Month: September 2020

We Have a Handful of College Football Games to Bet on Today

Wilbanks1 Comment

Believe it or not, it’s only been about a month since American sports came back. August was just the appetizer portion of this heavenly sports buffet, and now it’s time for some main courses. Conference finals, pennant races, EPL, and most importantly God’s greatest gift to America – FOOTBALL.

Technically, the first Saturday of college was last weekend with an FCS matchup. There was a team from the Southland conference vs a team from the ‘Ohio Valley’ conference and the southerners were easy money. Today is the first Saturday of FBS college football and there’s some alright games to bet on.

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Army -3.5 vs MTSU

Army is currently pounding the shit out of MTSU right now and that -3.5 was way too easy. I’m not sure why it’s taking too long for people to figure this out, but service academies are low key the best teams to get behind these days.

We’ve transitioned to a new era in America where previously all football players learned the wishbone in middle school, and now nobody learns it ever. Triple options are easy to defend if you’ve seen it enough times, but service academies are a problem because now most opponents are seeing it for the first time in their lives.

One interesting thing to note is that Army has had ZERO positive covid cases since they’ve started training, and they fully monitored all the transportation of MTSU to keep West Point safe. Pretty good discipline by the service academies.

It’s too late for this game, but now that I know I’m on a heater I’ll share the rest of my picks…

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SMU -24.5 at Texas State

SMU broke out last season under first year coach Sonny Dykes, who previously coached at Berkley and LA Tech and is very underrated. He brought in a ton of transfers, including Texas QB Shane Beuchel, and stormed out to an 8-0 record and #15 ranking through October.

This newfound SMU success brings a dilemma to Dallas football fans. On the one hand, SMU students are annoying as fuck. There’s fun rich, and then there’s douchey rich. SMU students epitomize the latter.

On the other hand, inflated egos is part of what made Dallas the capital of the football universe. Fuck it. Until they start sucking again, I’m riding the Pony Express.

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North Texas -22.5 vs Houston Baptist

The North Texas Mean Green have somewhat of a cult following in Dallas. They get a lot of pub locally because of the morning show of the legendary sports radio station 1310 The Ticket, as two former roommates of the university co-host the show.

UNT has sucked for most of its history, but they got really good in 2018 with a midget QB named Mason Fine. Last year, they fell off a bit as Fine had injuries, but head coach Seth Littrell still has the program more relevant than ever.

We’re gonna believe in the Mean Green, and say things like “let’s SEE UNT win a game today” as we post those tickets.

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Memphis -18 vs Arkansas State

Memphis is the current king of the AAC, which is the most under appreciated conference in football. They will have a new head coach, as offensive guru Mike Norvell departed to Florida State (and nearly caused a player mutiny).

Ryan Silverfield is the new man in charge and it’s TBD on how that affects Memphis. He was the assistant head coach for Norvell, so there should be continuity and I’m riding the Tigers until further notice.

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Enjoy your football!

We Have a Handful of College Football Games to Bet on Today

Game 6: Well Uhh, Shit…

Wilbanks, ,

I’m at a loss of words. We are really on the verge of the worst Dallas sports meltdown since the Mavs 06 Finals. Easily one of the worst of all time.

That game 5 forfeit might just haunt us forever. Dear god am I worried.

A few notes of positivity since it’s not over yet…

1. Partying like it’s 1999 is not a complete experience without a game 7 beatdown over the Avs.

2. The Islanders and Knights both blew 3-1 leads too, so at least we’re not alone in this. If we do win today, game 1 for our conference finals opponent will likely be their third game in four days. Advantage us. (Or at a very minimum, we won’t be disadvantaged from fatigue)

3. The Avs got even more banged up. Their captain Gabe Landeskog is questionable today, as is defenseman Conor Timmins. This is on top of the Calvert, Johnson, Donskoi, Grubauer, and Francouz injuries.

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So can we beat up a depleted team that’s likely starting the shitty old Leafs backup again? I certainly hope so. If not, no funeral

Please god make it something like this…

Game 6: Well Uhh, Shit…

Marte the Marlin Has Arrived!

Wilbanks

By my calculations, it took exactly one night for new Marlins OF Starling Marte to notch himself a full WAR.

What a deadline prize. Now it’s the fish doing the hauling instead of being hauled. Marte has a $12M option for next year that the Marlins are buying too. No more being cheap.

We cleaned the slate and are now barreling forward with a team that’s both in playoff position and has a top 5 farm system. RE2PECT The Process indeed.

To get Marte, we gave up a solid starter and a solid prospect starter – Caleb Smith and Humberto Mejia, respectively. The D-Bags may be happy, but they also suck at trading.

The Marlins are stacked in pitching, so we are certainly happy trading two spares for a win already.

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One of the reasons we are stacked is the starter tonight. Yep, it’s Sixto Clock. He’s had one start since I raved about his debut. It was his first full start and it came against the first place Rays…

Seven innings pitched, no runs, ten strikeouts, ZERO fly balls. What a legend in the making.

That changeup is just so filthy. It’s either a swing-and-miss or a ground ball. Combine that with a 100mph fireball and we’ve got something special on our hands. Lol philly.

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The fish didn’t just buy at the deadline. We also did an awesome job of selling. Second baseman Johnathan Villar went to Toronto in exchange for one of the best power hitting OF prospects in baseball – Griffin Conine. He’s the son of ‘Mr Marlin’ Jeff Conine.

Villar is good, but Isan Diaz is coming back from the covid list to replace him. Isan was one of the top prospects in the bigs last year, so hopefully he produces.

If he ends up sucking, we have another option in Jazz Chisholm. He was our #3 prospect going into this season, ahead of Sixto at #4. He has the potential to be one of those rare power hitting shortstops. He’s in the lineup tonight and I’m all excited to get jazzy at Sixto Clock.

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OTHER NOTES:

-DeGrom started four straight games against us. FOUR! What the hell, Mets? Can you pitch him against someone else for once?

Fortunately we scraped out a comeback win for his last start on Monday. It was an off day trip to Queens for a makeup game in the middle of a long homestand. Gutsy victory.

Trevor Rogers, another badass prospect recently added to the rotation, got the win. He’s moving to the bullpen to be a setup man for our badass closer Brandon Kintzler, who is 8/8 on save opps.

-Only the Dodgers have a better road record than our 14-7. Nobody has a worse home record than our 2-8. That home record is gonna regress, and it started with last night’s win to double our tally.

-It is now September 2020 and the Marlins are above .500 with a drivers seat to a playoff spot. They’re stacked with pitching and have never lost a playoff series in their two-title history. Watch. Out.

Marte the Marlin Has Arrived!

Revisiting the Time Patrick Mahomes’s Girlfriend Instagrammed Her Stepdad’s Death

Wilbanks

The coolest thing Pat Mahomes did with his new half-a-billion dollar contract was buy part of the Royals. The lamest thing he did was buy his girlfriend an engagement ring.

I feel so sorry for the neighboring restaurant patrons. Mahomes’s new fiancé definitely had no problems staying calm, mature, and not the least bit annoying when she finally got that ring she’d been working for her whole life…

Usually it is pretty stupid for an athlete to skip on the dream life and get engaged so young. It makes me think less of a player when it happens. For example, I knew Baker Mayfield was gonna suck last year when he decided that one rookie season was long enough to be single and he got married at 24yo like a loser.

With Mahomes on the other hand, it’s a bit different. I’ve heard from enough Chiefs and Tech fans over the years to understand that this is a pretty good arrangement for him.

He’s still allowed to sleep with other bitches as long as he’s discreet enough to not embarrass her publicly. She’s been with him since high school and has basically served as his life secretary for all these years.

He also has a dad that played pro baseball, and while his dad wasn’t particularly famous, the family experience still keeps Mahomes from becoming a fame whore himself. It’s part of what made Eli so great at being a NYC QB. These dudes don’t care about banging Carrie Underwood and Jessica Simpson; they just wanna ball out in playoff games.

So good on Patrick Mahomes for making his life secretary happy and maybe setting up a nice little family together. I hope it all works out!

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However the point of this post is not to muse on about some athletes marriage. No… I bring this up because it’s as good a time as any to revisit what might be the most bizarre social media post in the history of the Internet.

It came from her Instagram account on the day of Week 10, 2018 when the Chiefs hosted the Cards. It was a pregame photo with the explanation that she saw her stepdad collapse right afterwards and escorted him to the hospital. Accompanying photos show a first person view of her arriving at the hospital behind her mourning mother, and then an embrace of all three’s hands at the deathbed.

It’s still up and everything too…

https://www.instagram.com/p/BqDyz8Oh5YO/?igshid=d6jc4qrn7m6n

Listen I’m not here to judge any person for the way he or she mourns. Everyone does their own thing and there’s no reason to care about something so personal for someone else when it doesn’t affect you in the slightest.

I’m just saying, this is a very public mourning in a manner I haven’t seen before. It’s interesting that’s all.

Revisiting the Time Patrick Mahomes’s Girlfriend Instagrammed Her Stepdad’s Death

Inter Miami Gets First Ever Win; Somehow Suarez Is Spurning Us?

Wilbanks,

May be a bit belated as MLS has taken a backseat to playoff sports, but I would be remiss to not cover the very first win of the future most famous franchise in the world.

It happened two Saturdays ago against Orlando City SC, who were runners up in the ‘MLS is Back’ tourney. Always good to beat your rivals.

Here is the play of the game. Beautiful cross from Ben Sweat, beautiful header by Julian Carranza, and most of all beautiful commentating from the legendary Ray Hudson…

The ultimate game winner came from our star Mexican Designated Player Rodolfo Pizarro. He celebrated by going into the stands and posing with a cutout of a lady fan. Pretty tight…

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I wrote a couple weeks ago about our open offer to Suarez and how dumb it would be for him to turn us down. At the time, he wanted to eke out one more year at Barca, but the new manager is cleaning house and he’s looking for a new team.

Instead of immediately moving to Miami and taking up the opportunity of a lifetime, Suarez is trying to move to Turin and play for Juventus. What the fuck?

Don’t get me wrong, Juventus will be awesome with him linking up with Ronaldo and Dybala. He might get them that elusive Champions League trophy and be a hero in Italy. But that probably won’t happen. They just lost to Lyon, they’re old as shit, and their best midfielder just signed with… us!

In fact, chances are Suarez is part of a colossal failure where Juve fails to win Serie A for the first time in ten years. The reason? Serie A got good again last year for the first time since that streak started.

Why bother with Italy, Suarez? If/when it doesn’t work out, you’ll be closer to 40 than 30 and regretting the chance you passed up at becoming a Miami icon. Come to Florida, keep speaking Spanish, live a dream life and make some history. Fuck Italy bro.

Inter Miami Gets First Ever Win; Somehow Suarez Is Spurning Us?

Game 5: Stars Accidentally Forfeit for Bishop

Wilbanks, ,

Congratulations to the Avs for not accepting the gentleman’s sweep and extending their stay in Edmonton for a few days. The Stars have been sleepwalking since the 2nd period of Monday night, and I don’t blame them too much because why would the Avs want to keep wasting their time with this?

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With the conference finals against Vegas in mind, Bowness decided to give Bishop the nod. Bishop has been ‘unfit to play’ since Game 2 against Calgary and he wasn’t even skating until yesterday.

However, we’re gonna need him against Vegas because they have two goalies in Fleury and Lehner. If/when the series has back-to-backs, the team with two goalies gets a HUGE advantage.

Even if Bishop isn’t feeling the most nimble, it’s best to get him a warmup game against Colorado instead of risking a trial by fire return against Vegas with the Campbell trophy on the line.

Unfortunately, this warmup game turned into a forfeit game…

Bishop is one of the most battle-tested playoff goalies in the league, so I am not worried about his ability to recover mentally. But Fleury’s playoff resume is right there with Bishop and then some, and he’s healthy.

We really need Bishop to get right. I hope this performance was due to rust and not injury. If so, I’m okay with this forfeit.

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As for the current series, the forfeit removes any margin the Stars had sleepwalking. It also might mean some injury help for the Avs. Defenseman Erik Johnson, wingers Matt Calvert/Joonas Donskoi, and goalie Philipp Grubauer are all on the injured list. It’s a complete mystery as to when they could come back.

We cannot let them out of the grave for a Game 7. We must get back to the level we were playing at before the 2nd period of Game 4. Finish them tomorrow night and get rested for the conference finals.

Game 5: Stars Accidentally Forfeit for Bishop