Grading the losses
Nevada 2h -2.5 -- Trailing at the half and I thought they left points behind in the first half. Defense had been playing well. Thought it would be a rare game where Fajardo was bad both halves and the Nevada team as a whole had been good late in games all year. Their offense just sputtered the entire 2h and this was the wrong side.
WKU -3.5 -- This was the game that ended my bowl streak and was one of the five toughest beats I have ever had. To be fair, I had the Houston Cougars which was probably the luckiest win I ever had too. It is really hard for me yo be super angry with wku since they came through with a huge moneyline score for me a few weeks prior against Marshall. Pretty sure wku was the correct side.
UNC -3 -- I had extra on this game having watched a lot of both teams throughout the year. I really felt that UNC had turned a corner and thought Rutgers was better early than late. I thought the game would come down to the better offense winning and I really like Fedora play calling as a general rule. I saw little over the course of the season to tell me that UNC could be stopped by the knights. I liked some motivation angles with the rivalry loss heading into this one as well. Rutgers controlled the line of scrimmage all night long until the backups were in late. They won special teams, were more motivated, had better qb play, better playcalling, beat unc at the LOS and were just the all around superior team. UNC looked so flat in this game... and so while it was evident very quickly to me that the game was Rutgers and that Williams was going to have a long night, I wonder what happens if they had both showed up. Wrong side and arguably my worst pick of the bowl season (nice to have extra on that ).
UCF -2 -- This was one of only a couple of games I didn't watch much of. I, in fact, had a date that night. Yes, old people date. I did go through the boxscore and play by play. NCSU had over a hundred more yards of offense and 5 more first downs. They controlled the game throughout. The bet was a backing of the UCF defense and a bit of nonbelief in the ncstate football team. Brissett played well and UCF had trouble getting him down or contained when they got pressure. I knew ucf was overrated, felt their defense was overrated but thought both were good enough to handle the pack. Bad play and by the end of bowl season, I realized this year was one where there was a wider gap between power 5 conference levels and smaller conference ones. wrong side.
Cin -3 and over 50 -- I actually really like how I had this game capped. I felt a healthy Kiel could have success on VT and that it would be up to Brewer and the hokies offense to keep up. While not a huge fan of the bearcat defense, I thought the hokies offense was fairly inept most of the year (though their stats weren't as bad as you or I probably thought they were) and if the game was close late I get Tuberville and Kiel and the other side of the counter is left with Beamer and Brewer. It ended up taking a lot to not win both investments. Cinci lit them up the entire first half and little to show for it and Gunner got rocked on a sack early third qtr that not only led to a vt fumble return td but knocked the best player on the field, a future nfl star if he can figure out how to not be hurt every week, out of the game. With normal backup Munchie already out hurt they had to go to third stringer. Even with the third stringer playing almost the entire 2h, the bearcats had 155 more yards of offense than VT. I managed a push on the total thanks to some lucky fg kicking by the vt kicker and bearcat turnovers that directly led to vt points but the impetus for the side and total was cin moving the ball on vt and they certainly did that ... to the tune of 489 yards .... and dare I say they might have had 600 if gunner is playing both halves? Good bets here.
asu/duke under 65.5 -- I will just post the box score. This game angered me quite a bit as it was right after the bad luck cin game. Suffice it to say the amount of pts was ridiculous given yardage. 4th down conversions and special teams led to the disaster as did amazing fg kicking.
22213rd down efficiency
4-1310-204th down efficiency
2-44-4Total Yards392400Passing240235Comp-Att
24-3417-33Yards per pass
7.17.1Rushing152165Rushing Attempts
3544Yards per rush
4.33.8Penalties2-104-35Turnovers02Fumbles lost
01Interceptions thrown
01Possession24:2934:27
How did they get to 67 again?
Scary/miami over 61 -- I got a lot wrong here ... namely pace of play and my expectation of playcalling. I felt both coaches failed to attack the weaknesses of the opposing defenses with weapons to do so. In Spurriers defense Thompson was playing so bad on so many different levels, it was hard to trust him with the football. This never had a shot and when I recapped the game afterwards, there were a couple red flags that might have shown this outcome coming.
psu/bc under -- wrong side. confusing that it was so but i also had an instinct that it might be the case. i went with the raw data but bet it small because of what my gut was telling me. Math > Gut for me generally but not here.
usc -7 -- didnt watch it, didnt review it
oklahoma -3.5 -- whoops.
i will get to the rest later. have to get to work