Black Shoe Degenerates, Week 1: Let The Real Fun Begin

Last week was fun, but this **** right here, this is it! A full weekend, Thursday through Monday, of nothing but college football pumped right into my veins! There are your usual duds *cough* Penn State vs Idaho *cough*, but there are some great matchups as well to start the season, and every monitor in my house will have a game on! Alright, let’s get right to business.

I went 1-1 last week, not giving Hawaii enough credit for how many people they returned, while being spot on with Miami keeping it closer than everyone thought (including Florida players, apparently). Miami might have even won the game if they would have gone for it on 4th down instead of attempting a field goal...

Here’s a quick reminder of the rules:

1. Everyone starts out with 1000 fake dollars.
2. You bet based on American rules (a spread bet costs 10% unless otherwise noted).
3. If you win, you get what you put down plus your winnings. If you lose, you lose.
4. If you run out of money, you’re out of luck. To keep going, you need to borrow money. However, instead of borrowing from me, you have to borrow from your fellow participants! This means whoever you borrow from can ask to be paid back whenever they want, and they set the terms of your loan! For this exercise, “terms” means “how much interest to charge, up to 15% (one-time fee).” Once you take out a loan, if you have enough money to cover it, you must pay it back as soon as your lender requests payment.
5. Picks are locked when you place them, even if the line goes up/down afterward.
6. You can make your picks up until the start of a game, or Saturday at noon, whichever comes first. Tuesday/Wednesday games will not be included.
7. If you don’t make any picks for a given week, you get docked 100 dollars for the week.
8. After four consecutive weeks of not making any picks, you balance is set to zero and you are disqualified from competition for the season.
9. Person with the most money at the end of the season wins.
10. Minimum bet amount is 10% of your total stash. For example, if your stash is 1000 and I have four games on the board that week, you can make four 25-dollar picks.

Picks

Syracuse -17 @ Liberty - I know Liberty was better than advertised last season, but Syracuse is still the second best team in the ACC until proven otherwise. New quarterback or not, this seems like a small line to me, even on the road. $50.

Minnesota -13 vs South Dakota State - I’m higher on Minnesota than most, and even with their injury at QB, I think they’ll be good enough to avoid a scare here. Two touchdowns seems like a good line to me. $50

Purdue -11 @ Nevada - This is the one where I think I’m going on a limb, not because I don’t think Purdue will be as good, if not better than last year, but rather because I think Nevada will be improved from last season. So this is my “going on a limb” pick. $25

Results

Last Week: 1-1
Season: 1-1-0
Stash: $1,043.18

Make your picks here.

Register here if you haven’t already. Registration today by 7 PM.

Results from last week. If your name isn’t here and you want it to be, sign up above.

I’ll create standings based on these results, and I’ll start to share those next week.

Happy picking!