An Uneven Weekend

When you start the Saturday action with four stars in the bank, things feel a little bit better just getting out of bed.  We banked 4 on NC State on Thursday night, so that's how it was for us.  Starting the day, Arizona State, the 3 star play for the week, performed just as well as we hoped for, succumbing 20-19 to Wisconsin.  Carrying a 13 1/2 point handicap, that was a handy 3 star win for us.

Props to the Owls, an ornithological lesson
 learned the hard way for us.  Owls can
rotate their heads up to 270 degrees.They
devour their prey whole.  Like Connecticut.

The Temple Owls, friends, made the naysayers (us) pay for our lack of faith.  The Owls were 6 1/2 point dogs and won the game straight up 30-16, making that a 20 1/2 point cover and a 1 star loser for the good guys.

Our 2 star featured Clemson at Auburn.  Clemson played very intelligently; they made few mistakes, but a big one at the end cost them the game. Auburn, on the other hand, made quite a few, and they were blatant and costly throughout, reflective of their generally inconsistent play habit, back and forth from exciting to frustrating.   Clemson pounded the Tigers first, going up 17-0 on a highlight reel TD catch with 1:14 to go in the first half.  In the second half everything was turned around, and Auburn charged to a 24-17 lead at the end of Q3.  Clemson came back to tie (thanks to to 2 phantom foul calls on the Auburn defense, terrible calls), and that's where regulation ended, tied at 24.  In OT Auburn kicked a FG on their possession.  Clemson kicked one to tie, but the center was called for an illegal snap.  The second attempt, after the penalty was no good, game over, 2 star loss for us. 

We had a few dollars laid down on the side and didn't fare well there either. Kiffin & Co were the front end of Parlay Pete's first foray of the year, and they won by 11 as 11 point favorites, killing the parlay possibility very dead, very early.  How did this happen, you may ask...early in the game, USC failed on a 2 point conversion attempt.  Why, oh why, would you worry about leading 15-7 instead of 14-7 in the first quarter? Throughout the game, they went 0-3 on 2 point attempts.  Did I tell you, I can't stand this guy.  It is official : stay away from Kiffin College, they are buzzkill incorporated.  Pete Carroll didn't do stupid shit like that. 

We also figured that the Cal Bears had another good week in them before the Bears started their annual hibernation.  Nuh-uh.  Nevada ran over Cal like a beer truck flattening a squirrel.

We took Texas & Texas Tech over 50 1/2.  They scored 21 in the first quarter and the prospects were great.  Didn't turn out that way.

The star bets were ok. The side bets, not so much.  Grudgefest 2010, the other big event of the weekend (that took away most of my Saturday TV time) was a pleasant little gathering after all, as all the troublemakers in the family were not invited to the family reunion.  No drama.  Just as well.