They Lost...

...28-21. The announcers say OSU has no chance at the national championship now. I don't see why not. LSU and Oregon each have a loss, and they are for today at No. 2 and 3. It may the strength of OSU's schedule this year - commentators seem to be saying the Big Ten is not that strong of a conference, and that SEC, for example, is better.

We'll see.

RFSJ

Yikes!

Illinois is beating Ohio State 28-21 with 3:38 to go. It does not look good.

RFSJ

College Football Week 8 Results

Well, the good news: Ohio State is still No. 1 after a b it of a squeeker against Michigan State. On to #24 Penn State on Saturday.

The other news: I picked 9 of 16 correctly in last week's games. You might recall I picked every favored team to beat its point spread as an experiment to see what affected point spreads have on a purely random selection. I'm not sure of any conclusions, but it seems the point spread serves the same purposes as a handicap in golf - it allows teams not as good as other teams to still compete, at least in the eyes of the betting parlors. So now it kinda makes sense to some degree. Without the point spread, a pure pick-who-will-win scenario will almost always favor the higher ranked teams, and that's who a savvy bettor should always pick to win. The point spread serves to even the odds. I wonder why it took me so long to figure this out? I guess I had to do the experiment to see what is probably clear to every other fan of college football out there!

I will post this week's picks when I actually do the selection. Any suggestions?

RFSJ

College Football Week 8

As an experiment, I selected every favored team this week to beat their point spread. Last week I got about 50% right, and I've averaged 50% over the course of the season thus far. Not every favored team will beat its assigned point spread, of course, but I wonder what percentage actually do. I mean, does point spread mean anything otherwise?

We'll see.....

RFSJ

Ohio State Is Number 1!

Wow. Last week's No. 1 and No. 2 teams both lost. That hasn't happened in a while, so the sports reporters tell us. But it does make last week's No. 3 now suddenly the No. 1 team in the country! Go Bucks!

It turns out that I didn't do so hot last week - exactly 10 games of 20 predicted correctly. For the season I am 78 of 154. That's basically 50% - what you'd expect if I were randomly selecting the teams. However, since this arrangement is based on point spread and not strictly random, it turns out that in the world-wide rankings I actually gained - I am now 7,032nd in the world, a gain of 2,090 places. Amazing that being right half the time is so rare, actually. And in the Fans of Ohio State and in the Fans from New Jersey subgroups I gained as well. Huh.

I will post next week's picks closer to the weekend. You can be sure I will watch the OSU game on TV if I possibly can!

RFSJ