Board 8 > Board 8 College Football Ladder Contest - Week 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

**** NC State forever

these bums are worse than notre dame

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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My Oregon Over is looking pretty good.
My Bama over not so much but HEY YOU NEVER KNOW BAMA COULD KICK IT BACK INTO GEAR


hopefully don't even need to think about the UT game

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Yeah, NC State's really underperforming. Even I only predicted a close Wake Forest win.

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

I'm just glad I recognized it as enough of a trap to not predict it here <_<

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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Washington leads Hawaii 31-20. If not for the blocked PAT, the over would've already hit!

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

And after getting into an early hole with a loss in the Thursday nighter, I still end up being the first to secure my trip to Level 3. BrettEagles, GaryOak151, KCF0107, and Paratroopa1 all also pick up a win with the Warriors' touchdown to pull to 31-26.

..and just a few seconds later, GaryOak151 joins me in the third level as Oregon scores a touchdown to make the over! Actually, for all I know Oregon might have gotten their TD before Hawaii, in which case we'd have secured our trips at the same time. Regaro and Achromatic also had the over, while RappinHobo9292 picks up a loss as he had the under.

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

Unless an offensive explosion occurs in the VT/ECU game, I will be moving on

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why is bama so bad

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I feel like people are psychologically predisposed to pick the Over because you're more likely to win by a lot. Like, theoretically, teams can exceed the over by any possible amount. We've seen college football games where the total ended up being well over 100.

Meanwhile, to pick the Under, the lowest it can possibly go is zero.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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Or multiple overtimes. Those pesky overtimes can be brutal on over/unders, because it's so unfair.

I've been playing ESPN.com's Streak for the Cash pretty much since it began; run into that situation at least a couple of times. IIRC I've had that affect one of my picks twice, once when I had the over and ended up winning because it went to OT (an NBA game, which actually went to double-OT but the over hit during the first overtime) and once where I had the under and lost because the over hit during OT (an NCAA basketball game). But college football's OT format is especially rough, because you could easily get a situation like today's Iowa-Iowa State game. I don't know what the O/U was on that one because nobody took it; it might've been low enough for the over to hit during regulation; but there were 48 points scored in regulation and 37 scored in overtime.

Paratroopa's moving on with Colorado's offense coming to life at the end of the third quarter.

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

Well, I guess since someone has to win, the lowest it can possibly go is 2, but you get my point.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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SmartMuffin posted...
I feel like people are psychologically predisposed to pick the Over because you're more likely to win by a lot. Like, theoretically, teams can exceed the over by any possible amount. We've seen college football games where the total ended up being well over 100.

Meanwhile, to pick the Under, the lowest it can possibly go is zero.

Yeah, I agree with that reasoning. I suspect that only applies to casuals, though; probably very prevalent in SftC because to get a win with the under, you have to stay locked for the entire game, while if the over hits, you get your win and can make another pick sooner. (I actually used this reasoning once. Check this out: http://streak.espn.go.com/en/entry?date=20081204. I had a feeling that the over on the Rutgers-Louisville game might actually hit before the 7:00 NHL game ended, and damned if Rutgers hadn't nearly singlehandedly taken care of it by halftime.)

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

Ouch. Trailing by 23, Air Force gets into the end zone with just four seconds left in the game to trigger the over. Achromatic and RappinHobo9292 both move to 1-1, the former losing and the latter winning.

VT kneeling out the clock, so barring an absolute disaster, KCF's got his second win.

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

VaTech-ECU goes final and KCF is in. BrettEagles is also on to the third level as Stanford-Duke goes final with the score just low enough for the under, while Camden and sonten1 get to the second level from Stanford covering the spread. WiggumFan267 also goes to level two with TCU easily covering the spread against Air Force.

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

Penn State can't stop the clock, so Alabama-Penn State is an under. GaryOak151 becomes the first to go 3-0, Regaro falls to 1-1 and has to wait for his final game, and Sir Chris (Achromatic) will not be moving on as he goes 1-2.

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

so ****ing pissed


I thought bama was actually good

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Man, Level 2 is officially way too damn easy

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Level 3, here I come!

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Michigan vs. ND time

I'm banking on lots of turnovers and sloppy play by both sides!

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SmartMuffin | Posted 9/10/2011 3:30:32 PM | message detail | quote
I feel like people are psychologically predisposed to pick the Over because you're more likely to win by a lot. Like, theoretically, teams can exceed the over by any possible amount. We've seen college football games where the total ended up being well over 100.

Meanwhile, to pick the Under, the lowest it can possibly go is zero.

I think this is partially true - it's more optimistic to go over, because every time a team scores, you're getting closer to your goal, not further away from it. I was comfortable betting on my own team's game for this reason - I knew that Washington's offense was better than its defense, and that they'd easily carry their own weight in the over bet, which they did.

I think that college football games tend to be pretty high scoring though, and I'm really surprised by how low a lot of these over/unders are. I feel like they must know better than I do what they should be set at, but they don't feel quite right, it's weird. I did just absolutely nail three overs right on the head, and I wouldn't have felt comfortable taking the under on most of these games, except maybe Alabama/Penn State.

SmartMuffin posted...
Man, Level 2 is officially way too damn easy

Well, last week with everyone at level 1, the field went 11-5 (.688). So far, the 9 people who actually made picks at level 2 are 18-7 (.720). Yes, it's a better winning percentage, but not by much.

Although I suppose that the fact that you only need 2 out of 3 correct to advance makes it somewhat easier. So far, we've had three people advance at 3-0, three advance at 2-1, and one fail to advance at 1-2, with two people at 1-1 with one game remaining. So it's possible that as many as 8 of 9 people could advance, and if both of the remaining games go against the people that picked them, we'd have 6 out of 9 advancing (.667) with a cumulative record of 18-9 (also .667).

You're probably right, but much like the announcers in Monday's Maryland-Miami game declaring that Maryland had wrapped the game up, it's a bit premature. (Damn, that was hysterical. Maryland, leading by two points, returns an interception for a touchdown with less than a minute remaining, and the announcers say that Maryland has just cemented the game. "Now hold on," I say, because I'm totally the kind of person that talks to the television when watching football, "nothing is automatic. Yes, the Terps are an extra point away from making it a two-score game, but they're not there yet." Sure enough, Maryland botches the snap on the PAT attempt and it remains an 8-point game, and suddenly the announcers are talking about how Coach Edsall was motioning to his defender to just get down after that interception because if Maryland had stopped short of the goal line on the interception, they would've been able to run out the clock, and now Miami has a chance. You've got to love how announcers contradict themselves so readily without admitting that they were wrong.)

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

Paratroopa1 posted...
SmartMuffin | Posted 9/10/2011 3:30:32 PM | message detail | quote
I feel like people are psychologically predisposed to pick the Over because you're more likely to win by a lot. Like, theoretically, teams can exceed the over by any possible amount. We've seen college football games where the total ended up being well over 100.

Meanwhile, to pick the Under, the lowest it can possibly go is zero.

I think this is partially true - it's more optimistic to go over, because every time a team scores, you're getting closer to your goal, not further away from it. I was comfortable betting on my own team's game for this reason - I knew that Washington's offense was better than its defense, and that they'd easily carry their own weight in the over bet, which they did.

I think that college football games tend to be pretty high scoring though, and I'm really surprised by how low a lot of these over/unders are. I feel like they must know better than I do what they should be set at, but they don't feel quite right, it's weird. I did just absolutely nail three overs right on the head, and I wouldn't have felt comfortable taking the under on most of these games, except maybe Alabama/Penn State.

Yeah, that's the other part of it. I did end up taking one under, because both of the teams involved had been underwhelming--Central Michigan and Kentucky had both scored 21 points or fewer last week and won, so a low-scoring game seemed likely--but it was kind of weird flipping in to that game and trying to root against points being scored.

But as for college football games being pretty high scoring, I actually had been tracking that for the past couple of years (for no particular reason other than that I like to make spreadsheets tracking things--yes, I know I'm weird), and the past two years, 50-59 points has been the most common range for FBS games with 40-49 just barely behind, and 60-69 not too far ahead of 30-39. In FCS games, this is actually reversed--40-49 leads, and 30-39 is easily third, ahead of 60-69 (which in 2009 barely exceeded 20-29). Games in which an FBS team faced an FCS team were counted to both lists.

Of course, that's just which particular ranges were most common. Obviously, 70+ games easily exceeded games with fewer than 30 points--hell, on the FBS side,the 70-79 range alone exceeded the number of games with 0-29 total points both years I'd been doing this. Also, for some reason it looks like I only had up through Week 14 last year. But nevertheless, those over/unders in the 40s and 50s seem reasonable, as 40-59 accounted for nearly half of all games (and while I still apparently need to finish out the 2010 data, the 50-59 range had 205 total in 2009, out of 808 total--over 25% of the games.)

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

From: Paratroopa1 | #070
I think that college football games tend to be pretty high scoring though

I was under the impression that every single ranked team ran up the score every time they could to look better in the pollsters' eyes


and thus the overs were safe bets with teams that needed/wanted that (IE: Penn State if they were to win/Bama to crack the top 2, Oregon to recover from their loss to LSU, and pretty much everybody with a ranking <_<)

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Regaro_Ukiera posted...
From: Paratroopa1 | #070
I think that college football games tend to be pretty high scoring though
I was under the impression that every single ranked team ran up the score every time they could to look better in the pollsters' eyes


and thus the overs were safe bets with teams that needed/wanted that (IE: Penn State if they were to win/Bama to crack the top 2, Oregon to recover from their loss to LSU, and pretty much everybody with a ranking <_<)

And that, apparently, is where you were wrong. Texas kneeling out the clock up 17-16, even if they had gone for the end zone and made it your over wouldn't have hit unless BYU could respond by forcing overtime, while masterplum's BYU (+7) pick gets him to the second round.

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

Good thing nobody had the USC-Utah game; there was one hell of a weird final play there. (although I suspect that even if the final points had counted, it would still be under for the O/U people.)

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

Fourth-quarter explosion gives JaKyL a trip to the next round, and Michigan (+3) is a winner as well.

Those at Level 1 this week: 5-0
Those at Level 2 this week: 7-2 at advancement (19-8 overall--three at 3-0, four at 2-1, two at 1-2)

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Ulti (in one of his Post-Contest Analyses): God of War turned a 5 hour deadlock into a total laugher
Anagram: Oh God, Tidus and Yuna were involved?

Heh, I wasn't even able to see ANY of the Michigan/Notre Dame game either. Oh well!

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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Who at Level 2 did not move on?

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Regaro and Achromatic did not advance.

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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new topic tomorrow

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SmartMuffin - Because anything less would be uncivilized
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hopefully

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"Anybody interested in grabbing a couple of burgers and hittin' the cemetery?" -Royal
"Oh sure, walk to the sun"- Guybrush