Week 17
Happy New Year! May yours be full of covers.
College Football
Matt: What had been a very profitable college football regular season for me has turned downright disastrous in the postseason—my last four CFB picks have resulted in three losses and a cancellation. I’m hoping that the major bowls kicking off this New Year’s weekend can get me off the schneid, but in a world where not even the Rose Bowl is immune from the trend of top players skipping bowl games to focus on NFL Draft preparation, I have my doubts about my ability to pick these games correctly. And in this business, when you start to doubt yourself, the house has already won.
So, how do I get my groove back? First and foremost, we’re taking games with major voluntary absences off the board because we just don’t have enough data to compute how teams will do without these players (most egregious example: who’s worse off, Pitt without Kenny Pickett or Michigan State without Kenneth Walker III? I have no goddamn idea). Next, we’re tasked with armchair-psychoanalyzing the motivations of teams at this stage of the season—e.g., is Rutgers excited to get a last-minute call to play in the TaxSlayer Gator Bowl, or are the players more annoyed that their vacation was cut short? Finally, we have to try and discount recent form, like Iowa getting absolutely embarrassed in the Big Ten title game, because nobody’s played in almost four weeks.
Then, and only then, can we push forward with trying to make a smart pick this week. Plenty of intriguing games this week (like both playoff games) but I keep coming back to the Allstate Sugar Bowl featuring Baylor and Ole Miss. This is certainly not a letdown game for either team—on the contrary, reaching the Sugar Bowl is a remarkable achievement for each, and I expect both schools to be excited to be there. Neither team appears to have lost any of its major pieces to draft prep, so no concerns there. This also profiles as a 50/50 sort of matchup so I think we’ll avoid the not-uncommon bowl scenario where an overwhelming favorite jumps out to an early lead and the underdog just packs it in.
The only trouble is that I’m not sure who I think will actually win this game, but we’ll avoid that issue by taking the over on what strikes me as a surprisingly low 55.5 O/U. Unfamiliarity (they haven’t played each other since 1975) tends to favor offenses, and both of these teams have good ones.
Matt’s Saturday pick: Over 55.5, Baylor vs. Ole Miss
NFL
Matt: Another week, another set of NFL lines I hate and can’t seem to figure out.
The problem isn’t the lines, of course. The problem is me. My rules don’t work and my ability to suss out what’s going to happen this season is practically nonexistent. The Dolphins losing 7 straight and then winning 7 straight? Should’ve seen it coming. The Bengals leading the AFC North and posting the best point differential in the division by 87 points? Not sure how I missed it. Jonathan Taylor, MVP candidate? Obvious in hindsight.
What’s a dumb guy like me to do? My little brain thought about this a lot all week, and I’ve decided to lay the most points possible by taking the Patriots -16 at home against the Jags. I hate giving up more than a touchdown when picking NFL lines and I especially hate ever taking the Patriots, but perhaps I only hate those things because I am an imbecile, and a much brighter human being would have no compunction doing either of them.
It’s not so bad, I guess. Bill Belichick’s track record against rookie quarterbacks is laughably ridiculous: 24-6 overall, 13-0 at home, and the opposing QBs have thrown more than twice as many INTs as TDs. Plus the Pats have proven themselves to be a solid team whereas I’ve run out of negative superlatives to describe the Jags. Alright, I’m talking myself into this now. Take the good team by a lot over the bad team, basic stuff even your resident dimwitted fool can understand.
Matt’s Sunday pick: PATRIOTS (-16) over Jaguars
Keeping score:
Matt: 17-16
Andy: 10-13