College Football Picks 2008 Week 15; Part 3: Mitch’s Free Predictions
The final week of the season is underway and as we have seen the past few weeks, there can be some emotional moments as the Seniors say goodbye to college football.
It has been a fun season picking over 400 games and I look forward to continuing the fun during the bowl season and having a free picking contest that runs from start to finish of bowl season. While I did receive a few emails this week regarding people not receiving the sheet for the picking contest, we decided to not have it this week because of the limited amount of games and decided to add another tier of prizes to the bowl contest instead.
While I enjoy bowl season, it has lost a lot of luster since conference tie ins took over creating predictable match ups and in a lot of cases, rematches of prior years games. I am going to have time during the next few weeks to write about things like this and a series of articles that I have been planning on writing that I hope to compile into my second book this year, if I can get it all finished with all of the other projects on the table.
In any event let’s get to the games this week as we are more than half way thruogh picking every game on the board for this week.
Rutgers -10 Vs. Louisville (Thursday 12/4/08, 7:30 EST) 6 out of 10
The last time I was in Las Vegas and Rutgers was playing on a Thursday Night, I was on the Scarlet Knights and paid dearly for it as they were whooped by North Carolina. While that was back in early September a lot has changed and the Coach Schiano has appeared to have righted thing in Piscataway. Louisville on the other hand looks as lost as they have since Bobby Petrino skipped town two years ago. While at around mid-season the Cardinals looked like they had finally figured things out, those thoughts were quickly squelched as Louisville went on the road and lost outright to Syracuse and has now lost 4 straight total. While the last 3 have been to the top 3 teams in the Big East, the Cards haven’t even been competitive in those games and come into this game at 5-6 overall. Rutgers on the other hand has won 5 games in a row and come in at 6-5 with a chance to finish with a very solid 7-5 record and a bowl game.
Louisville enters this game at 4-6 against the spread this season while Rutgers is 6-4 against the number. Louisville is 0-4 against the spread in their last 4, all of which have been conference games. The Cardinals are also just 1-4 against the spread when they’ve played a team with a winning record. Rutgers has covered their last 4 times out and are 5-1 against the spread in their last 6 conference games. Rutgers is also 5-1 against the spread in their last 6 home games when playing a team with a losing record. These are both teams on streaks and I look for all of the current streaks to continue in this one as Rutgers wins and covers once again.
Pittsburgh +3 at Connecticut (Saturday 12/6/08, 12 EST) 5 out of 10
Before the season started and people were talking about Pittsburgh as a decent team, I wasn’t one who was buying into it. I thought that the Panthers would under achieve and after a season opening loss to Bowling Green I was well on my way to being right. A funny thing happened between now and then, Pitt seemed to have gained heart and their only two losses have been to resurgent Rutgers team and the conference champion Cincinnati Bearcats. UConn has played well and started the season undefeated. While the Huskies come in with a 7-4 record and are bowl bound, they have lost 4 of their last 6. This game features two of the best running backs in the country in UConn’s Donald Brown and Pittsburgh’s LeSean McCoy and both have ridden these two talents to the winning records they have.
Pittsburgh has played well going 6-2 against the spread in their last 8 road games. Pittsburgh is also 5-2 against the spread in theor last 7 overall and 5-1 against the spread when playing a team with a winning record. UConn is 5-0 at home against the spread when playing teams with a winning road record and 7-2 overall against the spread in their last 9 home games. However, the h\Huskies are just 2-8 in their last 10 when playing a team with a winning record. I think this is a close game but I feel Pittsburgh is a little hotter right now and I look for them to win outright.
Cincinnati -7 at Hawaii (Saturday 12/6/08, 11:30 EST) 7 out of 10
You have to think that when Cincinnati scheduled this game that they probably thought that this would be a nice game to use for recruiting purposes and maybe sort of like a guaranteed bowl game for their team, funny how things work out. The Bearcats are Big East Champions and are more than likely headed to the Orange Bowl to take on the winner of the ACC Championship, something very few probably expected many years ago when they scheduled this week’s road trip. As things turn out the final game of the 2008 regular season should be a decent one as we have two teams with winning records, Hawaii at 7-5 and winners of 6 of their last 8 and Cincinnati at 10-2 and winners in 9 of their last 10. It’s no fluke how either of these teams got to where they are in the win-loss columns but it is also clear the Cincinnati played the more difficult schedule to get there.
Both of these teams are 6-5 against the spread this season. Though Hawaii hasn’t covered in their last 5 non conference games, they are 6-2 against the spread in their last 8 games and 4-1 against the spread when playing teams with a winning record. Hawaii is also just 2-6 against the spread in their last 8 home games against a team with a winning record. Cincinnati is 4-0 against the spread when playing teams with a winning record, 4-1 against the spread in their last 5 overall, and 4-1 against the spread in their last 5 following an against the spread loss. While I think it would be easy for a team like Cincinnati to get lost in the euphoria that this magical season has created but I think their Head Coach Brian Kelly is just too good to let that happen. I also feel that Cincinnati is just easily at least a touchdown better than the Rainbow Warriors and I look for them to cover.
Conference USA Championship: East Carolina +12 1/2 at Tulsa (Saturday 12/6/08, 12 EST) 5 out of 10
While Tulsa didn’t quite make the perfect season many thought they would have this season, they made the conference championship which was half of their goal for this year. Of course the other half of the Golden Hurricanes goal is to win the championship game, something that Skip Holtz and his East Carolina Pirates would love to deny them. Tulsa comes in at 10-2 and one of the top offensive teams in the country. While their offense has seemed to be able to put up points at will for most of the season, their defense has had trouble stopping people. East Carolina finished the season a very good 8-4 but were almost forgotten about once they suffered their first loss as they started th season with two stunning wins against Virginia Tech and West Virginia.
While East Carolina is 5-0 against the spread when playing team with a winning record, they are 1-4 against the spread in their last 5 conference games and 2-8 against the spread in their last 10 overall. While Tulso is a perfect 7-0 against the spread in their last 7 home games, they are just 3-7 against the the spread in their last 10 games against a team with a winning record. Tulsa is also just 5-11 in their last 16 following an against the spread loss. While I think Tulsa has an edge playing at home, they haven’t quite been the same team since the loss at Arkansas as it seems teams have figured them out. I like East Carolina to keep it closer than the double digit points they are being given.
While I have made it through the bulk of the games being played this week I still have a few left to go that I wll get to. I will post a few more tomorrow but in order get all of my picks and analysis make sure to sign up for my free newsletter.
« Louisiana-Lafayette (ULL) Vs. Middle Tennesee State (MTSU), Army-Navy Week 15 | Home | Jordan Picks Louisville at Rutgers 12/4/08 Against the Spread ATS »
Comments
alright, really mitch…I’m getting scared. You’re actually picking EVERY game exactly the same as me. I’ve only put about 5 on the forum, but the rest are exactly as I see them in my head.
Someone on the forum has already picked every game the complete opposite of me (and you), and he’s 1-0, we’re 0-1…I’m a tad worried lol.
The MTSU-ULL game was a pick, coin flip, at least in my book and I hopefully made it clear giving the 3 out of 10 rating which is the lowest confidence rating I have given out all year and pretty much said in the write up that I didn’t like the game. In any event, I think we have some pretty solid picks going forward, it’s not like we haven’t been watching all of these teams like hawks all year long and I can safely say we’ve seen about as much of all of the teams in the country as anyone out there.
oh definitly…I’m still very confident in my picks, otherwise I wouldn’t have picked them.
Why dont you ever pick NFL games, I really dont know much about college so I usually pick what you pick, but Im making a living off NFL games
Hi,
Next year we’ll have an all encompassing NFL platform that will be similar to this but were also going to try and tie in fantasy as well. I’m hoping to have it up and running at least a month before the NFL draft. I never expected this site to be so popular but you aren’t a lone in wanting NFL stuff so that’s what I am building a long with a few other sports. I don’t want to roll them all into one site, at least that’s not the plan for now.
In the short term (the rest of this season) feel free to use the forum to talk NFL, that’s what a lot of people are doing and like I said I’ll let everyone know when the next step in the NFL site will take place and it shouldn’t be too far out.
Mitch
Who does everyone have for tomorrow night buffalo at ball state, i put a good bet on rutgers, and san deigo ready to win some more
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