Happy (Belated) New Year (Random Thoughts)

Welcome to 2025.

I hope your 2024 was OK, and that you and yours are doing well.  Obviously, I've been a little silent here for the last couple of months. And yes, there is an explanation for that other than just being lazy. The wife had a medical procedure and I've been working from home and doubling as caregiver. A full time job both.

Since we last wrote a LOT of sportsy stuff has happened.

1. The First (expanded) College Football Playoff has been, as expected, somewhat of a dud. Fans of the SEC have argued that the reason for this is the exclusion of 9-3 SEC teams from the playoffs in favor of teams from other conferences with better overall records.  This argument totally ignores the fact that almost all of the semi-final games of the 4-team CFP were also crap. There were years that the SEC was arguably the most dominant conference in College Football. That has not been the case these last two years and the CFP Committee did a pretty good job IMO.  Altering the formula to include more SEC teams going forward (which is the SEC's goal, not getting the "best" teams) will only weaken the CFP going forward.  We're getting closer and closer to the B1G and SEC leaving all of the other conferences behind anyway, so this is probably all a moot point. 

On another note: It could help to decouple the CFP from ESPN and spread the games around between ESPN, Fox and CBS.  Not going to happen for a while due to contracts, but the CFP should consider it.

2. Strangely, the Wild Card Round of the NFL playoffs also was, largely, a dud. Clearly the answer is that they should have invited more SEC teams....

I kid here but the real problem, for the NFL, is that they have a very evident top tier of teams, and then some good teams, and then everyone else. Kansas City, Detroit, Buffalo, Baltimore are clearly the top tier. Houston and LA have proven themselves as the cream of the 2nd tier, with the remaining playoff teams falling in line.  Then you have Cincinnati and Miami(?) along with a handful of other teams that could compete if they shore up some things.  Then everyone else.

Regardless, in today's NFL you need a coach and a quarterback or you have nothing. Granted, you have to put together other pieces to be really great, but if you don't have those two things in place (and, possibly, a top flight-running back) then you are not going to be very successful.

3. Golf is back. (good) So is Tomorrow's Golf League (pending). I watched the premier of the TGL and was a little unenthused. Maybe Tiger playing tonight will add some buzz? Having a competitive matchup might help as well.  That said, watching the green undulate and change is only going to go so far, as are the weird-assed hole designs that they created.

In the end, exciting golf (I know, it sounds like an oxymoron but it's not) is about shot making. Great shots make for great golf. Another thing they're going to be missing is Mother Nature herself. Bad lies, wind, rain, the elements, all make for challenging golf courses which is something the TGL is never going to be able to replicate.  From what I can see, there will be no awful lies in the TGL and that's a problem for them.

4. College Basketball is much better than NBA basketball right now and it's not close.  The Association has a problem. I'm not going to say much about this right now but might have more to say later. Let's just leave it at this: NBA basketball is a slog right now with a few notable exceptions. TV ratings are backing this up.

5. In the debate over "junk fees" it appears that the resorts are winning. Politicians have made some noise about them, but most of the ones who got riled up lost the last election cycle.

6. Speaking of 'junk'. I saw an ad last night, running in Texas, calling for an election related to "allowing destination resorts in Texas." It shows just how bad things are for casino resorts that they cannot even call themselves what they are. Even worse, Texas already has "destination resorts" in the form of the Gaylord, Great Wolf Lodge and Kahlahari. What Texas does not have, and I don't believe they're going to get as long as the current leadership is in place, are "Casino Resorts". That said it's not going to do any favors to the casinos to continue to try and hide what they are. Normalizing the debate around this means that, first, you must admit what you are. The continued subterfuge just adds credibility to the naysayers arguments that the casinos cannot be trusted.

7. I would be remiss if I did not add a note of condolence and encouragement to the people of LA who are currently living out a real-time Dante's Inferno. From the horrific images to the tragic loss of life to the first responders who are doing everything they can despite being hamstrung by prior public policy decisions.  Y'all hang in there and we'll be praying that you get some dying winds and sustained rain soon.

8. RIP to Jimmy Carter. He was a devoted husband and father by all accounts. Here's wishing his loved ones peace and comfort.

9. After watching the NFL Wild Card games I noticed a few items that went unaddressed by the pundits on TV.  First, the Houston Texans defense was much improved, probably, because of the return to active play of Al-Shaair. That seemed to be a bigger issue than people thought.  Second, NFL officiating has been just about as bad as it's ever been all year long. It got worse in the playoffs.  Something needs to be done to address this. Third, if we're going to really make use of reviews the decisions need to be removed from the officials on the field. Have the command center make the final decisions.

With that, we will end this. I wish all of you, or the few of you still reading this, good health, wealth and happiness during this new year.

News Round-Up (11/12/2024)

 Promising to be an "election free" zone....

Texas, pay-for-play, Michelin Guide is being revealed. Although you probably did not get an invitation to the roll-out.  My reaction is a huge "meh".  Although I was surprised to see tiny BBQ joint Brisket and Rice included in the mentions.  Have to go by there some time.

There was a time when nutritional science did discourage consumption of seed oils.  That was obviously before the "wrong" people started speaking out against them. It's amazing how politics infects seemingly everything. (And the depths to which "science" has devolved)

Just a quick reminder that we're not yet out of Hurricane Season.

For some reason I'm having a hard time getting fired up about the DC Reboot. Maybe it's because James Gunn is running things? I'm not sure.

That said. I'm not that enthusiastic about the upcoming Marvel stuff either. Disney just doesn't know what to do with it now.

I liked the Big Bang Theory, except for the horrid ending.  Yes, I would like to see a follow-up special that fixes that, but I don't think it's going to happen given the career arc of the actors. Sometimes you just have to let things be.

I am, actually, looking forward to Landman. Almost enough to get a subscription to Paramount+

I'm starting to think the Houston Texans are not all that good.  I'm also starting to think that some teams might have dodged a bullet in Bobby Slowik. They are also seemingly trying to get CJ Stroud killed.

This just in. Willie Fritz is a good coach.

It's not that he's lacking in results (he's not, HISD is actually improving) but Mike Miles might be in the running for most unlikable political leader in Houston.

If you own a home in Harris County your property taxes are going to go up, a LOT. You don't need this calculator. Rodney and Lina are going to tax you until your eyes bleed.

Sigh.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming. (SPORTS!!!!)

Now that we have the election nonsense behind us we can return our focus to sports, and sports gambling, which is the focus of this little corner of blogging and what I enjoy writing about the most.  I'm just going to touch on a few things today that have happened while I was out in Las Vegas and relatedly, while I was sick with the travel crud afterwards.

1. The CFP early ranking remain crap. Nothing against them really, but they don't mean shit at this point. The only thing that we really learned from them are two things. First, the CFP committee understands their marketing obligations to the B1G and the SEC. They are in love with brands, not teams. I don't think this will change any in the future. Second, I'm not as upset about Boise State being close to BYU as most people are. While I feel for Indiana, they have it all in front of them. But if Boise State and BYU played on a neutral field I feel the former would be favored.  Who I feel for is Army, who might be the best of the Group of 5 teams but who might not get a chance to show it.  The CFP committee says that they "watch all of the games" but that is certainly not true. Otherwise the rankings would look far different than what they do.

2. The NFL is top-heavy this year. Kansas City, Baltimore, Detroit, Buffalo. Those are the 4 teams right now that seem like they are Super Bowl Contenders. Teams that we thought might be good (Houston, San Francisco, Tampa Bay) don't seem to be all that good. There are other teams out there with winning records but they don't seem to really have a shot. The fact is the NFL is not very entertaining this year. Most games are poor, the officiating is borderline awful, and the fact that you only get three games per day without paying for a package that's not available unless you subscribe to a certain service makes Sundays must-miss TV.  And no, NBC, we are not waiting all day for Sunday Night, we're using that time to get ready for work on Monday.

3. College basketball is BACK. There have already been upsets, the return of Calipari and a handful of teams that looked REALLY good so far. This is going to be a REALLY good season, and Big XII Men's Basketball is going to be fire.

4. The NBA is back.  Zzzzzzzzzz.  Call me when the playoffs start.

5. The NHL is starting off hot. Scoring is up, there are some amazing things happening on the ice, there's a new(ish) hockey team in Utah. Oh yeah.

We're currently in the best time of the year, a time where football is on TV 7 nights per week. There's not day without a football game until almost Thanksgiving. Yes, some of it is bad, really bad, but it's a needed reprieve from the noise that surrounds the world right now. And, if you don't like the football games, there's basketball and hockey on if you're looking for something to do.

Since I was in Las Vegas and then down with the travel crud there will be no discussion of sports gaming this week. I honestly have not had the energy or time to re-run my numbers but I'm going to get them updated Sunday morning so I should be ready to go next week.

Good luck this week however you choose to play. 

This is no longer a political blog. (Election Day 2024) [Updated, the morning after]

But I will leave you with one, rather important, political reminder as you go out and cast your ballot today.

It matters not they who vote. What matters is they who are counting the votes. 

Remember that as events unfold over the next few days/weeks/months.

In my attempts to be pithy I undersold some pretty important things:

1. The meltdown of the Democratic Party last night and this morning has been a sight to behold. It's almost as if their attempts to hide Biden's declining mental capacity, thwarting the will of their primary voters during the run-up to Harris' "nomination" (coronation) and their terrible campaign strategy had nothing to do with the loss blindsided them.

2. Make no mistake about it, Harris was a terribly flawed candidate. I imagine that, after the emotion is finally spent, Democrats will (in their quiet places) admit to this. That said I doubt they have the self-awareness to really understand the voter's message here.

3. Speaking of self-reflection: Will the pollsters, especially in Texas, take a good, hard look at how they got everything so, so terribly wrong?  Doubtful.

4. More importantly, will the media have the ability to take an honest looked at where they effed all of this up?  Again, doubtful.

5. In an election where one party ran on "we don't like him" it's no surprise that the voters sent mixed-messages. Apparently being told you're awful is a powerful reason to vote against, even IF you agree with many of the proposals.

What a world.

College Football look back Week 7 (And a look ahead to Week 8)

 My apologies for the radio silence last week, life got in the way.

After last week's game of the Century (of the week, again) we get ready for what ESPN is breathlessly calling "Possibly the BEST weekend in College Football HISTORY!!!!")

Meh.

I mean, Georgia v. Texas is probably going to be pretty good, and Alabama v. Tennessee is very promising, in the early window Indiana v. Nebraska has much potential but, after that, there are some good games but not many that I look at as right out bangers.

You do have to understand ESPN's position here however. They're trying their damndest to sell a still skeptical public on the joys of a 12 team playoff. Convincing us at every turn that the expansion of the playoff has not deemphasized the regular season.

Except that it has.

UGA lost to Alabama and yet their still right in it. Even IF they lose to Texas this weekend they're probably not right out of it because (rightly or wrongly) they'll still be viewed as one of the top teams in the Country because of the committee's SEC bias. A two-loss Georgia team is certainly still in the mix,

Who shouldn't be? Probably Alabama. Who, since beating Georgia, has looked bad. LSU who is definitely not great, and Ole Miss, who are overrated and continue to be despite their offense looking terrible over the past few weeks.

My thought was always that the SEC was overrated this year, and the non-conference results proved it. Outside of UGA destroying a not-too-good Clemson team, the SEC's OOC results were sub-par. I'm not saying the teams suck (they don't) but having them dominate the top 10 is a little ridiculous at this point. It's reputational rankings, not results-based rankings and I've a feeling this is exactly how the committee is going to view things when they finally have a say.

Perhaps the best story of the college football season are Army and Navy both sitting undefeated at 6-0. Both have good teams and are not there by means of a fluke. Army has been one of the most watchable teams of the season so-far and Navy looks strong. Notre Dame may want to rethink some of those "traditional rivalry" games that they used to feat on to pad their record.

As I said though, there's a LOT of watchable shit on TV this Saturday. There are some lines I believe are still vulnerable as well.

Utah (-4.5) over TCU - The Horned Frogs have NOT been good this year and, despite Cam Rising being out for the year (Sorry Cam, you deserved better) the Utes play strong defense and I cannot see TCU scoring any at all here.

Iowa (-5) over Michigan State - Michigan State is rebuilding, Iowa suddenly can play offense. I think the Hawkeyes win big here, but I also think that it's time for Kirk Ferentz to go.

South Florida (-13.5) over UAB - The hiring of Trent Dilfer might have been the worst head coaching hire of the off-season. The Blazers deserve better than this mess of a team.

Northern Illinois (-3) over Toledo - Yes, I realize that Northern Illinois has been inconsistent since beating Notre Dame and becoming the G5 Belle of the Ball, but Toledo has looked even worse since their 41-17 shellacking of a pretty putrid Mississippi State team. I liked this much better at -2.5 when I took it, but it still seems OK at -3.

South Carolina (+1.5) over OU - The Gamecocks being underdogs to OU is amazing to me here. I got this line at +3 which seems like a steal right now. The Sooners are reeling, they have almost all of their offensive production on the sideline, and the Gamecocks can play defense. I'm tempted to double down on the ML here to be perfectly honest.

Unlike two weeks ago, which I neglected to write about, I think there will be some upsets this week but it's not going to be the Top 15 blood bath that it was then. I think Michigan is very vulnerable to the Illini and I think Indiana might be in for tougher than they think against Nebraska.  That said, unlike in previous weeks there seem to be competitive games that could warrant watching in every window. It should be a fun game of College Football.

PSA: We're getting very close to the CFB Playoff Committee issuing their first rankings of the season. As a reminder, these rankings are crap, they do nothing but serve to fuel TV talk fodder and are about as useless as PAC-12 officials. Ignore them, and focus on the season, not the fake rankings designed to give First Take some content.

Enjoy the weekend and good luck however you decide to play these games.

College Football Look-Back Week 5 (And a look-ahead to week 6)

Do you remember, way back (OK, around 5-6 weeks ago) at the beginning of the season when I said that all of these early season Top 25 polls are pretty much useless?

Today we give you the 3rd Number 1 team in all the land in three weeks.  Welcome to the Party Alabama. Long may you reign (until the next game of the season, of the month, of the week that is). That said, at this point, I would argue that Alabama does have the best win of the season to date and has been adjusted to number one in my power rankings, but that doesn't mean that any of that matters at this point. What IS going to matter are the CFP Committee rankings, and even then those are worthless until the last poll, which, really, is the only one that matters.

That doesn't mean that the polls are not good for something.

That something being sports talk show fodder and milestones for teams like UNLV which has found itself ranked for the first time in school history. Regardless of my feelings on in-season polling, that's somewhat of a big deal for them. Congratulations Rebels.

I had also stated earlier that I thought Missouri and Ole Miss were two of the most overrated teams in the Country.  I was proven correct on Ole Miss, Missouri is likely to continue to be overrated and will win this week against equally (albeit lower in the rankings) UCF which will drive them even higher.

I'm starting to buy-in to Tennessee, begrudgingly, they still haven't played a top team, but I'm not a believer in Michigan, as that USC win is looking more and more like "meh".

Another area where I think people are getting it wrong is in the Heisman race. To my mind, there are only three players who really should deserve serious discussion right now.  Boise State's Jeanty, Colorado's Hunter & Alabama's Milroe.  I get that the flavor of the year has been Cam Ward so far, but he's not even the best player on his own team, that honor probably goes to Reuben Bain.

We're not going to go a long way towards unwinding this mess this week either. The most telling game might be Mizzou at aTm, Kyle Field is a rough place to play but the Aggies are unranked and have issues trying to rebuild from the Jimbo Fisher error. BYU will get a huge test at home versus Arizona. The Wildcats can be dangerous, although inconsistent on offense with QB Fifita but they have been inconsistent this year on both sides of the ball. Ohio State seems to have a speed advantage over Iowa but the Hawkeyes have actually been.....decent? on offense this year.  I kind of lean over in that one.

From a betting angle I'm really liking UNLv (-6.5) over Syracuse. What the Rebels looked like last week against a solid Fresno State team was impressive.

I'm also a fan of some undogs this week. Some to cover, some to win outright.

Michigan State +24 vs. Oregon. Look, they held in there for a bit at Ohio State and Oregon is NO Ohio State.

Missouri (ML) @ aTm. I've said above, Kyle Field is a tough place to play. I think Mizzou is that much better than Aggie.

North Carolina (ML) @ Pitt  The Tarheels have been one of the most snake-bitten teams in college football this season, and it feels like this on is the one that Mack Brown should hang it up. That said, my numbers have a pretty good lean toward North Carolina and I just feel like the old guy has one more upset left in him.

Army (-11.5) vs. Tulsa. This one is pretty simple. My numbers have Army by 17 here. Army is good, Tulsa is not. Sometimes you just have to trust your numbers and don't overthink it.

West Virginia vs Oklahoma State (u65.5). Neither offense has been even all that good this season and my numbers have this at around 56.5. I just can't see an offensive explosion here.

Florida (ML) vs. UCF.  The Gator faithful are just about to run Billy Napier out of town. UCF came into the season with a lot of buzz but the "quality" wins they have had (Houston, TCU) are feeling less and less quality as the weeks drag on. The Knights loss to Colorado was ugly as they got boat-raced out of the Bounce House (and even let Colorado run the ball successfully, which is almost unpossible if you're a good defensive team. I think Florida's young QB looks better This line opened at -1.5 Gators at home, which I thought was about right. when it switched to UCF -2.5 I jumped on Gators ML.

And finally....

Michigan (ML) vs. Washington. I know, I know, I know. I have a rule against betting on teams I root for.  This one is a pure analytics play. I have Michigan as being much better than Washington. That Michigan is an underdog makes zero sense based on what I'm seeing.  The Wolverines with Orji in at QB have been much better than when he's on the bench.  I had to take a little shot. Since I have broken my unwritten rule though you should probably fade this bet since I'm almost guaranteeing they are going to lose.

The Country the Missus has chosen for our College Football Cooking Spectacular is Germany.  I'm planning on Beer Broiled Brats, a Gluten free Schnitzel and all the gluten free beer and Schnapps she can drink.

Have fund this weekend.  Two, pretty good, small school games tonight and a full 5 games on  Friday.

Thursday:

Texas State @ Troy - 6:00PM CDT (ESPNU)

Sam Houston @ UTEP - 8:00PM CDT (CBS Sports Network)

Friday:

Jacksonville State @ Kennesaw State - 6:00PM CDT (CBS Sports Network)

New Hampshire @ Harvard - 6:00PM CDT (ESPN+ ONLY)

Houston @ TCU - 6:30PM CDT (ESPN)

Michigan State @ Oregon*** 8:00PM CDT (Fox)

Syracuse @ UNLV*** - 8:00PM CDT (FS1)

*** I have action on these games.