I finished 5-2 and took the overall championship. My final record was 67-35-3 (.638) with 11-4 in money games. Brad went 4-3 so I won by 3 games. The winner gets their earnings along with $20 from every other player. That puts me over $350 for the year.
How I did it:
If you have read what I have posted about betting, you know that I like to take the favorites with the big offenses and I also like to bet against teams that are horrible.
I also made a spreadsheet of all my picks so I can look at the trends and what each team did the past few weeks. I got on the Houston bandwagon and rode them for 4 money games.
I also kept the games I liked but took off the board, so I could see what my gut told me the past week and to see how I did with the games I liked, but took off. I ended up around .500 with the "alternate" games.
My consistent picks this year have been with...
Oklahoma State - 12 picks (8-4), 0 Money Games
Wisconsin - 9 picks (7-2), 1-1 in Money GamesAlabama - 7 picks (5-2), 1 Money Game
LSU - 7 picks (7-0), 1-0 in Money Game
Houston - 7 (6-1), 4-0 in Money Games
Oregon - 4 picks (2-2), 0-1 in Money Games
College Gameday Picks:
11 picks, 9-2 record, 2-1 Money Games
My consistent picks against:
Minnesota
Iowa State
Kansas
Kentucky
Ole Miss
Out of 105 games, I took the favorite 87 times (60-27). I took the underdog 18 times (12-6).
Conclusion: This year was lucky. I took the favorites and they covered 69% of the time. When I took the underdog, they covered 2/3 of the time. I looked at a few teams that should win and I looked at a few teams that are bad and should be blown out. This first week, I wanted to make the Gameday game as the money game, but then I realized that if you lose the money game, you pay up a lot. If you win, you get some money. I also learned that one game here or one game there isn't going to make the season so if one team kicks a late fieldgoal to beat the spread by 1, I shouldn't beat myself up about it. The fact I won is great, but every week I had 7 games circled and it was the most fun thing I have done. I really hope this continues down the road and I doubt I will ever come near the amount of success I had this year.
Basically I say this: Go with your gut, have fun, and when in doubt, take the teams you want to see win. And never bet with money you don't have or can't afford. HAVE FUN! See you for the 2012 season. Hint: I'm taking USC, LSU and Oklahoma a lot.
I am currently 2 games ahead of Brad for the best record with one week left. If I hold on, I get $20 from the other 10 guys in the pool along with my winnings that are totaled at $137 as of week 14. For all the games I didn't take to Bodog or Sportsbook.com, this may be a great way to bring in the new year. Enough of my personal finances, here are my final picks for the year and the most glorious time of the year...BOWL WEEK!!!
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| Take the Horned Frogs, you guys |
Money Game:
Wed Dec. 21st
Poinsettia Bowl 8:00 ESPN
18TCU -10.5 vs. Louisiana Tech
TCU started out a little rocky, losing to Baylor the first week in one of the games of the year, and lost to SMU in overtime. Patterson and the bro at qb righted the ship and went into Boise and beat the Broncos after scoring a touchdown in the last seconds and the two-point conversion to win 36-35. They will have no problem with Tech.Loss TCU 31 Louisiana Tech 24
LTech was up 24-17 at one point and even with the score to put up TCU by 7, the spread was never in doubt and I debated to take TCU or Boise, I made the wrong pick. TCU didn't play too bad, I just under estimated a frisky LTech squad. They have a little something going on down there.
