Thin Gruel as Serious Play Begins Edition

 

 

This week we book three toldjasos™, but none are monumental or hard math.  What happened:

Week Five Most OverRated Football Program Results

1          Cal lost to unranked Arizona State and fell completely out of the top 25

2          Iowa cracked concrete design powerhouse Middle Tennessee

2          Virginia proved they can play with we-can-play-with-UGA Notre Dame

4          Boise State was in their bunk all weekend

5          Florida blanked can-you-find-it-on-a-map Towson (hint:  Maryland)

6          Clemson survived UNC’s two-point win-now PAT attempt but fell from the top spot

6          Georgia kept to the shade for the weekend

8          Texas is resting up for the Red River Classic

8          Auburn more than ably handled Mississippi State

10        Oregon ducked any comers for the weekend

11        Oklahoma raided Texas Tech

 

So, we only have three heads to mount on the wall this week.  Clemson was really easy math:  they couldn’t go up from number one and they were unlikely to stay there.  Think of it like betting on a Wallenda to die this century:  you can’t go wrong on some things.  On the one hand, the Tigers only dropped one spot this week; on the other hand, it takes cojones to go against all public opinion and declare that the reigning champions aren’t necessarily the best team in the sport; the easiest thing to do would be to keep your head down, but your writer is all about calling balls and strikes, even in football.  I’m not getting a tattoo over this, but I’m booking the win:  a very small, very high-risk win.  Parting shot:  they’re still overranked (as is Alabama), but I’m cashing out of these high-risk positions for this tax year.

Cal, on the other hand, is my meat-and-potatoes:  broadside at 200 yards dropped in their tracks.  I had added them to my over-rated list because they had zero business being ranked at all much less number 15.  They stood out like tourists in Paris and deserved to get mugged.  As my toppest mostest overratedest team of last week, no one should be shocked that they would promptly lose to some other PAC256 nobody and get bounced completely out of rankedness.  I called it; this is what I do (just drops ball in endzone after TD and runs promptly from the field, no dance or chest thumping).

Virginia, however, is very weak sauce as far as call-outs go.  If anything, they played Notre Dame well and proved they deserved their ranking.  But that’s not how the polls work:  they’re about mania, and you get pumped up and you get slapped down.  Virginia’s rack is too small for the den wall; we’ll just tack it up over the work bench in the barn and not point it out to neighbors or anything.

So, folks, it’s getting much harder now to play the old OverRated game:  it’s late in the hand and there are only so many trump cards left to lead with.  Basically, we’ve made fun of pretty much everyone possible already, and the AP voters have learned the hard way about several teams and fairly much atoned:  there’s little low-hanging fruit left and the AP poll, at least, is pretty much in order or at least arguably in the ballpark.  Still, ranking teams is like building a mutual fund:  you gotta buy something even in an up market.  And I’ve got some old picks hanging around that weren’t very good and sooner or later I’m going to need to unload them; again, like stocks, I’ll wait until some quarter when I’ve got a ton of gains to offset and, until then, they remain on the books somewhere in the appendixes next to several asterisks.

 

That said:  here’s your thin-gruel high-stress tax-avoidance-structured portfolio of the overranked:

 

Newest Week N + 1 I Believe! Most OverRated Football Programs

1          Boise St jumps to the top of our poll in time to kick around Glib bridesmaid UNLV

2          Wake Forest joins the overranked in time to host Unitas-less Louisville

3          Georgia will probably nuke Neyland to hold serve in the SEC East

4          Florida or Auburn must lose, so I’ll be at least half right about something

4          Iowa plays Khaki Bowl host University of Ypsilanti

6          Texas will go all STEVE SMITH on West Virgina’s MountainMen

7          Auburn or Florida must lose, so I’ll be at least half right about something

7          Oregon lucks into playing recently revealed Cal

9          Oklahoma should vaporize perennially impotent KU

 

So how has our year gone so far?

 

Year to Date Hides on the Wall Rated

1          Utah lost to an unrated USC

2          Stanford was revealed by USC

2          Syracuse was unranked after Maryland

2          UCF was edged by an unranked Pitt

5          Cal was dumped from the AP after losing to Arizona State

6          Iowa State was dethroned before their decent showing against Iowa

6          Michigan State fell out of the ratings, so I was right after all

8          Clemson was dethroned by Mack Brown retirement project UNC

9          Texas probably over-paid for losing to titan LSU

9          Texas A&M probably over-paid for quality losses against Clemson and Auburn

11        Washington State was unranked after becoming lowly UCLA’s first win

11        Florida was ranked down after silly pre-season enthusiasm (but are back up now!)

13        Michigan was blown out by Wisconsin

14        Virginia probably over-paid for losing to can-play-with-UGA Notre Dame

 

Year to Date It-Would-Seem Blown Calls Because They’re Doing Okay Really Well

1          LSU

2          UCF is now a skin on the wall after Pitt

3          Michigan no longer a blown call because Wisconsin

4          Washington State no longer a blown call because UCLA

 

Let’s score this year 14–1-3 so far, nothing to be ashamed of.  So closes another week!

 

links to older opinions:               2019-09-26              2019-09-19              2019-09-13              2019-09-06

 

Disclosure of sources of bias:  your writer has attended the University of Tennessee, Memphis State and the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers College . . . and he sleeps with an alumna of Georgia whose parents met at Washington State . . . and his son went to Houston . . . and he never met anyone from TCU he didn’t like . . . and he irrationally hates Notre Dame, UCF, Clemson, and Notre Dame.