Preseason polls mean nothing! (Part 2)
I cautioned in a recent blog (posted on August 29) that paying too much attention to preseason rankings could be hazardous to one’s wallet. All 25 teams in the AP preseason poll were in action this past weekend with two games including ranked opponents battling each other. No. 5 Boise St. (minus-3) won and covered in the Georgia Dome vs. No. 19 Georgia 35-21 while No. 3 Oregon (minus-3.5) was beaten 40-27 at Cowboys Stadium by No. 4 LSU (favorites were 1-1 SU and ATS). Note that of the other 21 ranked teams, all playing unranked opponents, those teams were 19-2 SU but a very modest 10-10 ATS (No. 24 West Virginia’s game was a suspended final, causing a “no play”), proving the pointspread was once again a “great equalizer.”

The two SU losers were No. 14 TCU losing 50-48 at Baylor on Friday night and No. 16 Notre Dame (-10.5) at home to USF on Saturday (Bulls won 23-20, despite never-ending weather delays). Not surprisingly, I had plays on each game. Baylor’s upset of TCU ended the Horned Frogs’ 25-game regular season winning streak, as well as their 11-game road winning streak (both were the longest active streaks in the nation). It was also a game that I was ‘all over.’ I spoke in my August 29 blog to how here at Team KOB we have our own preseason power rankings and our detailed preparation has allowed my clients to get off to winning starts each and every September. While others (including the oddsmakers) are “feeling their way” through college football’s opening month, fast starts are the norm, not the exception, here at Team KOB.

I’m not sure what the AP voters were thinking when they ranked TCU 14th (coaches’ poll was no better, ranking them 15th), as eight starters were gone from the offense and a defense which had dominated CFB for the past three seasons, returned only five starters. More importantly, by all our scouts’ reports, we at Team KOB were convinced that this year’s Horned Frogs ‘D’ was a mere shell of a unit which allowed only 11.3, 12.8 and 12.0 PPG the last three seasons, as well as just 218, 240 and 228 yards. I made a huge play on TCU/Baylor ‘over’ and each team almost reached the closing total of 52 1/2 all by themselves. The Bears, led by QB Robert Griffin III, ‘torched’ the TCU ‘D’ for 564 yards, 336 more than TCU had allowed per game in 2010. My clients and I cashed our tickets with five minutes to go in the second quarter.

As for Notre Dame, how badly do all the ‘talking heads’ and poll voters want this team to become relevant again? Ranked No. 16 by the AP (18th by the coaches’) was a joke. One of my key plays on another winning Saturday was taking the points with USF, coached by Skip Holtz (Lou’s boy). Holtz spent five years at East Carolina (2005-09) before coming to Tampa last year. He made a name for himself among sports bettors (or should I say investors) while at ECU, going 14-5 as a road dog plus covering two of three bowl games as an underdog. His Bulls were 3-2 as road dogs last year and right on cue, upset Clemson last season in the Meineke Car Care Bowl 31-26, as a 5.5-point ‘dog. USF plus-the-points was like “taking candy from a baby.”

I have one more reference to last week’s blog regarding preseason polls. I noted that last year’s champ (Auburn) opened 19th in the coaches’ poll, the lowest for a defending champ since USA Today began administrating the poll in 1991, and 23rd in the AP. What were they thinking? A pair of respected preseason college football "touts" predicted Auburn to finish 5th in the six-team SEC West in 2011 while another had the Tigers finishing dead-last. We now know “who had it right!” The Tigers escaped with a 42-38 win at home vs. Utah State (closed as 24-point favorites) by scoring twice in the final 2:07 (the second score came with 30 seconds remaining, following the defending champs recovering an onside kick).

Utah State’s last winning season came in 1997 (Aggies have gone just 31-85 the last 10 years) and the school is now 0-44 all-time vs. ranked opponents on the road. However, led by a true freshman QB (Chuckie Keaton), the Aggies rolled up 448 yards (27 FDs) and scored 38 points. Anyone other than the AP voters or coaches still think Auburn is a top-25 team? Beware of those poll rankings again this weekend.

Posted by Ken O'Brien on Sep 5, 2011 10:00:34 am

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