben S. #1: 94

23. Dan Du.: 93

24. Brent E. #4: 83

24. Scott Has.: 83

26. Eric V.: 78

27. Jason S.: 75

27. Bosun S.: 75

29. Tim N.: 72

30. Grant F.: 71

31. Brent E. #1: 68

31. Brent E. #2: 68

33. Brent E. #3: 62

34. Mike S.: 56

35. Nick S.: 55

36. Nichole W.: 54

37. Dustin B.: 53

38. Jay H. #3: 48

39. Michelle L. #1: 40

40. Becky H.: 39

41. Klei R.: 37

41. Ryan W.: 37

43. Ally H.: 36

44. Damien R. #2: 35

45. Dan Dz.: 34

45. Justin H.: 34

47. Brett W.: 29

48. Jim W.: 27

49. Kevin W.: 25

50. Eric L.: 24

51. Mike W.: 23

52. Amos W.: 18

53. Damien R. #1: 14

53. Craig G.: 14

55. Jay H. #2: 6

56. Brad R.: 4

57. Max W. #2: 2

58. Michelle L. #2: 1

59. Ava S.: -7

60. Julie S.: -19

61. Mike N.: -22

62. Max W. #1: -26

63. Scott Her. #1: -27

64. Sally R.: -33

65. Ashley D.: -41

66. Dan S.: -47

….but there is another opportunity to turn this whole thing around tomorrow.  We have the Gasparilla Bowl.  I know I looked this up last year, but for those that don’t know, apparently a Gasparilla is some kind of pirate festival that they have in Tampa.  Sounds kinda cool, I guess.  The game, a little less so.  I mean, any time you can watch the 2^nd place team from the CUSA East division and the 4^th place team from the AAC East division face off, you just gotta make time.  Amiright?  I would lay pretty good odds that most people couldn’t name 5 teams from the CUSA or AAC, much less know what AAC actually stood for.  So, this boils down to two mediocre college football teams playing on a random Thursday night in Mid-December.  But, we’ve all put points on it, so we might as well pay attention.

How exciting are we anticipating this game to be?  So exciting, we collectively wagered 898 points on it.  Good enough for 37^th out of 41 bowl games.  It also moved exactly one entry to put this game in their top 10 of games.  That is the lowest total of any bowl game.  That one brave, brave soul – Sally R.  This is the big push to relevancy for my Mom.  There you go, there’s a reason for me to root for a particular side.

Here are the particulars:

Picks:

Marshall: 36 (14.67 pts average)

South Florida: 30 (12.33 pts average)

Median Pick: Marshall for 5.5 points.

Mean Pick: Marshall for 2.4 points.

Total points wagered: 898 (37^th overall).

Vegas Line: Marshall (-3)

Good luck to everyone.  If you are going to watch this game, I hope it’s close.  If you aren’t, I’m going to guess that you don’t care if it’s close or not – you just want the team you picked to win.  So craven….  Good luck again!!!!  See you all tomorrow.