Weekly Geekage

"Happy Halloween, aight"

Wow...back from rough academic week...I apologize for the lack of southern white trash stereotype upholding and perpetuating content as of late. There's only so many hours in day. Even so, one guy I'll always willing to make time for is, the master of CFB wagering entertainment, The Geek. Lovin' that Ole Miss/Auburn prediction!

7-0, 6-1, 7-3…that's the last 3 weeks, and I won't even bitch about the 50% of those losses that should have been wins. We've been on an unbelievable tear of late, and are looking to keep the good times rollin'. We are about 80% of the way thru this weeks analysis, and have about 15 games we are really focused in on.

My guess at a couple of the SEC games that didn't make the cut for us:

I'm for sure not getting behind Nallsminger and their inept group here, as I'm not convinced they're capable of scoring anything of late, and they way their D is playing leaves me to believe their 38-24 scoring advantage over their offense vs SEC competition might come to an end sooner than later. Still the math shows AU with a slight advantage over Ole Miss on a yppl advantage, but Nutt has owned Dumbo of late, so I think this 3 Daves match up is best left alone…Ole Miss 25 AU 22 (for shits and giggles we'll say Auburn gets to 22 with 4 FGs, 1 special teams TD, one 2 pt conversion, and 1 AU defensive safety), The Nutts rush for close to 200 yards off, but can't quite put the War Eaglers away.

UT is probably now the only team in the SEC worse than AU, and it shows this week v. Darth Visor. Still, the USC QB du-jour this week throws the customary 2 INTs to keep this somewhat close…Cocks 21 UT 15

And now for our little nugget of the week…

02:00PM 335 Tulsa Golden Hurricanes 6.5 Saturday 11/01/2008 336 Arkansas Razorbacks

I can pretty much reuse the analysis from last week on the Ole Miss-Ark game, as the same situations are at play here but with the #1 offense in the nation (literally) vs the #60 (to save the ass-hole that actually looks up what Ole Miss's offensive rank is please save it as that is just a guess)…the reality is Ark is still very bad, and was extremely fortunate to cover last week vs an Ole Miss O not even in the same planet as Tulsa's offense that is averaging over 600 yards offense a game and nearly 56 ppg. Arkansas's defense is about average (-0.2 yppl), and stands no chance vs a Tulsa offense torching everyone this year (see above). Arkansas's offenses owns a slight 0.4 yppl advantage on offense, but no where near enough to keep up with Tulsa's +1.6 yppl or +2.7 ypa advantage on offense or their projected 10.5 ypa or 550 (7.6 yypl) yards total offense. My math calls for between 40-53 points for Tulsa, which is right in line with the models.

Arkansas isn't very good and even vs some suspect defensive SEC competition of late (Ole Miss, UK, and Auburn) has only averaged 21 ppg. Tulsa's defense has its issues, but not near enough to surrender 35+ which is what they'll need to surrender here in order for the Pigtrino's to stand a chance. Tulsa's defense is slightly worse than average (-0.3 yppl), but I can't see an Arkansas Offense that hasn't scored more than 28 all season long doing much here in a game where they barely project a meaningful statistical advantage (+0.4 yypl on offense). Our models are split half and half with 30/29 and 22/23 for Arkansas…heck, give them the high side of 30, and take the lowest offensive output for Tulsa this year and we have a 37-30 squeaker. Consider Tulsa's hit 50+ 5 of 7 game and 49+ 6 of 7 games and look to outgain Arkansas 550-390 yards total offense, I don't really mind laying the TD on the mid-major vs the big ugly SEC team. Tulsa 44 Arkansas 25

[geeksheetsports]

What Saith The Geek?

Booger approves this message

My apologies to The Geek. I received this post at 5:47am (that's one hard working dude) and didn't get it up on the site till about 9:30pm. My bad. Doesn't make it any less awesome though...

We had another great week at TheGeekSheet, going 6-1 on our recommended plays, including a pretty easy winner on the free nugget we gave you all last week with Nebraska destroying Iowa State. We are now a paltry 13-1 the last two weeks, with our only loss coming on Stanford last week when UCLA marched 87 yards with 2 minutes to go, scoring with 15 seconds to go…but hey, you can’t win ‘em all right. We actually have two recommended plays this week on SEC games, which doesn’t happen often for us as we tend to be overtly critical about SEC games, including a play on the ole hotty totties (the other game is the UGA-LSU game). Click here for our recommend plays this week, hell it’s only $40 bucks, which doesn’t even cover the cost of your case of beer and bottle of boone’s farm for the old naggin hen.

08:00PM	181	Penn State Nittany Lions	2
Saturday 10/25/2008	182	Ohio State Buckeyes

Ohio State continues to be very bad on offense, averaging only 322 ypg (5.1 yppl), which is even worse considering they’ve done it vs average at best defenses (otherwise allowing 362 ypg @ 5.3 yppl). Even last week in their 45 pts showing, they only racked up 332 yards offense and had it not been for 5 MSU turnovers would have been lucky to post much more than 24. Much is made about how good OSUs defense is (which they are as they are only allowing 4.3 yppl), but statistically speaking PSUs defense is better, allowing only 4.0 yppl and slightly better than OSU vs average (+1.1 yppl for PSU to +1.0 yppl for OSU). PSU is only allowing 11 ppg, and in typical Tressell ball fashion, OSU is defying the odds of what their average score should be considering their paltry total offense and yppl statistics (they are averaging 27 pgg despite just 322 ypg). That is mainly due to a 21-8 turnover margin in favor of OSU (that equates to a little over a 1.5 Turnover / game margin in favor of OSU). If you normalize that and evaluate OSUs offense to PSUs defense we come up with a projection of 10-14 pts for OSU on 242 yards offense (4.0 yppl). Even using the entire season’s statistics we come up with 15-17 points, which is in line with our model projections of 15-20 for the Buckeyes. I noted this in my recap last week, but after the egg PSUs defense laid in the 1^st quarter of last weeks game they allowed only 2 Michigan drives to gain 1^st downs and one of those was Michigan’s last drive, so this is definitely a D capable of completely neutralizing a mediocre offense.

PSUs offense is the best OSU has faced, and outside USC it isn’t even close. Penn State is now averaging 482 ypg (6.9 yppl) this season at 45 ppg. They are really getting it done on the ground where they are averaging 5.7 ypr. OSU (as mentioned above) is pretty solid on defense again (allowing only 4.3 yppl), and pretty decent vs the run allowing 3.5 ypr, but have been roughed up a little vs the good teams they’ve faced who’ve made a commitment to run the football. Wisconsin and USC both rushed for over 150 vs OSU and not surprisingly USC blew them out and Wisc almost beat OSU. My projections call for 4.9 ypr, and 383 yards total offense at 5.6 yppl for PSU. My scoring projections (28-34) are right on top of our models (28-35), and I just can’t see OSU keeping PSU in check the entire game here, particularly with an offense that doesn’t look to be able to get much of anything going. Penn State 30 Ohio State 17.

Good luck to everyone this week, come check us out to see what we have on the big SEC games this week as well as a couple other not-so large contests (we make a living off the MAC, MWC, and SBC). Good luck, and wager wisely…till next time.

The Geek

[TheGeekSheetSports]

What Saith The Geek?

It's good to be The Geek

Guess who's back, Pumpkin-tits.... The Geek from thegeeksheetsports.com is back to lay some straight college football knowledge on yo ass. If you're a betting man, and/or a degenerate gambler, you'd be wise to listen to the man. Unless you're above 80% on the season...then you need to start your own gosh damn service, asshole.

We had an incredible week last week, going 7-0 on our recommended plays, including a couple of the B12 contests. We actually have two of the bigger SEC games this week that were close to being recommended plays, but that we passed on. Below is the analysis of those games, as well as one play that we are working on right now which will be a recommended play. We are now 27-9 this season on our recommended plays, so for more information about this week’s plays be sure to click here.

	337	Vanderbilt Commodores
Saturday 10/18/2008	338	Georgia Bulldogs	15

We still aren’t done with this play and will be spending the rest of the night doing our final analysis on this and about 15 other plays, but based on our work earlier this week I don’t think there will be enough line value to warrant a play. Vandy has been living on borrowed time this season going 5-0 (until last week) despite averaging 250 ypg offenses (even more amazing is that they are averaging 25 ppg at 250 ypg). They’ve only really faced 2 good defenses this year, and that is Auburn and Miss St, and in those last 2 games have only averaged 14 ppg. Fortunately for them those two defenses also happen to be on the teams with the 2 worst offenses in the league. They won’t be so lucky this week as they get a top caliber defense (on par with MSU and AU) which will hold Vandy to 250 & 14 again. UGA’s offense has kind of sputtered around this year, but is still putting up very solid numbers (430 ypg & 33 ppg) to pretty good defenses (that are otherwise allowing only 340 ypg and 23 ppg).

Our projections call for a projected 410 yards for UGA compared to 190 for Vandy. My projections and our other models we uses all have pretty much the same thing with 11-16 pts for Vandy (which at 190 yards if they don’t continue to be the beneficiary of the TO battle and near perfect red zone and special teams play could easily be 0) and 27-37 for UGA. This is definitely a UGA or no bet scenario, and really the only thing keeping me off this is a worse case indicator we run that projects a 25-16 UGA victory. Given Vandy’s track record this year and UGAs shaky performance thus far, that is probably a lot more likely than a 41 – 7 UGA victory. My guess is the magic starts to run out on VAndy, UGA starts to resemble the team we though they’d be this year and UGA pulls way late. UGA 36 Vandy 14.

08:00PM	381	LSU Fighting Tigers	3.5
Saturday 10/18/2008	382	South Carolina Gamecocks

This is a pretty interesting match up as I am still not really sure what to expect from LSU, particularly after that drubbing last week, and USC has had me mystified all year. Not surprisingly our models are all over the place, with half of them having USC winning out right and half having LSU winning by double digits. Mathematically, LSU is the superior team with better offense (+0.7 yppl to -0.2 yppl) and the team with the better match ups. USC does have a very good defense, but my guess here is that USCs propensity to turn the ball over (they have 20 offensive TOs this season thru only 7 games), and LSUs very good offense (even last week vs UF they managed 21 pts dispite 320 yards and 3 TOs will be more than USCs defense can overcome.

We make it a habit to not go against our models, which will cause us to scratch this game, but I really believe LSU get’s it done here, and probably pretty big. Our models call for a 24-22 LSU victory (which could easily be flipped). However, if you remove UFs performance last week vs LSUs defense and use the balance of the defensive numbers for LSU compared to USCs offense, USC doesn’t get to 300 yards, even with the UF performance last week USC still only gets 340 yards, and with a projected TO margin of 3-1 (USC – LSU), I don’t see much probability USC gets to 20. LSU 27 USC 17.

We don’t really have a good beat on any of the other games, but thought we’d include a snip-it of one our recommended plays this week. For more on this game and the other recommended plays for this week, click here, it’s only $40 bucks, and at 27-9 thus far you would have paid for it about 40 times over thus far this season.

12:30PM	331	Nebraska Cornhuskers	6.5
Saturday 10/18/2008	332	Iowa State Cyclones

ISU has had a rough go of it of late, and unfortunately for them they haven’t even hit the meat of the high flying B12 offenses. ISU has given up 36.5 ppg & 442 ypg the last 3 weeks to some ok but relatively speaking average offensive units in UNLV, Kansas, and Baylor. The 1^st 2 of those 3 games they were the beneficiary of a +3 TO margin which is the only reason those games were close as they averaged only 332 ypg in those games. Last week v. Baylor, Iowa State performed closer to reality scoring only 10 points on 257 yards offense.

Nebraska’s offense is averaging 421 ypg (6.4 yppl) which is +1.3 yppl as they’ve faced good defenses that otherwise allow only 5.1 yppl and 346 ypg. Neb has been particularly good in the air averaging 8.6 ypa (which is +2.1 ypa). They get an ISU defense getting torched this year by competition far worse than Neb. ISU is allowing 8.4 ypa to bad passing teams that otherwise would only average 6.9 ypa. This creates a +3.5 ypa advantage for Neb, and my projections call for 10.3 ypa. That is a 1^st down for every pass attempt (not completion but attempt). Total projections are for 486 yards offense (338 in the air) at 7.0 yppl.

Nebraska’s defense, despite allowing 380 ypg and 28 ppg (5.9 yppl) is actually better than average as they’ve faced a collective slate of very good offenses that average 432 ypg and 34 ppg (6.3 yppl), so Neb is actually +0.4 yppl better than average. That should be plenty good enough to keep an anemic ISU offense in check that is only averaging 336 ypg (5.1 yppl) despite playing some mediocre defenses that are allowing 360 ypg and 5.4 yppl. ISU is at a statistical disadvantage in every offensive category, and not a small one (they are -0.6 in ypr, ypa, and yppl). Our projections call for only 342 yards offense (5.4 yppl). I’ll lay 7 on the road getting the team that looks to average more yppl than the home team does ypa, and has the statistical advantage in every match up category in this game.

All our models are pretty consistent with 34-40 points for Nebraska, and a high indicator of 53 points (which given my projection of near 500 yards offense is actually quite likely). Because of the offenses Nebraska’s defense has faced this year, ISU’s offensive projections get skewed a little to the high side, despite Nebraska’s defense being decidedly better than ISUs offense (basically because Nebraska’s defense starts from a higher absolute base due to the offenses they faced and their scoring / yardage averages), which causes a model and math projection of 21-25 points for ISU. We’ll stick with that, but given the match up indicators, my guess is a performance closer to what ISU did last week to Baylor. Nebraska 37 Iowa State 23.

Quit dragging everybody's gameday down with your pathetic crying... Check out TheGeekSheet, then go buy that round of Irish Car Bombs with confidence...You winner, you.

GeekSheet Report

Your best friend on gameday (not our actual geek)

Starting what I hope will be a semi-regular feature here on DSS is updates from the friendly wagering world via my boy at The Geek Sheet Sports. Good people, from right here in the Deep South, with some solid numbers in their corner: 12-4 on the season's recommended plays (now I'm no mathmagician, but I'm pretty sure that's 75% Win). So, what I'm saying is...this might be the only worthwhile feature on this God forsaken site. It could even make you a dollar or two if you're smart. Lookit...

The Bold and Most not so Beautiful SEC, comments and predictions

I’d like to open our inaugural post from the thegeeksheetsports.com with a thanks to our elegant, handsome, brilliant and witty host, Erik for allowing us to share our weekly thoughts on the soap opera that is the SEC. Hopefully these gratuitous complements won’t go un-noticed and will buy us at least a week or two in this space, presuming it tanks as bad as we suspect it will!

Ohh the beauty of SEC football, or perhaps really just their fans, I mean in what other sport, conference, or geographic location is it more important to openly display the hatred you have for your cross town rival than it is the love for your alma matter (or in the case of your mortal enemy the love they blindly have for the team in the state where they graduated middle school). Where else is it so important that you contain such a complete understanding of your teams offense or defense, whereby you can openly discuss and debate why that dumb a** OC / DC/ HC continues not to play (insert unheralded freshman or rFr recruit of choice), or call that same play that all 80,000 / 90,000 / 1000,000 people in the stadium (half of whom didn’t graduate college and the other half which can’t spell college because they’ve drowned themselves in bourbon prior to the all too familiar 3 Dave’s 100 degree September afternoon kickoff classic). God forbid the drama that ensues on the messages boards during the games from the people to stupid or lazy to even go to the game, but have an even keener sense of things as they have the luxury of watching, rewinding, and analyzing in slow motion the ensuing debacle that comes from being a fan of (insert team of choice). Perhaps even better is the unbridled optimism that can ensue after a 2 point victory over the direction Michigan school for the blind, after a particularly good offensive performance compared to the catastrophic apocalypse on the horizon that comes after a hard fought victory over a conference rival if the offense doesn’t score 100 points and rack up 1000 yards….Good love those brilliant football minds.

With a moment of clarity it occurred to me that the drama we choose to create, more times than not in a completely irrational and unjust manner isn’t too dissimilar to the calamity that is our testosterone lacking compatriots from Venus. When the wine and estrogen starts flowing we run for the sanctity and cover of college football, and the self destruction that ensues…because remember, we are the sane ones…right?

Anyway, with that mostly likely long, incoherent, and un-necessary bit of rambling out of the way, we’ll move on with our inaugural post, honoring the bizarre soap opera that is SEC football (as played out in the eyes of its beloved fans). We’ll have a little bit of fun with everyone, and hopefully give you a little bit of advice along the way (to the degree I can forcibly remove my genetic and paternal biases for those stupid F-ing inbreeds up the road). With that said, we’re off…

Game of the Week

Abalamer vs Leg Humpers

Ponder for a second what this must be like for a poor Auburn fan living in Atlanta? On one hand you’ve been raised your entire life to hate the cheaters on the west side of the state (presuming your are a multi-generational War Eagler and not a carpet baggin trust fund baby from Buckhead too stupid to get into Athens Tech that has infiltrated your beloved home on the plains like a cancer that won’t stop spreading…this is the cow-college damn it)…on the other you have the seemingly never ending UGA promotional video and ads that is the Atlanta press combined with the seemingly unending supply of Ugly alums that seem to percolate the atmosphere thicker than a code red smog alert day in the summer (for those of you not from Atlanta that means it is suffocating)…I guess there is such a thing as hell on earth.

What interests me more about this game, is the show down that is liable to ensue on the pedestrian walkway in A-town Saturday evening…not just the mullets from north Alabama vs the red-dadios from Moultrie (although that cultural class will surely be one for the ages), but consider what happens when Mr. Bear Bryant Back Tat toting his big ole A flag bumps into that big bald overall wearing fattie from UGA with the bulldog painted on his head…wow, I’d pay the scalper 3 large for the privilege to see that…I wonder if the guys from National Geographic will be there to capture this chance encounter?

The actual game itself I suspect will be a pretty good one, although I question how good and proven the Bama offense is. Every week that victory over Clemson looks worse and worse, and no offense to Casey Dick but there is a reason D-Mac lined up at QB last year and Nutter sold his sold to the devil to get Mustain along with the baggage that came with him. UGA has been very good defending the run, and I don’t see how Bama makes anything of substance happen on the ground in this game (I won’t bore you with the statistical support). Without a ground game Sarah Jessica Parker starts to look more like Little Dick from the hills of Arkansas than the Tony Romo of late.

I am a little less sure of what happens on the other side of the ball as the humpers have looked pretty good thus far, but so has Little Nicky’s crew. Despite the Pac 10 hatred we all can agree on, Arizona State does have a legitimate defense (by left coast standards), and, statistically, what UGA did last week is impressive (far more impressive than Sabans efforts to date vs a pretty pitiful slate of defensive opponents).

A TD is a lot to lay in this game, and my guess is it will be relatively close for a while…still as Nick says, “it is a process”, and I think the success early against some very bad teams has the Tide Pride a little over-amped…Leg Humpers 28 Roll Tide 17

The Second Fiddle Game of the Week– which just so happens to involve two perpetual second fiddles

The Great Pumpkin in the Hills vs Dumbo gone amuck

The two great cartoonish coaches of the conference clash in this battle of big orange vs big ears, although watching both of late makes you wonder if anything big is going to happen offensively. UCLA’s continued implosion could potentially end up being worse by year end than Big Nicks glorious egg vs the War Hawks last season (how do you get pounded by 21 to Arizona? I mean their coach isn’t even the best coach in his family?), and Awburn continues to find new ways to self destruct offensively (and why shouldn’t they, they hired the Guru who was just hiding all these years near the condom producing capitol of the world…where I would be 1^st to look when trying to find an offensive mind capable of competing in the best conference in the land).

Both these schools constantly fight the second fiddle status whether it be the War Eaglers contempt for thier corn dog friends to the south or the mullet nation to the west, or Good Ole Rocky Top who can’t seem to get over the “hump” consistently vs the the humpers or the proprietors of factory denim shorts down in North FL. My guess is we’ll get a second rate performance from both here in a game that will probably dissolve into a contest of who can avoid screwing it up the most…I’ll lean with the dual nick-named home team, presuming they embrace the dual QB strategy…Deep Orange 24 Faded Orange 16

3 Dave’s caliber contests

David vs Goliath (Act 1 and 2) –

Whether it Nutt or Croom, Miles or Meyer this one is about the same… Croom and Nutt will try and run the ball 99% of the time, hope like hell Meyer or Miles does enough un-necessary and unbelievably stupid (or perhaps brilliant) things that the poor peasants from the hills won’t get absolute destroyed by the Kings of the lands….The former Mormon leader and his now missionary leading general stand a bit more of a chance for a slightly contested contest here than The HAT and his corndog crew further west. Nutt’s got the makings of a respectable offense, poor Croom’s got Nutt-in…All in all 40 something for the big guys…State is lucky to get 10 w/o a backfire or two by the lunatic leader of the corn dog nation…Ole Nutt probably gets 14, maybe a late one late for 20. Either way, I hope the Dave’s bring their A game, and have a great montage prepared of Saint Tebow’s good work, because this should prove to be a pretty boring game (same-same for the nite cap hosted by brilliant color man Michelle Tafoya, or I supposed color woman…wow, that is inspiring).

Don’t waste your time---and I won’t either

South Carolina v UAB How is Darth Visors offense favored by 24 over anyone? Have they scored 24 all season, I guess it helps they get a UAB team that isn’t even the best team in their city (props to Samford). Still, DVs horrific QB and passing situation doesn’t give me any confidence. Still the Cocks have a really hard D (been waiting a while to put that in print), and I can’t see UAB doing any better than they did vs UT… Cocks 31 Blazers 6

Directional Kentucky vs non-directional Kentucky

Pop Quiz – How many D1 teams did WKU face last year…Answer – 12, although over half where 1AA, 7 vs 1-AA team, and a 7-5 record w/ 5 games vs the mighty Sun Belt…you do the math…Enough said…UK 34 Topers 13

Pigtrino vs the place where Auburn DCs go to become head coaches

I bet ole Bobby wishes Mack Brown liked to get offensive coordinators head coaching jobs as well as the defensive variety, maybe they can exchange numbers and discuss new ways to poach on poor dumbo later this season as they both seemingly like to do. Dick gets the pigs slaughtered here, badly…you’ll find out two things after this game…how bad Arkansas is and how irrelevant the Tides victory against them last week was. Major League affiliate for AAA Auburn Tiger Defensive Coaches 43 – when pigs fly 17.

Good luck to everyone, drink too much, yell at the TV because the coaches can actually here you, and remember if you are on the taking end of it this week, you always have your class which the other team doesn’t…

For more info on other games this week, and a slightly less condescending approach, check us out on our blog…

http://www.thegeeksheetsports.com/

Till next week

The Geek