POINSETTIA BOWL PREDICTIONS

QUICK NOTE ABOUT THE SYSTEM: Since we're not a casino, there's no juice. For the gambling impaired, at a casino or sports book (or anywhere where they want to rape you) if you wanted to win $100 on a spread bet or an over/under bet, you have to lay $110 to win $100. That just complicates shit when you're doing it for fun, so all bets on over/unders and spreads are to win like amount (bet $100 to win $100) and the money lines are proportional (e.g. this week Jeezy laid $80 on the -250 ML which means if TCU wins outright, he gets his $80 back plus $32. If he laid $80 on NIU, he would get $80 plus $152. Money lines pay big when the big underdog wins). If you have any other questions go grow a pair and then come back. It should make sense with a functional pair of testicles.

I'm also toying with the idea of throwing away the limits on the BCS games or just the Championship game so we can go out with a bang. We'll see.


ANALYSIS: At the beginning of the season, everybody thought TCU was going to be the BCS buster this year. It didn't quite pan out for them as BYU slapped them down early on their way to a 10-2 season and a Mt. West championship and then Utah caught them right afterwards when they still didn't have their heads straight from having their perfect season ruined. It's not really that TCU wasn't quite as good as everybody thought (though they didn't really get a chance to prove it), it's more that BYU was better than everybody thought.

Garrett Wolfe became a Heisman candidate and was eliminated as a candidate the same week: at Western Michigan he got 25 yards on 18 carries and wouldn't break the century mark for 5 more weeks. Looking at this dude's stats makes me wonder if he has an identical twin who sucks at running back who played for him during a 5 game stretch. This dude got 171 yards AT Ohio State (along with 114 receiving yards!), averaging over 6 yards a carry (22.8 per reception) and has averaged over 10 yards a carry in two games (as well as averaging 9.0 and 8.2 in two other games). He has a rang of 25 - 66 on the low end and 162 - 353 on the high end, but nothing between 66 or 162. 3 of their 5 losses were during his slump with the other two coming to Ohio State and Ohio, the eventual MAC runner-up. On the plus side, his last two games have been a return to form with efforts of 203 against MAC champ Central Michigan and 164 against MAC doormat Eastern Michigan.

So the matchup looks like this: you've got a guy who either can go crazy at any time and rush for 353 yards or a guy who runs like a fat girl after a bran muffin on one side of the ball and a defense rated #3 against the run by CNNSI.com that averages 67.6 ypg given up. NIU recently lost their starting QB and is atrocious on defense. The TCU offense isn't spectacular, but it doesn't have to be.

PREDICTION: Garrett Wolfe is all or nothing and TCU gives him nothing early and is all over the QB for the rest of the game as NIU struggles to get anything going on offense. TCU's offense has little trouble against NIU defense, but since they aren't that spectacular themselves, it isn't a full on blowout. A 17 point margin feels about right.

WAGERS:
75 on TCU to cover (EDIT: I'm retarded and broke my own rule about 10 unit increments. It's halftime, so the punishment is: if I win the bet, I round down to 70 units. If I lose, I round up to 80 units.)
100 on the UNDER
0 on the money line