We slammed a fifth of Powerthirst after waking up this morning, and the Curious Index is now the FURIOUS INDEX! Thus, it’s only fair we start things off with something satisfyingly harsh, like Pantera in front of tens of thousands of angry Russians. Mind the language, of course, but it’s likely your boss might care a bit more about the fact that it’s Pantera than if an F bomb gets dropped. Plus you can’t even understand any of the lyrics anyway.

Who the hell is “Terrelle Pryor”?: Recruiting minutia for those of you who care about this stuff… some Pryor kid, who seems more interested in basketball than football, has committed to the “University of Ohio State.” aren’t they in the MAC or something? Regardless, we expect this to have absolutely no effect on the college football world for the next four-five years. None whatsoever. We’re certain that Michigan faithful would rise up with pitchforks and torches and throw Rich Rodriguez into Lake Huron in 2010 anyway. Anyway, worst kept secret turns into not secret at all, and the other members of the BXI now have their excuse why they plan to lose to Ohio State 90-0 for the next four years.

June Jones cares about defense, pants: An alert reader sends us this tip:

But here was the big surprise — June Jones was coaching the defense. Seriously. I expected him to be right behind the quarterbacks talking to them about everything, but instead he had a notebook in his hand and after each play he’d flip it open and show something to the defense — I’m guessing a formation he wanted them to line up in. He even lined up as the right end a few times and at the snap would take a couple of steps into the backfield, like a rusher.

Picture evidence, which is too large for the constraints of this site, is here. There is no denying, now, that SMU is controlling Jones like Scientology. First, the clothes: Jones, who used to dress like a bad mix of a Jimmy Buffett fan and Bernie Focker, is posing in suits with the SMU brass. Now the former Hawaii coach thinks he’s a defensive guru. Don’t be surprised when, by July, Tom Cruise hears June’s name, thinks he’s a girl, and instinctively gets him pregnant.

Did we say “aggravated murder by arson?” We mean “misdemeanor.”: Charges against a Penn State player have been dropped. No, this is not a repeat. This time it’s Tyrell Sales, cited last Saturday for hollerating, and charges have now poof disappeared. This follows a long line of exorbitant Penn State charges that haven’t even come close to sticking, which just goes to show what happens when you hire Fericito as your attorney general. The Big Board will reflect the adjustment, assuming it was ever changed in the first place.

Did you have a good day with your bracket?: Yes, so did everybody else. It’s not like you had Georgia in the Elite 8 or any… oh God, you did, didn’t you. It’s okay, you didn’t need that money. Your wife can live off canned food for a while.

Solon, our gambling columnist for the past two years, has retired. He walked away when the dealing was done…just as a gambler should.

The semi-retirement of EDSBS gambling columnist has us recruiting new talent. And when we say talent, we mean it: we’re looking for a degenerate gambler with a bloodlust for even the paltriest of bets. We’re looking for the following:

–Can type quickly.
–Knows college football
–”Knows” betting
–Knows what it’s like to lose possessions to creditors as a result of “knowing” betting
–Has a sense of humor, broad reference base, eclectic tastes, and ability to make point in two paragraphs or less.
–Is not currently incarcerated.
–Will likely not be incarcerated or at least sentenced until the end of bowl season.

If this sounds like you, email us at harumphharumph of the yahoo variety. We offer nothing but bunda pictures we pulled for free off the internet as compensation for a weekly column of picks for the week. We give you 3-1 you can’t resist the call of uncompensated work.

On a hectic pre-holiday Friday, Solon chips in his final bowl picks. Enjoy.

Greetings all.

All things considered, while this has been a thoroughly dissatisfying season for me, I suppose things should be put in perspective; after an uneven 6-11 start, I recovered to go on a 49-24 run–as good an extended run as I have ever had–before stumbling to a 17-28 (and counting) finish–as bad an extended run as I have ever had.

A wiser man than myself once said that the bottom line in this game is that you win some, you lose some, and you hope you win more than you lose. While for the better part of November I wondered if the first part of that adage was true, even in this, one of my more personally disappointing seasons, I have been able to accomplish this task; anyone using my selections, wagering with the traditional 10-11 vigorish, would show a profit for the season.

Profit! It’s what’s for dinner.

My two-year record stands at 156-124, a much more robust 55.7%; generally, a percentage above 55% is considered professional-level quality, and every season a 55% winning percentage is my stated goal. I will fall short of that number this season unless I am able to run the table with my final five selections, which given my current form is highly unlikely; hopefully this off-season I will learn some lessons and come back strong when next season starts.

As it stands (I am writing this Thursday night), my record for the year is 72-63, a winning percentage of 53.3%; please note that I still have wagers on South Carolina and Texas Tech still pending, in addition to those listed below. Hopefully I can close it out strong and build a little momentum for next season. Here are my final selections for the season:

COTTON BOWL, Dallas, TX

Nebraska (+1) v. Auburn

As I have said many times, I thought Auburn was overrated for much of the season. (more…)

Greetings all.

The Bowl season is upon us, which presents a unique challenge for the bettor. Some factors to consider:

(1) Motivation–which teams care about the games they are about to play, and which teams have already achieved their goals for the season?

(2) Departing coaches–are teams fired up to win one last game for their beloved coach, or do they give less effort because no matter how strong their performance they cannot save their coach’s job?

(3) New coaches–how quickly can teams adapt to wrinkles in the offensive or defensive gameplanning?

As for myself, for the most part I try to make my initial selections as if the situational factors did not exist, and then, when making my final selections, I add slightly more weight to the situational factors than I would during the regular season. By and large, I try to find the teams that are strong fundamental plays and also have favorable situational factors. Given that I majored in theology and not psychology this is easier said than done.

Remember, being a theology major does not make you a psychologist. It does qualify you for some jobs, though.

For the season, I currently sit at 71-61, a winning percentage of just under 54%–certainly a disappointing season by my own standards, but still more than good enough to make a straight bettor a profit for the season. Here are the bowl selections for the games to be played in calendar year 2006:

12/19: POINSETTIA BOWL, San Diego, CA

Texas Christian (-12) v. Northern Illinois

Northern Illinois’ presence in this game is attributable, largely, to RB Wolfe, who has had an amazing career and had an astonishing first half of the season. (more…)

We like the top ten, at least. The rest, as usual, is a sad mess.

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Ohio State	—
2	Michigan	—
3	Southern Cal	—
4	Florida	—
5	Louisville	6
6	LSU	4
7	Oklahoma	7
8	Arkansas	3
9	Wisconsin	1
10	Rutgers	5
11	California	6
12	Auburn	4
13	West Virginia	6
14	Notre Dame	8
15	Texas	3
16	Tennessee	2
17	Nebraska	2
18	Boise State	5
19	Wake Forest	6
20	Texas A&M	6
21	Virginia Tech	1
22	Boston College	1
23	Georgia Tech	14
24	Hawaii	2
25	South Florida	1

Notes, Clarifications, and Mistakes We Made. Again.

–The hardest thing about hybrid polling–where you blend the results of matchups in the HYPOTHETICAL DEATH THEATER in your head plus a vague notion of a team’s absolute value at that point in the year–is settling on which factor to lean on for moving a team up or down.

Keeping USC at three instead of four makes the brain quake a little after watching Notre Dame blasted into teeny pieces by a team clearly intent on giving them a 10 point handicap. (The sign of a true predator: toying with its prey cruelly! The comment brought to you by David Attenborough.)

Playing with your food–something David Attenborough would approve of. Seen here vacationing with Ed Orgeron.

But yet…without a head to head or conference foes, we have to go on absolute valuation and their one shared opponent. (more…)

We’ll put more pretty pics in this post ASAP, but for the junkies we post fast few pics bet win GO!

A sad day for me today (I’m writing this on Wednesday), as the legendary Stardust Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas has closed its doors, making way for the building of Echelon Place, which is set to open in 2010. Anyone who has been there knows that the Stardust–the whole place, really–is a shitpile; its place in the history of sports betting in Vegas, however, is immeasurable.

Wayne Newton: that’s class.

A while back, I considered writing a piece on the most important figures in the history of sports betting in the USA. Suffice it to say, the column never got written, but the list was made–and there is little doubt, the #1 figure on any such list would be Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. For cinephiles, Mr. Rosenthal provided the inspiration for the Sam Rothstein character (played by Robert DeNiro) in the Martin Scorsese movie “Casino.”

Mr. Rosenthal–blessed with a knack for statistics and mathematics–made his name as an accomplished horse and sports bettor, which attracted the attention of the Chicago mobsters, who were more than happy to listen to his input on gambling issues. Eventually, he earned their trust and was sent to Las Vegas to oversee the operation at the Stardust Hotel and Casino. In 1975, he testified in front of the Nevada State Legislature in favor of legislation allowing sports betting in the casinos, and he was instrumental in the legislation being passed. Prior to this point, the only legal sports betting in Nevada took place at “Turf Clubs”–unseemly places, similar to OTB parlors (for the New Yorkers among you), or to the betting shops in the UK. As it stood, these places were not especially conducive to betting–most visitors to Las Vegas preferred to spend their time at the larger hotel/casinos, and these places opened and closed with regularity.

After the legislation allowing sports betting in the casinos was passed, Mr. Rosenthal oversaw the construction of a Stardust Sportsbook that was quite visionary for its time. It was large–close to 10,000 square feet–and was designed to accommodate over 500 bettors. He installed a bank of large television sets in the wall opposite bettors, and devoted the majority of his space to horse racing, covering the five largest racetracks around the nation. All of this is SOP now, but at the time, it was revolutionary.

Even up until last year, the Stardust was the most highly respected ‘book in Vegas. On Sunday nights at 6.00 PM local time, they were the first sportsbook in town to post lines for the following week’s football games, a ritual that was followed by a lottery to determine the individuals that got first crack at them. In recent years, some of the offshore locations started putting up their lines before the Stardust would, but despite this the Stardust still generally set the trends with regard to the betting lines.

There’s little doubt that others have done it better since–Caesar’s Palace, Mandalay Bay, and the Las Vegas Hilton are three that immediately come to mind–but, for my money, the Stardust was always special, and it’s sad to see it go.

But a hearty thanks to Mr. Rosenthal–still alive and living in Florida–for setting the standard that all the others have aspired to imitate.

Losses in the Thursday and Sunday games last week put me a damper on my weekend, but an 8-1 Saturday more than made up for it. My record stands at 55-35 for the season, a winning percentage of 61%. Often times, things can get away from you quickly, but hopefully I can keep it going this week. Here are this week’s selections:

SATURDAY:

Boston College (-3.5) v. WAKE FOREST

With all due respect to all of the other contenders–Greg Schiano, Bret Bielema, and Terry Hoeppner come immediately to mind–I think this game is a matchup of the two coaches who have done the best job this season. I have always liked Jim Grobe, and when you consider that his team is 7-1, rebounding nicely after a crushing collapse v. Clemson that would have doomed all but the most resilient of teams. All this despite losing his starting QB in week 1, and stud RB Andrews in week 3–both of which have been replaced by freshmen–the job he has done is even more impressive. In fact, it is so impressive that I think he warrants coach of the year consideration even if Wake loses its last 4 games, which they may well do. Almost as impressive is the job Tom O’Brien has done with BC; despite losing 5 starters off his D, including star DE Kiwanuka, he has cobbled together arguably the best D in the ACC. In addition, BC is winning despite their QB pretty much playing injured all season. Fortunately for BC, the schedule offered up a game against lowly Buffalo last week, allowing the Eagles to rest QB Ryan (along with WR Gonzalez and LB Dunbar) and all of them should be ready to play this week. Wake, for their part, have fresh injury problems; an injury to RB Harris means that they are moving WR Moore to RB this week to share carries with RB Bryant. I do not rate the Wake running game as particular strong anyway; they have only averaged 100 ypg since the opener (when running QB Mauk was injured) and injured RB Harris was, by far, the best of their remaining options at RB. Wake’s passing game is actually pretty efficient–I’d wager that QB Skinner is an upgrade over QB Mauk, at least as far as his passing goes–but they don’t throw enough to take advantage; they are averaging 17 passes per game this season, and hitting over 170 yds passing only once, against Duke. Either way, BC’s pass D is pretty solid; while they’ve given up 245 ypg this season, opposing teams have thrown an average of 40 passes a game to get to that number, and their ratio is an impressive 6-11–and much of that damage was done by BYU, one of the better passing attacks in the nation (without BYU, the numbers drop to 213 ypg and 5.78 ypp). On D, Wake is strong against the run, but are much weaker against the pass; for the season, they are giving up 6.44 ypp and have a 5-8 ratio. These are impressive numbers until you consider that they have played Duke, UConn, UNC, and Ole Miss, 4 of the worst passing teams in the nation, and the best QB they have faced is probably Clemson QB Proctor, last seen pissing his pants against VT when they Hokie D took away the run–something Wake’s D couldn’t do. QB Ryan is not the greatest QB but he is certainly serviceable and makes few errors; he should do a fine job against this D. The BC running game is also not overly flashy, but they are good and will get yards in this game; BC was stuffed by the Clemson, VT and FSU Ds–83 ypg–but Wake is not the equal of those teams. Wake gave up over 200 yds to Clemson, and NC State went for 150; I do not think BC’s running game is as good as those teams, but UNC went for 123 (albeit on 38 carries) and I think BC is much better than that unit. BC has already won at FSU this season, and I think they will get another workmanlike win in this spot and get ahead of this number.

Jim Grobe: underappreciated, underrated…and will likely lose this Saturday.

CLEMSON (-16) v. Maryland

Clemson was stuffed last week by the VT D, but as long as they have not given up on their season–and, that’s possible when you consider that last week’s loss likely dropped them from the Orange Bowl to the Peach Bowl–I think they will get back on track this week. (more…)

Question: How can someone get upset about his picks going 9-2? 

Answer: If he started his Saturday going 9-0. 

Solon complaining about going 9-2… kind of like Rick Ocasek complaining about being unlucky in love. 

Alas, the elusive perfect weekend was not to be, as the Gators did indeed implode, losing a game they arguably deserved to win, and Tulane had 5 turnovers (to none for UTEP) and failed to hit the spread by 1 point.  Still, I rode my luck a little elsewhere; CMU needed a goal line stand to stay ahead of the number against Ball State, so I’d better stop complaining and try to get after it again. 

On another note, I’d like to thank ESPN.com for being just as shitty as the rest of their enterprise.  Suffice it to say that if you want accurate statistics, make sure to get them from another outlet.  It’s not a whole lot of fun to have them list ( e.g.) Nate Longshore as having gone 13-24, 154, 0-1 in the ESPN.com boxscore, and then see in the recap–their very own recap, that is–that his stats are listed as 17-31, 176, 0-2.  This is especially not exciting when you go back and check the statistics you’ve just spent the last 3 hours compiling, only to discover that this is not an isolated problem and you’ve pissed away much of your Sunday.  Hey, ESPN–USAToday’s website–the online arm of the shittiest newspaper in the country–kicks your ass. 

Fuckers. 

My good week last week leaves me at 40-28 for the season (59%).  Let’s hope I can keep it going with this week’s slate. 

Fair warning–I am on very little sleep this week.  On the plus side, I have finished my deposition summaries and should be fully rested next week; I suppose we’ll see if it makes a difference. 

Oh the irony of using to law to feed a gambling habit. 

Here are this week’s selections:

(more…)

Solon brings a passel of picks with him this week as well as a tale of why those raised near race tracks have a mysterious fondness for gambling. Enjoy.

Greetings all.

A story from my youth from the “Sport of Kings” this week, to illustrate a point.

In my early gambling days, soon after discovering Vegas, it occurred to me that there was no better spot to try to use my smarts to get “something for nothing,” as it is sometimes called, than the racetrack. As a native Southern Californian, I was presented with 9 races/day, 6 days/week, 11 months/year, at either Santa Anita, Hollywood Park, or Del Mar. Since Santa Anita was only about 10 miles from my house, and I was attending junior college at the time and finished with classes by noon every day, I could get to the track every day by first post, and I was there more often than not.

Your college experience was much, much different than Solon’s.

Over the course of time, I became immersed in the national horse racing scene, and Friday night in September 1988 while perusing the Daily Racing Form, I saw that a filly I was very high on–Miss Brio–was running in the Maskette Mile at Belmont Park the next day, and was listed at 10-1 to win. Her high odds were largely the product of that year’s Derby winner–Winning Colors–running in the same race and listed as a prohibitive 1-5 favorite. Earlier that year, I’d had Winning Colors in the Derby, but she’d been run into the ground in the Preakness by Forty Niner, and by the time the fall season hit, I was pretty much convinced that she had little value.

As it stood, I couldn’t bet races at Belmont Park in Southern California, so I drove to Vegas that morning and got my bets down. Due to some late money, Miss Brio only went off at 3.40-1, but I dropped $200 on her and collected $880.

Since getting to Vegas from Los Angeles is a 4-hour drive, instead of turning around and heading right back after the race, I decided to stick around and play a few more races with the money I’d won. (more…)