Right Side Losers
Utah/BYU under
Appst/ohio under
Boise/NIU under
Indiana
clemson/ou over
iowa/stanford under
Ark/kst under
Wrong Side Winners
Utah
tcu/oregon over
I did rather well in coin flips though. I guess the Arkansas game is the game I feel most unlucky in. I feel that particular game, I had capped extremely well and a lot had to happen for it to go over the number, most notably the early turnovers and the incredible special teams events throughout it only saw 811 yards most of which came from one team who only scored more because of the fluke scores of kst ... a short field off a turnover td and a blown coverage for a td was all the offense they basically could muster. Appst/Ohio Under was probably the most clear bad beat from a statistical standpoint when you consider the defensive scores and turnovers needed .. even straight yardage was under 700 total yards. Boise/NIU had 687 yards of total offense and 62 pts. Utah/BYU had 586 yards of total offense and 63 pts, stanford/iowa had 716 yards of total offense and 61 pts because there was an interception for a td, a pass for a td on the first play of the game, a punt return for a td, a backdoor td against backups and then a bomb for a td when a team should have been taking knees (ok maybe this was the worst one). Indiana was your traditional better team loser .. kickoff return td for the opponent, better fg kicking from opponent, turnover problems, a lot more yards and looked far superior but found a way to lose on a made fg BY INDIANA on the last play of the game. You won't get to say that very often.
As for the lucky wins.... I suppose Utah was the luckiest. They were outgained by 189 and never showed the ability to move the football in the game. Benefited from a ton of turnovers. Of course this coincided with a right side loser on the total so it was hardly beneficial (nor was the total loss painful). The other one was the overtime affair with tcu/oregon the other night. Obviously the over was the wrong side in the game at kickoff. In my defense, no boykin and Adams out at halftime and I made some pretty well thought out strategic moves to make that game a winner ... including my belief the tcu offense would improve as the game went on as it clearly did. I cannot really find any other wrong side winners over the course of the entire bowl season.
So just looking at full games (not halftimes where I lost multiple unders where one of the two teams failed to score in the half..) I feel i was roughly minus 5 games in the luck factor though I do feel I ran decent on coin flips.
My worst bets were clearly the following:
NCState - I did and still do believe that miss st is a not very good football team but I overestimated ncstate's ability and while I knew Brissett was bad, I was hoping for better. I also somewhat liked the under in that football game which was clearly incorrect so it was really just a horribly capped game.
tulsa/vt under - I knew there was a threat of a shootout breaking out in that game if tulsa was able to move the ball. If not, I thought VT would control clock with their running game. They moved it at will and the game had over 100 pts. Whoops
WVU/ASU under - I bet that game with ASU and under because I liked the sun devils run defense and felt Howard was one of the worst power 5 QB's in the country. One of my biggest fears heading into the game was that he might get injured or suspended. As it turns out, he threw for over 500 yards and had the best bowl game in terms of passing yards from anyone at that position. So I suppose that is horribly handicapped. I still cannot believe it.
NW - Outmatched. Vols just physically dominated the wildcats all game long.
Ark St - Latech was jekyll and hyde all year .... cashed in both to become Voodoo witch doctors against ark st. Defense simply had no answer
memphis and over - almost forgot about this gem of a loser. ya that was badly capped. Guess all Auburn needed in order to become a good defense was to be rid of Muschamp. Fuentes mattered more than expected and Lynch was exposed. If you are an nfl fan, pray your team does not waste money by drafting him.
pitt/navy -- screwed up as far as handicapping pace. navy was running midfifties in number of offensive plays per game and ran 89 in this one. I didnt see it coming nor did i see the increase in passing plays coming.
All in all, pretty damn happy about how bowl season went again this year.
I am not going to lie to you guys, there is a decent chance I don't handicap or watch college football next season. There is an opportunity cost to handicapping this sport as compared to doing things worth more money. It was a financial sacrifice i was willing to make while loving the sport but this has become very difficult to be entertained by. It has gotten out of hand and they need to find a balance between offense and defense again to get my renewed interest. Please fix the game.
Great year regardless of the outcome in the championship. I think the two best teams are in the finals right now, though I admit I thought OU matched up well with clemson. Grats to both teams and their fans and alumni.
