Had another good Sunday. 3-2 but hit large on the Texans and Bengals. Also hit Tennessee. Which I'm a little pissed at myself because I let myself get talked down on that game. I really liked the Titans and wanted to play it hard, but got talked out of it. Instead made a dumb play on the Bears. Oh well. Seems to be a trend. I haven't really had a bad one all season. Just wanted to start this thread. No plays yet. Will update record and everything else later on. My leans right now are as follows
Cincinnati +7
Seattle +9
New England +3
Monday
Cleveland +10.5 - Looking for a tad more here. I think if Quinn starts(no ND bias) Don't like Quinn now he plays for the Clowns. Anyways I think that gives them a much better shot of being competitive at least in this game. Would really love to be catching 13+ here.
Thursday
Bears +3
Haven't really looked much. Just kinda took a look at a few things thats about it. Again I'll try to put some more stuff in either tomorrow or Thursday. I just have a lot of stuff going on this week, plus I have the new Call of Duty which I have been playing for ever it seems already. Took a break just to post here. Good luck this week everyone.
Now normally I wouldn't do something like this, but I want to tell you why this is the best spot to lay points for Notre Dame all season.
#1 - Notre Dame's problems on defense has been stopping the pass. Against Navy they won't have to worry about stopping the pass. Notre Dame's rush defense is actually pretty good. They have been steadily improving on that side of the ball in all aspects all season long. I don't see the Irish having any trouble stopping the triple option this weekend. Last 3 games for the Irish only allowing 97 yards a game. That's against USC, Boston College, and Washington State. Home Games they really have stopped the run. Really shut down the Nevada team. I don't really take anything from early on but I guess thats the most similar team, considering how much they run the football.
#2 - Possible return of Michael Floyd. Most of you might have forgotten about Michael Floyd since Golden Tate has absolutely ripped it up this season, in his absense. Michael Floyd is by far our best pure receiver, and personally I don't think their is a more dominant one in college football when on the field. This season Michael Floyd has 13 catches for 358 yards and 5 touchdowns. In just 2 and a half games. That is staggering numbers, he is averaging over 27 yards a catch. If he plays this week Navy will almost have no answer for Tate, Floyd and Rudolph and their defense will get shredded badly all day long. Michael Floyd is the perfect receiver the combination of speed, strength, catching ability, jumping ability, he's just a freak of nature. I can't stress enough if he plays, Navy won't have any answers. Which opens up the running game which has improved greatly from last season. The line has been opening up bigger holes.
#3 - Notre Dame is probably the best team in the country at protecting the ball. I'd assume the only way Navy hangs around in this game is if we commit turnovers. Which just has not been the case the entire season. Jimmy Clausen has 18 touchdowns and only 2 interceptions.
#4 - Navy hasn't played anyone even close to being comparable to the passing attack of the Irish. The closest statistically speaking is Southern MethodistA team they really struggled to beat. Navy's passing defense may look good but they really haven't played a team that has a good passing attack. Notre Dame has statistically the 8th best in the nation, but based on competion and all that I'd have to say they are definitely top 5. Nobody can say that they are not. Navy's secondary is in for an extremely long day with Floyd and Tate. Assuming Floyd is playing. Rudolph will also be a huge mismatch for anyone trying to cover him. If they play soft zones we will gash them with the rushing attack and short passes all day. They won't be able to double team Floyd and Tate.
Or Triple Team for that matter. Which Tate has learned to break...
Navy's injury concerns. Ricky Dobbs QB is questionable, one of the starting rbs Marcus Curry is also questionable.
Last years game @ Navy was really a laugher if you guys don't remember. The game was 27-7, mind you this was a better Navy team, and definitely a worse Notre Dame team last season. Anyway the game was 27-7, before Navy scored 2 late garbage touchdowns in the last 2 minutes of the game to make it 27-21. Notre Dame really gashed them with the run, because our offensive line has a massive size advantage over Navy's front 7. Remember our Rush offense was one of the worst last season and they put up 230 yards on these chumps. I don't see us having any problems moving the ball what so ever in this game. I don't see Navy stopping us, I don't see Navy really moving the ball. The only way I think this game will be close is if Navy can force turnovers, but if history repeats itself Notre Dame will protect the ball just as normal. Jimmy Clausen doesn't force the ball and does not make mistakes. He has complete transformed since his Freshman year, to become I believe the best true thrower in the NCAA. I believe Mallett is close, but I still think Clausen is better.
Again this play for me is going to be based on the return of Floyd. Most likely I will not play the game if he doesn't play. If I do I'll play it very small. With Floyd in the game though I will be playing it fairly hard.
I would recommend.
Notre Dame -11, up to ND -14. Large whatever Large is for you.
If I get Notre Dame -11 I will play it for 10 U's. As I think this is a great spot to lay chalk with the Irish. Will know Michael Floyd's status sometime tomorrow, probably very early unless I can come across something tonight. I know he knows already, wish I could find out somehow. Now I know I'm a homer. But these are facts and the facts are the facts. I truly believe that this will be a blowout. I don't think this game will ever be close. Thats why I feel it is warranting a very strong play.
Score Prediction
Notre Dame 38
Navy 17
Rip it up! Make arguments.. Do what you think you can do. Make any case for Navy that you think.
When you go to covers, click NCAA, click matchups. Click Notre Dame vs. Navy blah. Then scroll down and you all will see something lovely placed for everyone's eyes.
Road Team is 13-1 against the spread in the last 14 meetings. I find that hilarious. They place that for suckers to fall for. This is going to be a blow out. If Floyd goes the game won't ever be close. If Dobbs doesn't go for Navy, they don't have a shot in hell. Good Luck Degenerates. Hope you all appreciate this, and take advantage of this. Thank You..
I started looking at the games really hard for the past couple of days. Early leans so far..
Thursday Night...
North Carolina St -3.5
Boise State -4.5
Saturday
Washington +14
Oklahoma State -4.5
Western Michigan +11
Virginia Tech +4
Illinois -5
UAB +2
Ohio +6 - UCONN lost a lot.
Notre Dame -17 - My early thoughts on this game were that Nevada would keep it close. The more and more I look at matchups this game has blowout written all over it. Notre Dame will load up 8 in the box and blitz the hell out of Kapernick. They will force him to use the arm to beat them in my opinion. Tate, Floyd, and Rudolph should dominate the secondary. If the running game is decent this week Irish could win by 24+. Probably won't bet this game, because it is week 1 and I'm really not sure what to expect. I would recommend staying away from this game, as of now.
Lookin for better lines on some games
Florida Atlantic +20, although history tells me no.
California -17
Kentucky -14
Troy -3, Really like this game, almost seems too good to be true. So I'm going to really look into this game.
Again these are really early leans. I could end up not betting any of these above but right now this is what I like. Backing 3 MAC teams early
Reports are saying that he is close to signing, but no details of with who. Any guesses?
Here are my top 4 spots:
Baltimore
Jacksonville
New England
Washington
I'm extremely excited about my Irish this season. Probably the most excited I've been about an Irish team in a long time. Is this the year all the great recruiting classes finally pay off? I think so. The Irish have one of the more favorable schedules on paper that I have seen in a long time. As I've sat here and gone over and over countless statistics, read countless previews and broke down the schedule 40 times and I keep coming to this conclusion. For all who have yet to figure this out yet, the Irish are going 12-0 this season.
I'm nuts I know, but like it or not I could see this happening. Notre Dame's offense is going to be great this season. When I say great I could see them easily averaging 32 points a game. At times last year Notre Dame looked really good, like a contender but at times again they looked extremely bad losing to Syra****. The biggest thing everyone needs to remember is how young the team was last year, and still even this year. Now though most of these players have had a chance to gain a lot of college experience against great players. If Clausen doesn't get invited to the Heisman ceremony this season I'll be extremely surprised. The wide recievers are great, Phil Steele recently ranked them as the #1 WO group in the nation. Golden Tate and Mike Floyd are both great in my opinion. Mike Floyd will be a top 10 pick in the NFL Draft if he can stay healthy and of course improve.
Projected Offensive Starters
QB - Jimmy Clausen JR.
RB - Armando Allen JR
FB - James Aldridge SR
WR - Golden Tate JR
WR - Mike Floyd SO
TE - Kyle Rudolph SO
C - Dan Wenger JR
RG - Chris Stewart JR
LG - Eric Olsen SR
RT - Sam Young SR
LT - Paul Duncan SR
I have Aldridge as the FB although I believe they will run mostly 3 reciever sets. 3rd reciever as of now is probably Duval Kumara who has shown signs of being a decent receiver but has yet to step up. There are a lot of young receivers I'm sure eager to jump in and take over the number 3 spot. I don't know if losing David Grimes hurts or helps us yet, that is yet to be determined. I guess if one of the young receivers can step up then we will see. I'm really excited about the offense this season. I think they will be an exciting offense to watch. I think they will put up a lot of points this season. The running game is going to be the biggest key to the success of the offense though. Our running game has been very bad the past couple of seasons. I think that the running game will improve greatly this season though. Couple of reasons, hired a new offensive line coach. I think the playcalling will be a lot better with Weis back calling plays. So I think that will also contribute to the success. The Irish also have a very experienced offensive line and a bruiser in Hughes and a speed guy in Allen in the backfield. Allen will most likely get most of the carries is he is a dual threat as a receiver as well. I'd like to see the Irish get the screen game going this season. The past couple of seasons watching this team try to set up screens was almost embarrassing as a fan to watch. That is one thing I want to see them improve on. Jimmy Clausen also needs to improve his accuracy this season as he was off at times. When he is on he is on though. The Hawaii game I know its Hawaii but still he looked great in that game. It still was a win, and maybe a confidence booster for him coming into this season. Like I said previously I really think that Clausen will receive enough votes to get invited to the Heisman ceremony. I know everyone thinks I'm a crazy stupid fan, but we will just have to wait and see. Thats probably why I'm not getting paid to do this, its because I have the Irish going 12-0 this season. Well at least I can say I'm optimistic. Speaking realisticly now I really believe that they can go 12-0, but its the Irish and they might slip up, plus they haven't beaten USC in 100 years it seems. If they don't win 9 or more games I'll be very surprised. I have them winning 10, with 2 maybes. Only time will tell. Bash away or whatever you guys want to do.
BCS Game for the Irish or Bust in my opinion