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VBR Against The Spread-Championship Week

Matt de Bear — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:17:09 +0000

What a road it’s been from the opening games almost 3 months back to today. Who would have guessed that last week’s Notre Dame-USC game would be to send the Irish, not the Trojans, to Miami. Our little VBR gambling group has enjoyed the trip to. Heading into the final week of the regular season, three players still have a shot to claim victory. Matt, Tim and Corey all went 3-2 last week, and are separated by 2 games. Matt leads at 32-33, with Tim right behind at 31-34 and Corey at 30-35. Craig has been eliminated from title contention, but hefinally claimed victory in a week, by going 4-1 in last week’s games. Here is out Thanksgiving weekend worked out:

Michigan 21 at Ohio State (-4) 26

Matt – Ohio State (W)

Tim – Michigan (L)

Craig – Ohio State (W)

Corey – Ohio State (W)

Stanford (-2) 35 at UCLA 17

Matt – UCLA (L)

Tim – Stanford (W)

Craig – Stanford (W)

Corey – Stanford (W)

Florida 37 at Florida State (-6) 26

Matt – Florida State (L)

Tim – Florida (W)

Craig – Florida State (L)

Corey – Florida State (L)

Notre Dame (-6) 22 at USC 13

Matt- Notre Dame (W)

Tim – USC (L)

Craig – Notre Dame (W)

Corey – Notre Dame (W)

Oregon (-10) 48 at Oregon State 24

Matt – Oregon (W)

Tim – Oregon (W)

Craig – Oregon (W)

Corey – Oregon State (L)

This week we’ve got 3 official conference championship games, and 1 de facto championship game…and a Big 12 game because we needed a fifth. All point spreads are from Monday night.

VBR Against The Spread-Week 11

Tim Tolley — Fri, 09 Nov 2012 00:21:27 +0000

This is usually the part where Matt says something like “Last week I was awesome and I caught Tim in the overall standings and blah blah blah blah…” However, I’m at the helm this week and I think it’s only fair to point out that Matt gets to sort through the games and decide which ones he likes the most. Then, he makes myself, Corey and Craig pick games that we have no clue about. A few days later, he hits twitter with boastful comments about how I’m dumb and don’t read well. Well not this time, Matty DB!

Overall Standings:

Matt:- 24-26

Tim: 22-28

Corey: 21-29

Craig: 17-33

Oct 20, 2012; Miami, FL, USA; Florida State Seminoles quarterback EJ Manuel (3) drops back to pass against Miami Hurricanes at Sun Life Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Steve Mitchell-US PRESSWIRE

Florida State (-14) at Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech has struggle of late but will look to salvage their season with a marquee win at home over the Seminoles. Will the night time crowd of Blacksburg be enough to help the Hokies keep it close?

Matt – Florida State

This might just be my disdain for VT showing though, but I’d take Florida State by 24 in this if I could. Sure, VT is at home on a Thursday, and 14 is a lot of points, but I just don’t think they’re that good. FSU is as talented as most teams in the country, and I think that carries them.

Tim – Virginia Tech

I’ve been burnt by Va Tech before this year and I may be setting myself up for failure, but I like the home crowd in Blacksburg, at night, on a national stage. I wouldn’t bet VT to win, but I like them to stay within two touchdowns.

Corey – Virginia Tech

Wow! Who would have ever thought that we would see a Frank Beamer-led Hokies team a 2 TD underdog at home?!?! Oh how the mighty have fallen. With a loss to Florida State Thusday night, the Hokies would need to win their remaining two games to become bowl eligible (@ BC, home with Virginia). Either way, I just don’t see how the Hokies lay down and fold under the prime-time spotlight of this big game with the rival Seminoles. This game is usually a preview of the ACC Championship game, now its just another stop of the Seminoles BCS train. I like the Seminoles to escape with a hard-fought win, but the Techsters to cover the 2 TD spread.

Craig – Florida State

Normally I would say take VT with the points, and though they have improved, I just think FSU is much more talented. VT’s offense has struggled and I don’t see them matching the fire power FSU has.

College Football: Sunday Reflections

Tim Tolley — Sun, 04 Nov 2012 13:09:45 +0000

This isn’t something that I usually do, but I had two TVs running for most of the day yesterday and noticed a lot of things while watching football during the day. Plus, my kids had me up at like 6:15 because they think time changes are dumb and they want red, blue, orange, yellow and green flavored Os in milk.

We’ll start with the day games:

I once voted Florida as the number one team…this year. I loved the schedule they had played and was driving the Jeff Driskel bandwagon. I’ve since done a swan dive off of that train and Florida is probably not as good as I had thought.
Clemson is a sneaky 8-1, whose only loss came to Florida State. Not sure why they aren’t ranked higher. That’s a BCS-caliber team.
Texas A&M might be the third best team in the SEC and Johnny Manziel is my favorite player who doesn’t wear blue. They’ll battle Alabama next week closer than people will expect.
Louisville is probably pretty good. And not just because they beat Temple by 30 like everybody else does. Because they beat everybody else, too. The season ender against Rutgers should be a good one.
West Virginia is now 5-3 and they still have to play Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and Iowa State. They have the 119th ranked scoring defense. Sad to waste a talent like Geno Smith with a defense that doesn’t exist.
I’m not going to kill Notre Dame for barely beating Pitt even though they probably didn’t deserve to win. They’re still undefeated and that’s going to come with hiccups. However, the team that showed up yesterday can’t expect to beat USC. They better get it together.
Kansas State is really good but Klein’s injury is bad news.
Iowa is terrible.
USC can beat Oregon. I know…they didn’t…but if they get a rematch, and Monte Kiffin can figure out a scheme to just force a couple punts or a turnover, Oregon didn’t really stop USC either. USC has yet to play their best football. Plus, all the pressure will be on Oregon.
Zach Mettenberg earned respect last night. He played his best game against the best competition they’ll see.
Kudos to Bama for being able to win that kind of game. I don’t want to pile on McCarron but he has beat this team…in the National Championship. Why was he crying last night?
Oregon State is going to beat up somebody in a non-BCS bowl. They’re a heckuva team.
Yesterday’s 5 team parlay winner: Akron +22, Miami (OH) +4, Georgia Tech -8, Texas A&M -3, Oregon State -6.

For all of the latest on the Penn State Nittany Lions, follow VBR Lead Editor Tim Tolley on Twitter.

VBR Against The Spread-Week 9

Matt de Bear — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 16:00:08 +0000

PSU’s blowout win over Iowa was not the only good news of Week 8. For the first time all season, all 4 VBR forecasters were over .500, with Matt leading the way with a perfect 5-0 mark. Craig had a big week going 4-1, with Tim and Corey coming in at 3-2. With the perfect week, Matt moved within a game of Tim for the season. Our fearless leader sits at 20-20, with Matt at 19-21. Corey moved to 16-24, with Craig just a game away from moving out of the basement at 15-25.

Here are last week’s results:

Oregon 43 (-9) at Arizona State 21

Matt – Oregon (W)

Tim – Oregon (W)

Craig – Oregon (W)

Corey – Arizona State (L)

Michigan State 10 at Michigan 12 (-10)

Matt – Michigan State (W)

Tim – Michigan State (W)

Craig – Michigan State (W)

Corey – Michigan (L)

Kansas State 55 at West Virginia 14 (-3)

Matt – Kansas State (W)

Tim – West Virginia (L)

Craig – West Virginia (L)

Corey – Kansas State (W)

South Carolina 11 at Florida 44 (-3)

Matt – Florida (W)

Tim – South Carolina (L)

Craig – Florida (W)

Corey – Florida (W)

LSU 24 (-3.5) at Texas A&M 19

Matt – LSU (W)

Tim – LSU (W)

Craig – LSU (W)

Corey – LSU (W)

Penn State has a big game this week, but we found 5 more to take a shot at. Point spreads are as of Monday evening.