Bowl Pool - Holiday Bowl bites the dust edition

 Before I get into the results of the day today, I have another announcement to make.  After some more games got cancelled and some other games got moved around, I decided to make my life a whole lot easier and say that if any game deviates from its originally scheduled pairing when it was announced, I am not going to count the results of that game.  I thought I could be cute and keep Wake Forest in the Gator Bowl, since they were still going to be playing in it, so people that picked them should at least have a chance at points, but then the Sun Bowl and Arizona Bowl both had teams back out, so the remaining teams decided to play each other.  That means Central Michigan, who was supposed to play in the Arizona Bowl is now playing in the Sun Bowl, which is different than the Gator Bowl situation.  The whole season is a mess, so this is what I am going to do going forward.

Speaking of which, I said there were 5 games scheduled today, and they only wound up playing 4 of them.  The Holiday Bowl was cancelled with about 5 hours left before kickoff.  I set the over / under at 2.5 games, so the over still would have been the bet here, but the really sucks for both schools.  Not only don’t they get any revenue from the game, but they incur all the expenses of sending a team to the game.  It’s a giant lose/lose for everyone involved.  Like I said: terrible.

The plus side of all these cancellations is that the I can for sure calculate the initial probabilities and elimination games at least one day earlier.  See, I typically have to wait until there are less than 16 games left (the Championship game counting for 2 because of the 4 possible outcomes).  Now that a ton of games have been cancelled / rescheduled, after tomorrow, there will only be 14 games left, so – Voila!  The real downside here is that I still don’t think we’ve seen the end of the cancellations.  Hopefully any game that has to be cancelled is done so by the end of the day tomorrow.  That will totally disrupt everything if we have last second cancellations again.

But, we did have 4 games today, including one pretty big upset.  Nobody managed to go 4/4 today.  The best anyone could do was 3/4, which was done by 12 people.  The big winner on the day was Ally H., who is a favorite around here.  She finished the day winning 104 points.  She also only lost 30 points, so she won the net point rankings today as well by a country mile.  Very impressive.  If you look at the standings, you’ll notice Scott H. and Becky H. near the top.  Those are Ally’s parents so she has some strong picking genes.  Great job Ally H!

On the flip side today, we only had one person go 0/5.  It was my seemingly favorite whipping boy in this pool, Doug L.  Honestly, things have not broken well for Doug L.  There actually is nothing inherently wrong with backloading the points, since most years that means that you will make a hard charge up the standings at the end of the pool, but this year with so many cancellations, it pretty much means that the max amount of points he can get is much, much lower than everyone else.  Even if that was predictable, no one is going to fill out a sheet with that in mind.  Tough break Doug L.  I feel for ya’.  I was in last 3 years ago myself.

So, the average sheet today won 1.92 games out of 4 (really 5, but everyone lost the Holiday Bowl).  The average sheet won 36.13 points, but lost 64.86 points.  A lot of that was the Holiday Bowl, but the Liberty Bowl between Mississippi State and Texas Tech also cost a lot of people a lot of points today.

Given that not many people got a whole lot of points today, the standings don’t look a ton different.  There’s part of me that thinks between upsets and cancellations, I might just win this pool with 362 points.  That’s how little the standings seem to move.  Here are the points standings:

1. Klei R.: 362 (-305)

2. Hutch H.: 340 (-323)

3. Scott H. #2: 331 (-371)

4. Becky H.: 315 (-250)

5. Josiah T. #2: 313 (-363)

6. Daniel E.: 303 (-353)

7. Michelle L. #1: 298 (-371)

8. Chad L.: 295 (-335)

9. Mike W.: 293 (-313)

10. Josiah T. #1: 290 (-384)

11. Larry G. #2: 279 (-435)

12. Mark A.: 277 (-347)

13. Pete J. #2: 271 (-382)

14. Matt N.: 270 (-307)

15. Ben S.: 269 (-369)

16. Mike N.: 262 (-352)

17. Pete J. #1: 261 (-392)

19. Brad R.: 257 (-322)

18. Ryan W.: 257 (-320)

20. Jay H. #2: 257 (-391)

21. Adam O. #2: 256 (-351)

22. Michelle L. #2: 254 (-396)

23. Adam O. #3: 253 (-330)

24. Adam O. #1: 252 (-355)

25. Brian K.: 249 (-333)

26. Adam O. #4: 244 (-355)

27. Marc R.: 242 (-298)

28. Cam L.: 238 (-342)

29. Dylan B.: 237 (-361)

31. Grant F.: 236 (-398)

31. Emily T.: 236 (-398)

30. Jason S.: 236 (-333)

33. Stefan K.: 235 (-354)

34. Amy L.: 230 (-409)

35. Dylan L.: 222 (-354)

36. Dan D.: 220 (-284)

38. Damien R.: 218 (-420)

37. Ally H.: 218 (-353)

39. Weston T. (Shane): 213 (-438)

40. Adam E.: 208 (-355)

41. Larry G. #1: 198 (-499)

43. Scott H. #1: 174 (-448)

42. Matt M.: 174 (-409)

44. Brent S.: 172 (-314)

45. Jay H. #1: 162 (-341)

46. Dustin B.: 159 (-359)

47. Lee K.: 157 (-357)

48. Brett W.: 154 (-386)

49. Creighton H.: 153 (-460)

50. Tom B.: 94 (-415)

51. Doug L.: 84 (-365)

…and here are the net points standings:

1. Becky H.: 65

2. Klei R.: 57

3. Hutch H.: 17

4. Mike W.: -20

5. Matt N.: -37

6. Scott H. #2: -40

6. Chad L.: -40

8. Josiah T. #2: -50

8. Daniel E.: -50

10. Marc R.: -56

11. Ryan W.: -63

12. Dan D.: -64

13. Brad R.: -65

14. Mark A.: -70

15. Michelle L. #1: -73

16. Adam O. #3: -77

17. Brian K.: -84

18. Mike N.: -90

19. Josiah T. #1: -94

20. Adam O. #2: -95

21. Jason S.: -97

22. Ben S.: -100

23. Adam O. #1: -103

24. Cam L.: -104

25. Pete J. #2: -111

25. Adam O. #4: -111

27. Stefan K.: -119

28. Dylan B.: -124

29. Pete J. #1: -131

30. Dylan L.: -132

31. Jay H. #2: -134

32. Ally H.: -135

33. Michelle L. #2: -142

33. Brent S.: -142

35. Adam E.: -147

36. Larry G. #2: -156

37. Grant F.: -162

37. Emily T.: -162

39. Amy L.: -179

39. Jay H. #1: -179

41. Dustin B.: -200

41. Lee K.: -200

43. Damien R.: -202

44. Weston T. (Shane): -225

45. Brett W.: -232

46. Matt M.: -235

47. Scott H. #1: -274

48. Doug L.: -281

49. Larry G. #1: -301

50. Creighton H.: -307

51. Tom B.: -321

In theory, there will be 3 games tomorrow.  We lost the Fenway Bowl, which I am not all that sad about.  Here are the game details:

New Era Pinstripe Bowl (2:15 PM ESPN)

Vegas Line: Maryland -3.5

Median Pick: Virginia Tech for 4 points.

Picks for Virginia Tech: 30 (18.27 points average, 548 total points, 33^rd)

Picks for Maryland: 21 (13.24 points average, 278 total points, 61^st)

Total points wagered: 826 (37^th)

Pick distribution:

Well, this looks really strange.  I’m used to seeing at least some picks out in the tails.  For some reason the most anyone took Maryland for was 21 points.  Not a single person took them for more than that.  There were only 2 teams that didn’t have at least 21 points wagered on them (Hawaii & Old Dominion – 20).  It looks really strange on the graph.

This game reminds of the gimmick that they were doing in college basketball a few years ago where they were playing games on the decks of aircraft carriers.  They have mercifully stopped doing that.  Those games were always strange because they were outside and the lighting was always really bad.  I think there was a game in San Diego where they couldn’t keep the deck dry, and I don’t remember them ever doing another one.  Anyway, this game feels a little like that.  The location is kind of a gimmick.  Hey guys, wouldn’t be wild if played a football game – in Yankee Stadium!!!  I’m kind of over it.  Just play in the Meadowlands or something if you want to play in New York.  I’m kind of over it.  Not sure if it’s a coincidence or not (it probably is), but the games scheduled to play in Fenway Park and Petco Park were both cancelled.  Maybe that’s a sign.

 

Cheez-It Bowl (5:45 PM ESPN)

Vegas Line: Clemson -2.5

Median Pick: Clemson for 12 points.

Picks for Clemson: 33 (21.00 points average, 693 total points, 24^th)

Picks for Iowa State: 18 (17.44 points average, 314 total points, 57^th)

Total points wagered: 1007 (23^rd)

Pick distribution:

Another sponsor that chose the VIP package.  I happen to like Cheez-Its, so I’m good with that.  Remember when Clemson was a top 3 team?  It was the start of the season.  I think that they’ve got to be disappointed with this.  I’m sure at the start of the season, they weren’t thinking they would be playing in the Cheez It Bowl.  Then again, no one starts the season with that as a goal.  Hey guys – our goal for this year is to won 6+ games so maybe we’ll get an invite to a third tier bowl game!!!!  Play hard!!

Valero Alamo Bowl (9:15 PM ESPN)

Vegas Line: Oklahoma -6.5

Median Pick: Oklahoma for 21 points.

Picks for Oklahoma: 36 (24.25 points average, 873 total points, 18^th)

Picks for Oregon: 15 (15.20 points average, 228 total points, 64^th)

Total points wagered: 1101 (20^th)

Pick distribution:

I’ve got nothing on the Alamo Bowl.  I should be able to calculate odds after this, so I hope it’s a game with no penalties, lots of time-consuming drives and a running clock.  The sooner this game ends, the sooner I can calculate odds.  Come on clock!!!!

So, we’ll see how many of these games get played.  We’ve already lost one, so I put the O/U at 2.5 again.  This time I’m going to take the over.  I’m feeling lucky.

Good luck everyone!!!!!