A couple penalties and reviews and we're back in this thing.

Bowl season is finally over.  We tracked the picks of football guys and one token female that did her confidence numbers completely at random.  She started out strong and jumped to an early lead, but just like that Troy defense,  it couldn’t hold.

Final tally has Matt Harbaugh beating us solidly with 374 confidence points.  That late 20 spot from the Hawkeyes pretty much sealed the deal.  Second place was me with 342 and last was the token female with 323.  Oddly enough against the spread the token female opinion was the only winner, ending +4 while the so-called experts both ended with -2.  Pretty average showing for the gamblers.

A couple penalties and reviews and we're back in this thing.

Bowl season keeps rolling on long after my hangover clears. No matter how embarrassing I’m finding this personally, I plan on updating it. The picks were made by two guys who know sports, Matt Harbaugh and Tai Ward. The third set of picks was made by a nameless chick. That represents the uninformed opinion that is probably winning your pool right now, kind of like she was winning ours.

But just like the Northwestern Wildcats, upon review, the boys keep coming back. The new year has been good for the confidence picks of Tai and Matt. We’ve climbed from the cellar and now at 299 Matt holds a slim 6 point lead over Tai with the token female bringing up the caboose at 262.

Amazingly just the opposite has happened against the spread.  Token female is dominating the bowl season 18-12 and really making these games her bitch.  Tai and Matt are knotted up at 13-17 which is a terrible record by anybody’s standards.  One update to go.

Harbaugh and I both started off cold but are starting to catch up.  Chick is in the lead, or course, with a 128 confidence.  I’m only 8 points behind her, and 1 point ahead of Harbaugh.  It’s been a pretty crazy first couple weeks so I’m glad to even be in it.  Should have just picked every underdog and would have scrapped better.

Against the spread has been a train wreck to both Matt and Tai, but the female is eeking out a profit at 8-7.  Hopefully the latter bowl games with more teams that we’ve actually watched will treat our wallets much better.

Harbaugh and Tai both got screwed by huge the Fresno State upset to the tune of a 34 and 32 confidence respectively. Ouch. Of course somehow Lady Friend called one of the biggest upsets in the bowl season with the stellar logic of “Theoretically, a cowboy should be able to handle a bulldog. Right?“ Nice way to start it.

Rutgers just dominated and I made a bad call. At least it was only a 4 confidence. ‘Nuf said.

Middle Tennessee State Blue Raiders came through with a good win for Lady Friend and me. Unfortunately she had a 22 confidence on the win to my measley 8. This could get ugly.

After all is said and done, after the first weekend of bowl season we have Lady Friend – 51 to Harbaugh – 16 to Tai – 8. Against the spread Lady Friend jumps out to a 3-0 record which is much better than the 1-2 record posted by the two of us. It’s a marathon and not a sprint, but right now it’s looking like the Usain Bolt versus, well, uh, me so far.

We have you covered.  From the New Mexico bowl to the epic National Championship showdown.  From undefeated majors to 6-6 “who the hell are theys”.  We’ve poured through all the data, scoured the point spreads, reminisced about beer bongs, and analyzed pictures of the cheerleaders to run through our calculations to find the optimal confidence.  And when that failed, sometimes we pulled it out the proverbial ass.

What follows is the fruit of that labor.  I joined up with Matt Harbaugh and we each break down every game with a confidence winner, against the spread winner, and a few thoughts on each of our takes.  This is our college football monolith article.

And this year we also decided to compare our results against that of a random special lady of the statleague offices.  She’ll give you a picture into the mind of that lady in accounting who will probably end up winning your office pool.  Also, even though we tried repeatedly to explain point spreads to her, she just refuses to get it and we just filled in her ATS picks on the same side as the confidence.  Her end excuse is officially “gambling has no place in intercollegiate athletics and football can be enjoyed on it’s own merits” or some other bullshit.

Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Summary