Looking to Week 1

There used to be a game in mid August called the Kickoff Classic, and one called the Pigskin Classic. They're history, gone. I saw Gary Barnett's Northwestern Wildcats beat Oklahoma 24-0 in the 1997 Pigskin Classic at Soldier Field. Great time.

The first game of the 2009 season is scheduled for Thursday, August 27, and it looks like a pass for us. Quincy College visits Indiana State. It's the only game of that calendar week . It's someone you know (barely, in this case) Indiana State, tuning up as the host against someone who is a prohibitive and relatively obscure underdog, D2 school Quincy. It's tough to figure how far this spread ought to be.

Week 1 gets rolling for real the following Thursday, September 3. There's a big selection of games to pick from, and they largely follow the "bring in a tomato can" (click for link) philosophy. There are a couple of high interest games, interesting from a competitive and entertainment standpoint, as opposed to what we're looking for--blowouts that beat the snot out of the spread. The entertainment specials include the Oregon Ducks visiting the blue turf of Boise State, the Stanford Cardinal heading up to Washington State, and on Labor Day night the Hurricanes of Miami square off against the Florida State Seminoles (that's their stadium at the right) in an intrastate battle. All great entertainment, but we won't be putting any cash up on these. There's some great mismatch opportunities for us to start.

Time to start looking through some numbers. For starters, take a look at 2008's final numbers (click to view), courtesy of Vegas Insider. Like the disclaimer on the investment commercials, past results are no guarantee of future performance. This worksheet will give you tons of information to ponder.

Get your butt groove on the couch, there are games Thursday/Friday/Saturday/Sunday and Monday.

We have plenty of time to work on these. That starts next week.