After the Potato Bowl Massacre

Good evening.  It looks like we finally a decent game, unfortunately for me it wasn’t the game that I was hoping it would be.  Today was my birthday, so I took the day off from work and went hiking to the top of Mt. Woodson.  When I got home, it was half-time of the Potato Bowl, and my WMU Broncos were winning 10-7.  I thought to myself, “Sweet!  What a great birthday present.  I get to watch my team score potentially the biggest upset of the Bowl season – on my birthday no less!”.  I took a shower and threw on my WMU T-short and WMU sweatshirt and proceeded to watch the worst half of football I may have ever seen them play.  They were outscored 42 – 8 in the second half.  BYU managed to go through the entire game without throwing a single incomplete pass.  That is really, really bad.  The second half announcers were making a point that the bowl record for consecutive complete passes to start a game was 19, by some guy from Georgia a bunch of years ago.  The only reason the BYU QB didn’t tie or break that record was because he was pulled as part of some kind of mercy move by the BYU head coach.  Ouch…  Really bad.  I was hoping for better.

Then again, I was in a distinct minority.  Most people got a ton of points for BYU.  The same can’t be said for people in the Bahamas Bowl.  That Bowl game qualified as the biggest upset of the season so far.  Toledo was a 7 point favorite and wound up on the losing end.  That means the breakdown of the games today went like this:

2 winners: 8 entries

1 winner: 50 entries

0 winners: 8 entries.

Wow.  Pretty Normally distributed.  I really did not expect that, even though the games had the same exact pick distribution (53/13).  Toledo easily qualifies as the team so far with the most point wagered on them that has lost (927 – good for 21^st).

Based largely on so many people wagering a lot of BYU, the average entry today won 25.77 points and lost only 17.32.  Your results may vary.

Here were the biggest movers on the day:

1.       Sally R. (36^th to 18^th based on 59 points and 2 wins)

2.       Craig G. (50^th to 41^st based on 36 points and 1 win)

3.       Michelle L. #2 (46^th to 39^th based on 39 points and 1 win)

The other big winner on the day was Nick S.  He won the most points on the day with 66, which was enough to move him up from 2^nd to 1^st and take a pretty commanding lead.  He is currently 49 points clear of 2^nd.  That’s a great place to be.  The only potential downside is that he still only 6^th in net points because in addition to all the points he has won, he has also managed to lose 112 points.  Actually, to date, he is the entry that has used up the most amount of points (44.12%).  He didn’t got 40-1, but it was pretty close.  Looks like he’ll need to run up a pretty big lead and try like hell to hang on at the end if he wants to win.  Then again, everyone will probably have to hope like hell at the end if they want to win this thing.  That’s kind of the appeal (at least for me).

Here are the total point rankings:

1. Nick S.: 263 (-112)

2. Hutch H.: 214 (-24)

3. Dylan B.: 213 (-8)

4. Andrzej R.: 213 (-9)

5. Ben S. #2: 190 (-32)

6. Tim N.: 188 (-142)

7. Marc R.: 186 (-78)

8. Pete J. #1: 180 (-10)

9. Harrell R. #2: 179 (-47)

10. James P.: 178 (-48)

11. Jim D.: 176 (-29)

12. Matt N.: 171 (-46)

13. Pete J. #2: 169 (-21)

14. Josiah T. #4: 169 (-43)

15. Grant F.: 168 (-65)

16. Jay H. #1: 166 (-45)

17. Harrell R. #1: 166 (-47)

18. Sally R.: 165 (-102)

19. Ben S. #1: 163 (-44)

20. Adam E.: 162 (-38)

21. Scott Her. #2: 161 (-11)

22. Josiah T. #2: 161 (-31)

23. Peter F.: 156 (-57)

24. Brent E. #4: 155 (-56)

25. Scott Has.: 150 (-33)

26. Michelle L. #1: 147 (-67)

27. Josiah T. #3: 147 (-70)

28. Brent E. #2: 146 (-53)

29. Emily J.: 145 (-11)

30. Mike S.: 144 (-57)

31. Brent E. #3: 143 (-56)

32. Jason S.: 140 (-90)

33. Nichole W.: 139 (-157)

34. Brent E. #1: 134 (-53)

35. Josiah T. #1: 133 (-59)

36. Eric V.: 128 (-22)

37. Damien R. #1: 124 (-97)

38. Dan Du.: 122 (-10)

39. Michelle L. #2: 122 (-94)

40. Kevin W.: 112 (-48)

41. Craig G.: 108 (-104)

42. Klei R.: 108 (-117)

43. Justin H.: 107 (-44)

44. Dustin B.: 106 (-34)

45. Jim W.: 106 (-47)

46. Brad R.: 104 (-119)

47. Jay H. #3: 101 (-33)

48. Amos W.: 100 (-43)

49. Ryan W.: 99 (-102)

50. Becky H.: 92 (-72)

51. Ally H.: 91 (-48)

52. Bosun S.: 84 (-44)

53. Scott Her. #1: 84 (-107)

54. Damien R. #2: 80 (-48)

55. Brett W.: 72 (-37)

56. Dan Dz.: 69 (-30)

57. Julie S.: 68 (-60)

58. Eric L.: 64 (-6)

59. Mike N.: 58 (-50)

60. Ava S.: 50 (-78)

61. Mike W.: 46 (-30)

62. Ashley D.: 43 (-66)

63. Max W. #2: 41 (-26)

64. Max W. #1: 41 (-51)

65. Jay H. #2: 40 (-33)

66. Dan S.: 30 (-98)

…and the net point rankings:

1. Dylan B.: 205

2. Andrzej R.: 204

3. Hutch H.: 190

4. Pete J. #1: 170

5. Ben S. #2: 158

6. Nick S.: 151

7. Scott Her. #2: 150

8. Pete J. #2: 148

9. Jim D.: 147

10. Emily J.: 134

11. Harrell R. #2: 132

12. James P.: 130

12. Josiah T. #2: 130

14. Josiah T. #4: 126

15. Matt N.: 125

16. Adam E.: 124

17. Jay H. #1: 121

18. Harrell R. #1: 119

18. Ben S. #1: 119

20. Scott Has.: 117

21. Dan Du.: 112

22. Marc R.: 108

23. Eric V.: 106

24. Grant F.: 103

25. Peter F.: 99

25. Brent E. #4: 99

27. Brent E. #2: 93

28. Mike S.: 87

28. Brent E. #3: 87

30. Brent E. #1: 81

31. Michelle L. #1: 80

32. Josiah T. #3: 77

33. Josiah T. #1: 74

34. Dustin B.: 72

35. Jay H. #3: 68

36. Kevin W.: 64

37. Sally R.: 63

37. Justin H.: 63

39. Jim W.: 59

40. Eric L.: 58

41. Amos W.: 57

42. Jason S.: 50

43. Tim N.: 46

44. Ally H.: 43

45. Bosun S.: 40

46. Dan Dz.: 39

47. Brett W.: 35

48. Damien R. #2: 32

49. Michelle L. #2: 28

50. Damien R. #1: 27

51. Becky H.: 20

52. Mike W.: 16

53. Max W. #2: 15

54. Julie S.: 8

54. Mike N.: 8

56. Jay H. #2: 7

57. Craig G.: 4

58. Ryan W.: -3

59. Klei R.: -9

60. Max W. #1: -10

61. Brad R.: -15

62. Nichole W.: -18

63. Scott Her. #1: -23

63. Ashley D.: -23

65. Ava S.: -28

66. Dan S.: -68

We also managed to lose our last undefeated entry.  Hutch H. finally lost a game with Toledo / Florida International.  All good things come to an end.  It doesn’t look like it hurt him too bad.

There are 4 more games tomorrow however.  Based on the Vegas lines, they should all be close, which means they are all going to unwatchable blowouts.  Not many points are wagered on any of them.  Not one of them is in the top 25 of games, and 3 of them qualify as bottom 5 of the remaining games.  You can look at this one of two ways.  If you didn’t wager much on these, you can do some last minute Christmas shopping knowing that your totals probably won’t change too much.  Then again, maybe these are good opportunities to pick a bunch of points on the field if you happened to wager a lot of points in any of these games.  Based on what I’m seeing, it seems like most people are the former.

Here we go:

Birmingham Bowl:

Picks:

Memphis: 50 (19.74 pts average)

Wake Forest: 16 (12.56 pts average)

Median Pick: Memphis for 15 points.

Mean Pick: Memphis for 11.9 points.

Total points wagered: 1,188 (26^th overall).

Vegas Line: Memphis (-3.5)

This graph looks pretty skew for a game that is only 26^th in points wagered.  This is the game that has the most points wagered on it on the day.  I guess the only thing interesting to me in this game is that if Memphis manages to lose, they will turn into the team that has lost that had the most points wagered on it.  That’s not much, but hey, it’s not much of a game.

Armed Forces Game:

Picks:

Army: 45 (17.47 pts average)

Houston: 21 (12.76 pts average)

Median Pick: Army for 11 points.

Mean Pick: Army for 7.8 points.

Total points wagered: 1,054 (33^rd overall).

Vegas Line: Army (-6.5)

Something happened to this game.  When I looked at the point spreads before the Bowl season started, the initial line was Army (-3.5).  I see now that Army is favored by 6.5.  That’s a huge move for the line.  I have paid no attention to the news regarding this game.  I just did a cursory internet search, and I can’t find any news articles that would account for the line movement.  Maybe Vegas just set a bad line.  Most people took Army in this game anyway, so maybe the line move was justified.  We will see.  I just am not used to seeing this kind of move unless a QB goes down in practice, some big name player is sitting out to prepare for the NFL or there is some team-wide outbreak of food poisoning.  I guess we’ll have to watch to see if this made any difference.  Hmmm…

The Dollar General Bowl:

Picks:

Buffalo: 44 (11.80 pts average)

Troy: 22 (15.14 pts average)

Median Pick: Buffalo for 5 points.

Mean Pick: Buffalo for 2.8 points.

Total points wagered: 852 (38^th overall).

Vegas Line: Buffalo (-1)

This game is the lowest of all the remaining bowl games in terms of points wagered.  Given that the point spread is essentially a coin toss, I guess that shouldn’t be much of a surprise.  Maybe this is one of those games that could make a huge difference for the 5 entries that put this game in their top 10.  Maybe not the best game to take a shot, but honestly, this is a results based business.  If you win, it was a good bet.  Who am I to judge.  Fun fact about this game:  It’s one of the very few game where the team picked the fewer amount of time has an higher average points wagered on it.  Buffalo was picked more, but the people that picked Troy must really like Troy because they wagered more points on them on average than people that picked Buffalo.  I think that’s a strange phenomena.  Not sure what difference that makes, or what it indicates, but it is interesting.

Hawaii Bowl:

Picks:

Hawaii: 51 (16.06 pts average)

Louisiana Tech: 15 (13 pts average)

Median Pick: Hawaii for 9 points.

Mean Pick: Hawaii for 9.5 points.

Total points wagered: 1,014 (35^th overall).

Vegas Line: Hawaii (-1)

This game, on paper should be virtually the same as the Dollar General Bowl.  The point spread is exactly the same, but you can see the distribution is vastly different.  I am chalking this up to people picking Hawaii to win the Hawaii Bowl.  I understand why Bowl organizers would do this, but do the people on Hawaii really want to play the Hawaii Bowl.  I mean, they play their home games in the same stadium.  They aren’t really going anywhere special.  It seems like another home game.  I always thought the Bowl games were supposed to be mini-vacations followed by a football game.  That’s why I think that Potato Bowl (Boise) and QuickLane Bowl (Detroit) are the worst Bowl games going.  Those aren’t vacation destinations (although I’ll admit to going to Detroit on vacation).  This is definitely one of those games I would wager really big on Louisiana Tech if I was cheating.  It’s essentially a coin toss, but it looks like the public isn’t rating it that way.  That may make Brett W. look like genius.  His is the lone bar you see way out in the tail for 33 points.  Could be brilliant.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

Good luck everyone!!!!!