Holy Wagers - November 10th Weekend

After a one weekend Sabbatical to rest my picking prowess, the Pope is back and ready for "dough"vember. Check out my season record here, or by clicking the updated link in the upper left. I still have a 15-10 record in college, so I have done well overall. Remember, all bets are one unit except for the 2 unit Holy Wager. Now for the picks:

College

Arkansas -0 @ Tennessee - What happens when the top rushing team in the conference plays the #9 rush defense in the country? Throw in the fact that Arkansas is hot and coming off its best season performance last week against South Carolina, as well as they have a Heisman contender in a wide open race for the trophy, I don't see Arkansas playing poorly. The only chance for Tennessee is a wild shootout, like the Alabama vs Arkansas game. I think Arkansas will pile it on early and then coast to the finish line with their running game, despite how much Tennessee has to play for (the East title). Prediction - Arkansas 42 Tennessee 31

Texas -6.5 vs. Texas Tech - Tech has trouble with Texas year in, year out. Texas is playing well offensively and will certainly have one of the most athletic defenses Tech has seen all year. Typically this game is a blowout. I doubt it will be that, but I do expect it to be a decisive win. Prediction - Texas 35 Texas Tech 21

East Carolina -7 @ Marshall [Most Blessed Wager of the Week] - Marshall is awful, and East Carolina is a solid football team. ECU played a very close game at Virgina Tech earlier this year, and their offense has gotten much better. Last week they hung 50 on Memphis, who beat Marshall decisively. I dont see this one being close with Marshall's season over essentially and ECU still playing for CUSA championship. Prediction - East Carolina 56 Marshall 28

Pro

Buffalo -3 @ Miami - Buffalo is actually playing some decent offense, while Miami is not doing anything respectable or decent. Traditionally Buffalo plays well at Miami, and I just dont see this won going well for the Dolphins. Prediction - Buffalo 28 Miami 21

Detroit +1 @ Arizona - Detroit is playing very well, but Arizona plays well at home. This might be a trap bet, but then again, Detroit embarrassed Denver last week by 30 points. I think it will be close but this is Detroit's season - Prediction - Detroit 31 Arizona 24

Dallas -1.5 @ New York Giants - Another tough one. The Giants are 6-2, but they really have been barely beating some mediocre teams. Certainly they have won 6 in a row I believe, but none of those wins have been impressive. I see this being a low scoring game except for one quarter of Dallas offensive explosion. Prediction - Dallas 28 New York 17

This weekend is definitely the one of the road teams. By this point in the year, I feel I know these teams pretty good. Lots of the these teams have something to play for, while many have nothing to play for. Those type of matchups make picking the spread much easier.

Throwback Football

The Titans are 6-2 and off to a great start for the season. So far this season my boy at ESPN, Merrill Hodge, who is known as a Vince Young hater, has been in some ways correct in his assessment of the Titans QB. He predicted that Vince Young would continue to have passing trouble that would stall the Titans offense. Vince Young has had a few good games, but overall, his passing stats are not great, with a passer rating of 61.5. While he has run for a few TDs and has completed 62% of his passes, he hasn't been consistent. Merrill said that Vince Young would have a bad year, and that the Titans would be lucky to win 5 or 6 games. This is entertaining:



While Vince Young has had trouble passing as Merrill predicted, the Titans overall offense and team play have not. Merrill looks a bit dumb right now, as there have been a few surprises for the Titans at the season's midway point. Tennessee's ranks in team for the entire NFL (AFC)categories are as follows:

Rushing Yards (Offense) - 3rd (2nd)
Rushing Yards (Defense) - 1st (1st)
Defensive Yards Total - 2nd (2nd)
Defensive Points Allowed - 2nd (2nd)

You can see the updated rankings through this week by clicking here. Quite simply, the Titans are running the ball and stopping the run, which is the definition of throwback football.

Today's game is very different in that you typically must have a passing attack to go along with this formula to consistently win. Many would argue that our weakness in the passing game will be this team's fatal flaw. While we do rank last in the AFC and second to last in the NFL in passing yards (to the 49ers), I think that our playcalling and gameplanning has really taken the pass out of the arsenal in favor of running the ball with a few short, safe passes for VY.

The Titans "passing game" should be measured not by passing TDs and yards in the air, but rather a combination of VY's passing and rushing yards, as well as passing and rushing TDs. This is the most objective and comparable estimate to a traditional QB, as most of VY's rush yardage are on plays where he is not designed to run. Here is a stat line for VY, that I would say would be a fantastic game:

175 yards passing, 75 yards rushing, 1 pass td, 1 rush td

Adding his rushing and passing yards together is a much better measure of his ability as a QB. The above stat line would give him 250 yards and 2 td, although some of them were with his legs and not his arm. While everyone claims that you cannot have a running QB in the NFL, I question what their definition of a running QB is. VY is a dual threat QB that makes plays in the passing game - both with his arm and his legs. Many NFL analysts will cringe at this, but a yard is a yard. Certainly VY's health could be an issue long term, but for the present, he needs to play his way to be most effective.

Vince Young should have very very few plays designed for him to run as the first option - but short passing plays where he checks one read and then either passes or runs for 5 yards are the bread and butter plays for Vince Young. If the defense doesn't leave a spy, then you run. If the defense does leave a spy, find the open WR. An offense designed around simple passing reads will work best for VY, and that appears to be what Norm Chow is doing.

Kudos to the Titans so far this year. The defense has been spectacular, as has been the running game. IF VY joins their level of production, this team can win a few playoff games.

Out of Hibernation - Memphis Grizzlies

The NBA 2007-08 season kicked off in the middle of last week, starting a very long 82 game season that will go through April 2008. The Memphis Grizzlies are the Pope's hometown NBA team, and had their home opener on Wednesday night against the San Antonio Spurs.

Opening night was exciting, despite the Grizz losing by 3 points to the defending world champions. Now the Grizz sit at 0-2, which has fizzled any initial excitement, and put fans in Memphis back to their expected, "wait and see mode". I am hoping fans stay excited but more importantly, stay patient and realistic. Improving our win total by 50% would be great right? Yet this would still not get us into the playoffs. We need to make strides and contend nightly before we can get into the playoffs and do some damage. Now on for the off-season review.

Off-Season Review

Coming off the worst record in the league last season, the Grizzlies are seeing season season ticket sales and attendance drop tremendously. Another season like last year could really hurt the financial viability of this team, already in a small market. This offseason was probably the most important ever for this franchise, which needed to replace a coach, GM, and draft a lottery pick, on top of signing a few players. Now on for the Pope's "grades". Take this with a grain of salt and some holy water, because obviously the scores are very premature at this point.

New Coach --> Marc Iavaroni - I love this guy. He is disciplined with his players, but at the same time, he is not an old school tough guy thats all hot air. He is very well liked by his players, but still a disciplinarian, which is a difficult combination. It will take time to get this team more organized on offense, more capable of pushing the ball upcourt, and more disciplined defensively, which seem to be his three tenants thus far. A former assistant from Phoenix, he seems to have what it takes to be a successful coach. Pope's Grade: A-

New GM --> Chris Wallace - He seems fine. Im not overly excited or disappointed with him, just lukewarm. I think he will largely be defined by Darko and Mike Conley Jr, as well as other players he signs in his first two years. He came from the Boston Celtics, who have been awful for a long time. Hopefully he was learning what decisions not to make. Pope's Grade: B-

Lottery Pick --> Mike Conley Jr - He was a good consolation prize after Memphis lost out on the draft pick lottery and fell to the #4 pick, despite having the best chance in the league for the top pick. Mike is a very in control and classic point guard - pass first, shoot second. His complete game is going to need the addition of more physical play and better shooting. Right now, he has the quickness, vision, and passing skills needed to be an elite point guard. We'll see. Pope's Grade: B+

New Big Man --> Darko Milicic - Darko is a big fella, and a much different player than my initial impressions of him coming out in the 2003 NBA Draft at the #2 overall pick. I thought he was another Dirk, a big guy who could handle the ball and shoot. In reality, he is a big body that is much thicker, bigger, and stronger than Pau Gasol, and gives us the physical prescence we need. I think if he gets 10 pts and 10 boards a night, as well as a block or two and some defensive stops, we will be getting what we need from him. He played great defense on Tim Duncan on opening night, but has an issue with taking plays off apparently. Hopefully he will mature and know his role, which is to be a defender and rebounder first. Pope's Grade: B

In short, I think the offseason was a success. Questions remain about our team defense, which has been not much better than last year's disastrous effort. We need more consistency offensively, as we certainly have scorers. However, I think its going to take a season for everything to come together, and this team to really learn how to win. My prediction is 35-47 as the Grizz record, improving by about 50%. I think we are one player an maturation of a few young guys away from being a contender. But isn't every NBA team?

I'm sorry Seaman

The Navy Midshipmen (Seamen) finally ended their 43 game losing streak to Notre Dame, defeating the Irish in triple OT on Saturday, 46-44. You can read a nice recap of the long and actually very entertaining game here. Entertaining for a non-Irish fan, that is.

Every year we play Navy, I do not enjoy it. We have everything to lose and nothing to gain, and every time they have the ball on offense I feel uneasy at my stomach. They inch and crawl their way down the field with the same running plays. 2 yards here, 3 yards there, 5 yards next. One scoring drive was 19 plays! You feel like you might not ever get the ball back. Then when you do get the ball back, the pressure is that you might not see it for another quarter!Certainly we had a physical advantage over Navy, but those guys executed perfectly and got the yards when they needed. Kudos to Navy. Now on to the Irish . . .

Three edicts the Pope has about this game and the Irish:

1. Our passing game was very disappointing. 4 dropped passes, 2 at critical times in the 2nd half. Evan Sharpely failed to connect on a deep ball. Evan also overthrew a few open WRs. Heck, two of our receptions were bobbles that were luckily caught on the second attempt. I was disappointed in the QB and WR play against the weakest secondary we will see all year, and quite possibly the worst in Div 1-A.

2. I felt that our defense was rarely aggressive enough. I understand that defending the triple option takes incredible discipline and assignment football. I also understand that if you do not disrupt the play early on, then the triple option can work very well. The times when we got Navy for a loss was when our LB got into the backfield the fastest, and/or the CB took a chance and got into the backfield early. Brian Smith and Darren Walls had solid games, but I felt too many of the other defenders were waiting for Navy to run at them as opposed to being attacking. A defense that is thinking too much about assignments is just as bad as a wild, uncontrolled one.

3. Kick the damn field goal. With 40 seconds the play, and the game tied 28-28, the Irish decided to go for a 4th and 8 instead of attempted a game winning 41 yard field goal. Yes, 41 yards. And yes, a made attempt would have won the game. Instead the Irish were sacked as Navy player "Ram Vela" (whom I have nicknamed 'Club Vela') was shot out of a cannon over our RB and into Evan Sharpely.


The game went into overtime, which put too much on the Irish that eventually cracked our defense. We needed a win bad. I know the wind was against us, and our kicker had been horrible all week in practice and even in the game up to that point. But a measely 41 yard field goal would have ended the game - shouldnt we have taken a chance? Especially considering Navy's inability to move the ball downfield in quick chunks, even if we missed it they still would not have had enough time and a good enough kicker to beat us.

This has been a trying, frustrating season. Im glad the streak ended this season, as we might as well get it out of the way and take our lumps this year. Im sorry to the Navy Seaman, as we did not put up our best fight this season. The Irish play this season has been as frustrating as the worst video game ever, which I played often in college, Seaman for the Sega Dreamcast. Read up on this game here. The review for this game is far nicer than mine will be for the Irish football team this season.

Busy Work Week for the Pope

Last weekend was a rough one for the Pope, as I went 1-2 in college and 1-2 in pro. Check out my season long record in the upper left hand corner of the page at the Holy Wagers link. For the season I am still up 6 betting units and doing well.

This week has been a busy one so I havent been able to post my thoughts on the Titans scraping one by, and the fantastic (almost perfect) opening night for the Grizzlies. More to come on both of those after another game for each team next week. Also more to come on the Irish, who begin a very different stretch of our schedule - against teams with little or no defense. It will be interesting to see what we can do.

I also haven't had loads of time to look at wagers, so Im going to pass on making picks this week. The only games at my quick glance that I really like was Michigan -4 @ Michigan St, and Tennessee -4.5 vs. the Panthers. Im not going to make picks at all this week though, as I will just take a week off.

GO IRISH BEAT NAVY!

By the way, Im heading to see Indiana play Ball St. in Bloomington tomorrow. It should be a tough game as the Hoosiers try to become bowl eligible for the first time since 1993.