Keep in mind these are just suggestions.  It’s early enough in the season that we definitely can’t say that all of these teams will make the tournament, but we do believe they have a pretty good chance.  We don’t necessarily think these teams will win the NCAA Championship, but they do have really good odds.  If these teams make the tournament and can win a round or two, you can hedge these bets and guarantee yourself some cash.  We’re using YouWager for our futures bets, but these numbers are available other places as well.

Oklahoma State – 100:1 at YouWager

Oklahoma State has been a pleasant surprise.  To be quite honest, Marcus Smart seems to be a game changer, and a player that can lead Oklahoma State to a good season in the Big 12, and a decent seed in the NCAA tournament.  To this point, we haven’t been more impressed with anyone in the Big 12 as we are with Smart.  With the addition of Smart, Le’Bryan Nash seems to be getting open more and playing better.  At 100:1 odds, Oklahoma State is our favorite futures bet on the board.  You better jump on this fast, because we have a feeling these odds will decrease shortly.

Colorado – 100:1 at YouWager

Colorado has also played well.  Early in the season, they’ve knocked off some pretty reputable teams:  Dayton, Baylor, and Murray State.  Sophomore Guard Askia Booker has proven he can play against some of the best guards in the country and we feel he can carry the Buffaloes pretty far this season.  Colorado has a fairly favorable schedule, as the PAC 12 isn’t going to be great in basketball this year.  At 100:1 odds, we feel Colorado would be a pretty wise investment if you choose.  Again, we don’t expect this number to last very long.

Gonzaga – 50:1 at YouWager

By now, Gonzaga is no sleeper, but this is one of the better Gonzaga teams we’ve seen recently.  Kevin Pangos , Gary Bell Jr, David Stockton are all above average guards.  Kelly Olynyk and Elias Harris are above average forwards who can also shoot from outside.  Gonzaga has one of the most explosive offense we’ve seen and also has depth to run with anyone in the country.  At 50:1 odds, we think Gonzaga can win a couple of rounds in the NCAA tournament to give you quite a bit of hedging room.

How Can I Run My Program or Script?

Depending on the program language you choose (PHP, Python, Ruby on Rails, etc) there are multiple ways you can run a script or program and have the program or script scrape data off a particular website.  One method is to set up some sort of server on your machine at home.  This is pretty complicated and quite frankly I wouldn’t recommend it.  But, if you insist on doing it this way, I’m sure you can find plenty of good tutorials online that discusses running a program or script for your programming language of choice.

What we strongly recommend is paying a few bucks a month for a web host.  A few benefits of having a web host include:

• Your web host will likely be up to date on security threats and detect them before the threat becomes an issue.  If you decided to do all of this without a web host, you would be responsible for all security risks.
• Web hosts typically provide very user friendly graphical user interfaces for creating your tables you will need to store data behind the scenes.  Most web hosts also have tutorials that walk you through most any process you would need, including creating  a MySQL table.  Without using an interface provided by a web host, you would need to be fairly proficient writing SQL code.
• You’re able to easily access your data from any location.  Let’s face it, with smart phones, wifi, etc, accessing your information on the web is quite simple.
• Your web host will back up your data frequently.  Our web host backs up all of our data weekly, but we have actually modified the schedule slightly to back up data much more frequently.  In the event that you screw your data up or something, you can have your web host restore all of your data, or restore from your backed up copy.  Without a web host, you’re responsible for this on your own.
• You can set up a cron jobs to run your program/script as frequently as you wish.  For web scraping stats, once per day is typically optimal.  You can set up an automated process (cron job) to run this program/script for you at a certain time every day.  You don’t have to worry about manually running anything at all.
• Most web hosts provide you with as many customized email addresses as you want.  One example for our site is lineprojector@lineprojector.com.  Your email address could be WhatEverYouWant@YourWebsite.com

A Web Host Sounds Expensive.  Is it?

Absolutely not.  Most likely you’ll be able to use a particular web host’s cheapest plan.  Our site is powered by HostGator.  We’ve been fairly happy with them and their plans are very affordable.

For storing your own data, I would look for a web host that offers unlimited SQL tables.  HostGator fits this criteria.  Their Cheapest Plan, the Hatchling Plan, should be more than enough for a typical Web Scraper and runs $7.16 per month.  If you want to pre-pay for a year, the price drops to $5.56 per month.  As you can see, we’re not talking about much money at all.  In our opinion, the minimal monthly fee is definitely worth the peace of mind of not having to worry about security threats, backups, etc.

Something else you’ll want is a domain name.  A domain name is basically what you’d type in to get to your website.  Our site, for example, has the domain name www.LineProjector.com.  You don’t have to buy your domain name from your web host, so you can shop around.  For example, we bought our domain from GoDaddy.com.  Domain’s are cheap and can be bought at GoDaddy now for 9.99 per year.  With a web hosting plan and domain name, you’re looking at less than $10 per month.  Quite a bargain in our opinion.

Just because you have a domain name doesn’t mean you have to build a full fledged website to access your data.  Typically for stuff we don’t necessarily want to make available to the public, we just have our SQL statements display onto page that only site admins can access.  You could do this same thing. You may not ever do this.  More than likely, you’ll just want to login to your web host’s control panel so you can access the SQL tables where your scraped data is stored.

If you want to see what a Web Host Control Panel looks like, CLICK HERE.  This demo actually allows you to click around and play with a “mock” control panel.  Within the demo, there’s a MySql wizard, video tutorials, etc.

What’s next for the tutorial?

For Part 3 of the tutorial, we’ll look at building a MySQL table to store your scraped data.  We’ll also get into the basics of running a SQL statement to pull back a result set.

Week 7 was a tough one for for us, and from the sounds of it, for many bettors whose opinion we respect more than our own.  After a tough week, it’s always best to move on and try to learn something from each of your losing bets.  Chalk Week 7 up as a learning experience if you gave some back to the books.  If you were able to profit – nice job.  Here’s a few takeaways from Week 7:

West Virginia

The Mountaineers have been one of the Public’s favorite teams all year and that didn’t change heading into week 7 as the West Virginia made another trip to Texas to take on the Red Raiders.  This game was a prime example of “Squares vs. Sharps”.  While we don’t always side with the Sharps, they smoked the Public on this game.

This was a classic example of a “sandwich” spot for West Virginia.  They had traveled to Austin the week before and had to travel to Lubbock this week.  Meanwhile, they host undefeated Kansas State next week in a very meaningful game in both the Big 12 and National Championship picture.  Obviously we can’t determine if West Virginia was just “off” or if the travel played a part, but that was the worst game we’ve seen from them this year.  Geno Smith looked average, and the rest of the offense didn’t look any better.

When handicapping game during a given week, be sure to take a look at travel.  If your team is on at least the 2nd leg of a long road trip, you might want to lay off of the game all together.  If the team has a “look-ahead” game the next week, meaning they play a “good” team in a meaningful game, you might want to lay off the game as well.  This game sucked for West Virginia bettors, but I think we all learned something.

LSU

The Gamecocks vs. the Tigers was arguably the best game on the slate leading up to the week.  Undefeated South Carolina, off a huge win against Georgia, traveled to Baton Rouge to take on the 1 loss LSU Tigers.  This game was interesting from a betting standpoint because it was basically a coin flip.  If you surveyed 10 people, you’d likely find 5 on South Carolina and 5 on LSU.

South Carolina seemed to have all of the momentum going into the game.  LSU was coming off a brutal loss against Florida and was competing with a make-shift offensive line.  Credit Les Miles and the Tigers because their offense did look better than it did last week against Florida.  LSU dominated the game everywhere except the scoreboard.  The Tigers picked 406 yards on offense and limited South Carolina to just 211.

Frankly, South Carolina bettors were pretty lucky.  The Tigers couldn’t punch the ball into the endzone and had to settle for field goals.  With just under two minutes left in the game, Spurrier stuck a dagger in the hearts of LSU bettors.  Rather than kicking a field goal on 4th and 12, the Gamecocks decided to go for it.  Connor Shaw hit Jerrell Adams for a first down that eventually led to a South Carolina Touchdown.  The touchdown sealed a victory for South Carolina bettors.  This game was such a coin flip, it might be best to stay out of situations like this in the future.

Mississippi State

Color us impressed.  Dan Mullen’s Bulldogs proved something to us on Saturday night, but their level of competition increases tremendously in two weeks.  Before Saturday’s victory against Tennessee, the Bulldogs toughest game came against the Auburn Tigers.  We found ourselves betting on the Vols in this game, only because we thought the Tennessee offense would prevail and Mississippi State really hadn’t been tested all season.

The Bulldogs looked extremely sharp on offense and really limited the Volunteers on defense.  We still sense their might be smoke and mirrors with the Bulldogs though.  Starkville has been a death trap for opposing teams in the past few years.  There hasn’t been any stunning upsets, but teams just don’t play at their best in Starkville.  Perhaps it’s the shitty stadium or the annoying ass cowbells.  One thing is for sure, we’ll learn a lot about Mississippi State shortly.

The Bulldogs have a pretty tough three week stretch coming up:  Oct 27 @Alabama.  Nov 3 Texas A&M.  Nov 10@ LSU.  We would guess they’ll be underdogs in all three games.  Be careful going forward.  Mississippi State is undefeated, but they’ve also not played anyone nearly at the level of these 3 teams.  If the line looks too good to be true, it probably is.

And speaking of cowbells, here’s the greatest cowbell skit ever.

This particular tutorial pulls back offensive stats for all MLB teams.

Warning 

This isn’t necessairly something that is easy.  Remember, I’m a computer programmer for my 8-5 gig so it comes easy to me.  Advanced baseball sabermetrics isn’t something that comes easy to me but does to others.  So if you struggle to understand this, you’re not alone.  It takes research and a dedication to learn.  It’s also worth nothing that this isn’t a perfect solution by any means.  This is just 1 quick and dirty example in PHP.

Yet to Come

In Part 2, I plan to discuss some utilities I use to obtain stats, some tips I’ve learned, the easiest way to run this stuff, etc.

Show me the Code!

Let’s take a line by line look at what the code is doing.  I’ve split this into sections just to make the explanation a little easier.  The bold numbers correspond to each line of code.

1.  This just tells a browser or server that the following code is PHP.  There will be a similar “tag” as the very last line on the script.

2.  Statement 2 allows my program to use an html parser.  This is a third party script that makes life much easier when scraping data.  I believe Python has something similar.

3.  In PHP, the dollar sign represents a variable declaration.  I could have named this variable anything I wanted.   Think of a variable as just a temporary storage location.  I can use this temporary storage location other places in the program.  I defined the variable as an array.  An array is basically a set of rows and columns, similar to what you would see in an excel spreadsheet.  Please note that I’m not currently using $table for anything really.  I was going to use it for something else later, but ended up going a different route and not cleaning up my code.  Again, this could be deleted without any adverse affects.

4.  Again we have a variable declaration.  file_get_html is a part of simple_html_dom.php I mentioned earlier.  Basically this allows me to pass in a website address (which you see in the parenthesis) and refer to different html tags within the website.  The URL show in parenthesis  you could copy and paste into your internet browser and go to the stat page I’m scraping.  More on this later.

5.  Blank line.  Nothing is done.

6.  This opens a database connection for my script.  Before I can write to or update any of my databases or tables, I need to open a connection to let my script know which database I’m using.

7.  This is just an error catch.  This will let me know if I’ve miskeyed a password or something and can’t connect to the specified database.  Lines 9 and 11 are all error handling too, very similar to line 7.

8.  A database has multiple tables.  This line of code lets my script know which particular table I want to connect to in my script.  For example, I may have a basketball stat table and a football stat table.  For this particular script, I’d want to update my baseball table.

10.  This basically deletes my table before re-populating.  Another method to do this would be to update the contents.  For simplicity, I just wipe the table data and repopulate.

13.  This gets a little complicated but follow along.  Line 13 basically starts a loop.  This will loop through $offData until no more criteria is found.  If you recall, $offData basically imports the html code of the website I selected.  I’ve declared every place “.cell1″ is included as a $row.  So basically this line is going to loop through every instance where “.cell1″ is found in the statfox html code.  The curly bracket ‘{‘ indicates that everything within the the open and closing curling bracket is in the loop.

The HTML above is from the statfox website address I mention above.  You see the TR tag for a table row.  Each TD listing you see is basically a cell within the row.  These values match up with the output of the screen you see.  The first TD tag is Team number, the second is team name, the third TD tag is Runs, etc.

By looking at the TD tags above, you count 15.  Looking at the table screen shot from stat fox, you see 15.  (note the numbers vary between the html and the output.  That’s because I haven’t been running this script lately to obtain new stats.  Had I been running this every day, the values in the HTML and the screen output would be the same.)  Alright – back to the code.

14.  In programming terms, generally you start counting a 0 rather than 1.  In this HTML, cell 0 is just the team ranking/identifier.  I don’t need that, so I start with cell 1.  I assign the $team variable with the name of the team.  So basically, this code is telling the script to find cell 1 and copy the contents of that cell into my work variable.  Remember, if I wanted the team ranking/number, I would have started at 0.

15-27.  These are much like line 14.  I’m just taking the value of each cell and saving them to a work variable.  Each variable is named something that makes sense to me as far as what particular “stat” the field contains.

29-31.  This is basically just error checking.  When I ran this, I was picking up some garbage data.  This is basically saying “if the $team variable is blank, start my loop over because I want to omit this data”.  Continue tells the script to to back to the top of the loop.

33-35.  This is a SQL statement to insert this particular row into my database table.  As you notice, db_name and dbMLBOffStats are the connections we opened previously.  The first set of parenthesis is my field names within the table.  The parenthesis after the key word “values” tells which variables from the script I want to populate the table with.  Basically I perform a table insert for each row on the website.  Remember, my SQL statement doesn’t run unless the data is valid.

36.  Error catching in case my SQL statement is incorrect

38.  This just accumulates each variable into my array that we discussed earlier.

39.  This is the closing curly bracket that signifies the end of my loop.

41-67.  On StatFox, they use alternating table colors to make it easier to read.  If you recall from above, we looked for the .cell1 tag.  Well, the alternate rows are .cell2.  So the above image is just repeated code from above.  I could have done something different here rather than duplicating the code, but it is what it is.

69.  This just tells my script to close the database connection I had opened.

71.  End of PHP code.

There you have it.  71 lines (counting blanks) to scrape offensive stats for every MLB team.

A quick recap from week 6 of college football.  This week, we saw an impressive win by Florida and we saw Arkansas break their losing streak.  With a win this weekend at LSU, South Carolina must be considering a legit national title contender.  We were also impressed with West Virginia in their first road game in the Big 12.

Florida

By our standards, the Gators turned in one of the most impressive performances of the week.  Florida kept the game close in the first half, and simply out-manned the Tigers in the second half.  This Florida team actually looked like LSU teams we’ve seen in the past.  Florida’s offense still isn’t great, but Will Muschamp has the defense playing extremely well.  If Jeff Driskel can manage the game and limit turnovers, Florida could find itself with a chance for a National Championship.  In our opinion, there’s not any team in the country with a better resume than Florida at this point in the season.  Wins on the road at Tennessee, at Texas A&M, and at home against LSU are all big for the Gators.

South Carolina

South Carolina was another bright spot on the weekend.  We kind of thought Georgia had a pretty good shot of walking out of Columbia with a win, but boy were we wrong.  South Carolina went up 14 points early in the first quarter, but the knockout punch came from an Ace Sanders 70 yard punt return.  At 21-0 in the first quarter, it was goodnight Bulldogs.  The Gamecock defense held Georgia to 224 total yards, which is quite impressive.  It doesn’t get any easier for The Ole’ Ball Coach this week, as his Gamecocks travel to Baton Rouge.  If South Carolina can somehow win that game, they’d have to be considering a legit national title contender.

Arkansas

Arkansas was able to do some things on defense against Auburn they we haven’t seen in previous games.  The Razorback defense played well in coverage, got pressure on the quarterback, and even forced 5 turnovers.  Another big difference for Arkansas was the move of Paul Petrino from the sideline to the press box.  Petrino said he was able to see coverages much better and call plays accordingly.  This win against Auburn is just what the Razorbacks need heading into this weeks’ game against Kentucky.  Arkansas obviously won’t be “great”, but they’ve got the talent to hang with most of the teams on their remaining schedule.  Unfortunately for Arkansas, the Razorbacks lost their senior captain and tackle leader Alonzo Highsmith.  Also, let’s not forget, Auburn isn’t very good.

West Virginia

One of the big surprises for us this weekend was West Virginia.  the Mountaineers came into the game as roughly a seven point underdog, but definitely didn’t look like it.  We figured this game would be a shootout, but we expected Texas to be a little bigger and physical and to give West Virginia trouble.  This wasn’t the case at all.  Geno Smith continues to put up video game numbers, and the rest of the Mountaineer offense continues to click on all cylinders.  The big difference in this game was the fact that West Virginia made a couple of stops in crunch time.  Texas wasn’t able to do the same.  West Virginia travels to Lubbock this weekend with a big game at home against Kansas State on the horizon.

Missouri

Injuries and off the field issues continue to accumulate in Columbia.  Prior to the game, freshman Dorial Green-Beckham was arrested and suspended due to marijuana.  Quarterback James Franklin went out early in the first half with a sprained MCL and then it was the Corbin Berkstresser show.  The offense seemed to stall a little with Berkstresser.  Special teams, which bit the Tigers against Georgia and South Carolina, was an issue again.  A missed extra point and bobbled punt were sore spots for the Tigers.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t get any easier for Missouri, as Alabama rolls into Columbia this weekend.  Missouri will be without James Franklin and will have to rely on backup quarterback Corbin Berkstresser.  We’ve all seen what Alabama does against backups.  (52-0 against Arkansas).

As I mentioned on Twitter earlier, I apologize for the lack of new content this week.  I’ve been fairly sick and have been unable to do much digging on games this week.  Thankfully, I’m on the mend and am getting back in action.  This is somewhat abbreviated this week, but here’s a few things college football bettors should take into account for week 6.

Arkansas Razorbacks

As I’ve said before, Arkansas is the team we follow closest.  What a disappointment this season has been.

This week we’ve seen a lot of love for Arkansas.  Auburn got all the way up to a 10.5 point favorite over Arkansas, but the Razorbacks have caught some steam and fallen to just a 7.5 point dog.  To be honest, we’re not sure why.  Statistically, Arkansas’s defense near the bottom in the nation.  In total defense, the Hogs rank 120.  Arkansas actually ranks dead last in pass defense at 124, giving up 1747 yards.  Arkansas is also dead last in turnover margin at -13.  The next closest school is Navy at -10.

Arkansas is also pretty banged up.  Here’s a list:

• Chris Gragg (starting TE) – Out
• Tank Wright (starting DE) – Out
• Eric Bennett (starting safety) – doubtful
• Tevin Mitchell (starting CB) – doubtful
• Kaelon Kelleybrew (starting CB) – doubtful

In our opinion, you have to either bet Auburn in this game or stay away.  Arkansas has been outscored 110-10 in 2 SEC games so far this season and hasn’t even come close to covering a spread since week 2.  Quite honestly, we don’t expect them to cover this week either.

Missouri Tigers

The natives are becoming restless in Columbia.  Many Tiger fans are getting tired of head coach Gary Pinkel and offensive coordinator David Yost.  They also seem to be getting tired of starting quarterback James Franklin.  There have been grumbles of issues in the locker room between the defensive unit and offensive unit.  Last night’s arrest of Dorial Green-Beckham has just added fuel to the fire.

With all of that being said, we do kind of lean to Missouri in this week’s game against Vanderbilt.  Up to this point, Missouri has only looked *really* bad against South Carolina, while Vanderbilt only has one win against the mighty Presbyterian Blue Hose.  A lot of people really talked up Vandy in the off-season, but up to this point, they haven’t shown much.  Their defense may keep them in this one early, but it’s likely that the Tigers will pull away late in the game.  The wild card in this game is really how big of a distraction are all of these off the field issues for the Tigers?

This line has fluctuated between Missouri -6 and Missouri -7.  The suspension of Dorial Green-Beckham had no impact on the line.

Miami Hurricanes

Miami, by all accounts, has over-achieved so far.  Before the season started, it was probably safe to assume that Miami would only be 2-3 going into week 6.  The Hurricanes pulled off a somewhat shocking win at Georgia Tech, and hit a big play late to get the win against a pre-season overrated NC State.  In all reality, the Hurricanes offense has been fairly impressive.

This week, Miami travels to Notre Dame, which will likely be the toughest game Miami has played up to this point in the season.  Notre Dame surely won’t take Miami lightly, but we think Miami’s offense will keep them within the number.  Miami is ranked 15th in passing, averaging 328.4 passing yards per game.  The Hurricanes also have a fairly decent rushing attack, averaging 144.2 yards per game.

The line for this game opened with Notre Dame as a 13 point favorite and the line has climbed to 14.  Notre Dame has played back to back games against ranked opponents, and they’ve got Stanford on deck next week.  We wouldn’t necessarily call this a look-ahead spot for the Irish, but 2 TD’s is quite a bit to give a team as good as the Hurricanes.

Before placing your bets for Week 5, here’s a few things you may not have known.  Hopefully this information will help you make better informed betting decisions.  These thoughts aren’t necessarily endorsements for picks.  You should use this information as you see fit.

Tennessee

After a second half meltdown against Florida, and a lack-luster performance at home against Akron, the Vols hit the road and take on Georgia in Athens.  Georgia is hot right now, and the spotlight is definitely off of Florida.  This line may be inflated slightly.  If you plan to bet this game, keep in mind that Tennessee, over the last 8 SEC games, has been outscored in the second half 149-26.

Western Kentucky

By now you’ve probably heard that Western Kentucky has covered the spread an impressive 13 straight times.  Chances are, if you’re just now hearing about this, you’re too late.  Now that this streak has become more public, the Hilltoppers are a popular pick in week 5.  This week Western Kentucky heads to Jonesboro to face a pretty tough Arkansas State team.  This game opened as a pick, but has quickly shifted to Western Kentucky -2.5.  It’s likely that this line keeps climbing and the value will be on Arkansas State.

Texas A&M

The Aggies have lost to the Razorbacks 3 straight times.  Last year, if you remember, Texas A&M was beating Arkansas 35-17 at half time.  As they did quite a few other times during the season, the Aggies imploded in the second half and Arkansas came back to win 42-38.  With a three game losing streak on the line, we have to think that Texas A&M will come out focused and motivated to beat Arkansas.  The Razorback secondary is horrible, so A&M should light up the scoreboard.  The Arkansas offense isn’t too bad itself, so this could be a pretty high scoring game.

Missouri

With the way the Tigers have played this year in the SEC, it’s tough to identify a “let down” spot for the Tigers, but this is one.  The Tigers must travel to play Central Florida, right in the middle of the Tigers SEC schedule.  One important note is that James Franklin has been under scrutiny the past few games, and some of the Tigers fans expect to see Berkstresser after his decent outing against Arizona State.  If you’re capping this game with Franklin at QB, keep this in mind.

Arizona

Arizona is in an interesting spot this weekend.  Arizona was shutout in Eugene, but that doesn’t really tell the whole story.  Arizona had the ball in the red zone 6 times but failed to score each time.  Between that and 2 interceptions returned for touchdowns, the 49-0 loss probably wasn’t as bad as the final score looks.  With Oregon State likely being overvalued after a big win against UCLA, the value here might be on Arizona -3 at home.

A few notes while preparing for Monday Night Football.  In Week 4 of NCAA Football, we saw some things we liked and some things we didn’t like.  Here’s some of our notes.

Arkansas

If you bet the Razorbacks, we’re sorry, but you should have listened to us.  Most thought Arkansas would rally behind the return of Tyler Wilson, but we thought the problems were deeper than just missing Wilson.  In all fairness, the Razorback offense did look fairly good.  Arkansas Wide Receiver Cobi Hamilton set an SEC record with 303 yards on ten catches and three touchdowns.  Wilson looked fairly sharp, going 20/39 for 419 yards, three touchdowns, and two interceptions.  The problem all season for Arkansas has been a lack of running game and defense.  This was the case against Rutgers.  The Hogs only managed to rush for 73 yards on 19 carries.  The Razorback defense allowed over 500 yards for the second time this season.  Arkansas now ranks 99 in total defense and 111 in passing defense.  The Hogs are not good.  Add an NCAA leading 12 turnovers to the mix and you have a train-wreck.  At this point, it would be hard to take Arkansas and the points in nearly any situation.

Missouri

You can’t knock Missouri for being pumped up and referring to the SEC as old man football, but the Tigers have proven they’re not quite ready for the SEC.  It’s well-known, but Missouri’s offensive line is pretty beat up.  They’ve got a lot of guys playing that have limited playing experience.  Frankly, even with the line healthy, they probably aren’t prepared to take on the defensive lines they’ve seen against Georgia and South Carolina.  Franklin has had very little time to do anything back there, and he’s normally running for his life.  Special teams have also played a part in the Tigers’ lack of success in the SEC.  Missouri tends to fake punts in their own territory and not convert.  Against South Carolina, Special Teams let the Tigers down yet again.  Ace Sanders had a filthy punt return and South Carolina managed to run a kickoff back to midfield at another point in the game.  While scanning Missouri message boards, it appears the natives in Columbia are getting restless.  Some Tiger fans have gone as far to say that Arkansas is in a better position, because they’ve only got John L. Smith for the rest of the season.  The Tigers, on the other hand, are stuck with Pinkel for a few more years.  The Tiger fans are also calling for the backup QB and for Franklin to be benched.  Quite honestly, it’s not going to matter who’s at quarterback with that porous offensive line.

On a side note, Missouri has found themselves as a +2.5 point underdog against UCF, and we wouldn’t touch either side of that game.

South Carolina

Typically the Gamecocks play well at home, but start out slow on offense early in the season under Steve Spurrier.  That was expected to be the case against Missouri with Connor Shaw banged up, but the results were completely different.  Shaw was very efficient going 20/21 for 249 yards and two touchdowns.  Lattimore also seems to be getting in the groove in the backfield and is finally running without a brace on the knee.  As the season progresses, Lattimore should be more comfortable with his surgically repaired knee, which could be a disaster for opponents.  The Gamecock defense lived up to the hype, allowing only 255 yards.  With Georgia on the horizon in two weeks, the Gamecocks could come out flat against Kentucky.  The South Carolina/Georgia game could very well determine the SEC East winner.  With a potential look-ahead situation this week, be careful if you plan on laying the points with The Old Ball Coach.

Kansas State

If you  read the Beyond the Bets message board (and if you don’t, why don’t you?), you know this was a game that most people on the board were really looking forward to.  The Wildcats returned a lot of players on both sides of the ball and most felt the Sooners were slightly overrated.  This line actually opened at KSU +17 which was a terrible number.  It turns out, the points weren’t needed at all and Kansas State looked really good in the win.  Bill Snyder has proven that even at his age, he can compete against any coach in the country.  Quarterback Collin Klein never puts up huge stats, but typically does enough to put his team in a position to win.  Kansas State plays a fairly difficult schedule, but getting past Oklahoma was a big feat for the Wildcats.  They’ve been undervalued coming into the year, but this win probably opened bookmakers’ eyes.  It should be interesting to see the spread on Kansas State games when they play teams like West Virginia, Baylor, and Texas.

Within sports, it’s amazing how dumb coaches and players can be.  We thought it would be fun for us to recognize some of these folks for their outstanding, stupid contributions to the sports we love.  This is the kickoff edition so we will see how this goes.  Forewarning:  If you’re looking for valuable sports betting information, you won’t find it in this column!  Today, we will recognize Arkansas interim head coach John L. Smith.

John L. Smith is really a no brainer to kickoff our Bozo of the Week.  Between getting his piss hot, filing for bankruptcy, and driving Arkansas football down the drain, John L. Smith has proven to us that he’s deserving of this award.  Lets take a look at some of Coach Smith’s accomplishments:

1.  The phrase “Get Your Piss Hot!”

When we first came across this phrase from Coach Smith, we had no idea what it meant.  It wasn’t until later we found that John L. Smith used this for motivation.  In his words, it means to get the players adrenaline and motors fired up.  He uses this phrase to ramp up the intensity.  Based on season results so far, the temperature of the Hogs piss resembles that of eskimo piss.

Remember:  If you’re in college, hot piss is typically not something you want to have.  Go get checked out.

2.  An impressive 52-0 performance against Alabama

The last time the Razorbacks were shut out in Fayetteville was 1966.  Congratulations John L. Smith for making this happen.  This is definitely one way to get your name in the record books and win LP’s Bozo of the Week.

3.  Smile!

The video clip speaks for itself really.  This is amazing.  John L. Smith encourages reporters to “SMILE!” the week after the 52-0 defeat by Alabama.

4.  25.7 million in liabilities and 1.2 million in assets.  

Yes, the Razorbacks needed another distraction this season.  Petrino-gate obviously wasn’t enough, so John L. Smith brought bankruptcy to the team.  Documents show that John L. Smith only has $500 in his checking account.  Coach Smith claims that his bankruptcy is due to real estate deals gone bad.  We are inclined to think he spent too much money getting his piss temperature checked.  The true losers in Smith’s failed season is obviously his creditors.

5.  This pretty well sums up John L. Smith better than we ever could. 

Enjoy.

A few things you need to know about some of the bigger games in college football for Week 4.

Missouri at South Carolina

Missouri – This is Missouri’s first road game in the SEC.  Columbia, SC is a very tough place to play, and it’s unlikely that Missouri will have many fans in attendance due to the distance between the two schools.  Quarterback James Franklin said that he’s nearly pain free now and should be able to play on Saturday.  One thing you’ll want to keep in mind is the fact that the Tigers have been outscored 30-0 in the 4th quarter the past two games.  Failed fake punts and turnovers have led to tense moments for the Tigers.  South Carolina could very well blow this game open in the 4th quarter.  Another thing to remember is that Missouri’s offensive line has been decimated due to injury.

South Carolina – Steve Spurrier’s team doesn’t always play the most exciting football, but the Gamecocks have the talent this year on both offense and defense to have a good season.  It’s likely that the Gamecock defensive line will wreak havoc on the Tiger offensive line, much like Georgia did.  Connor Shaw aggravated his shoulder injury last week, but should be able to play in this game.  How long Shaw will be in the game is still a question mark, as his scrambling tends to lead to big hits.  Spurrier’s offense tends to start out slow early in the season, which is a concern when laying double digits with the Gamecocks.

We don’t have a good read on the spread, but will be watching the game and may look at making a second half wager.

Rutgers at Arkansas

Rutgers - This will likely be Rutgers toughest test so far this season, even though the Razorbacks are struggling.  Rutgers is 3-0 and coming off a big road at South Florida.  The Scarlet Knights defense, which is the team’s strength, has only allowed 8.3 points per game this season.  If Tyler Wilson is able to play for the Razorbacks, this defense, especially the secondary, should get a workout.  Rutgers other strength is their rushing game, which averages 163 yards per game.  If Rutgers can get the rushing game working early, the Razorback defense may be gassed in the second half.

Arkansas – To this point, Tyler Wilson still hasn’t been cleared to play, but the Razorbacks are preparing for the game like he will play.  Wilson is undergoing concussion tests daily and seems to get better each day.  Before betting on the Razorbacks, you’ll definitely want to know the status of Wilson.  Ball security has also been an issue for the Razorbacks.  They’ve turned the ball over 10 times in 3 games, which has lead to 7 touchdowns for the opposition.  It’s due or die in Fayetteville, and after this week we should have a good idea if the Hogs are here to compete, or if they have mailed it in for the season.

Earlier in the week we wrote a more in-depth preview of this game.  To read that, CLICK HERE.

Arizona at Oregon

Arizona - The Wildcats offense is actually ranked higher than Oregon’s, but it’s not really fair to compare.  The wildcats average roughly 604 yards of offense per game, which is good enough for 4th in the NCAA.  Oregon’s defense has looked shaky at times, though it’s mostly been in garbage time.  We really have no doubt that the Arizona offense will rack up yards and points against Oregon, but the defense will determine whether or not Arizona can cover.

Oregon - The only question about the Ducks at this point is:  What can the Ducks do for an entire game?  Up to this point, Oregon has called off the dogs in the second half and played mostly reserves.  Even though they’re really only playing one half per ball game, Oregon averages roughly 596 yards per game, good enough for 7th in the NCAA.  Thomas and Barner have combined for 552 yards rushing on 69 carries.  It’s likely that Oregon’s offense will roll in this game.  If Oregon can get a few stops on defense, they should win this game handily.

The best play in this game is likely the over.  If you like video game offense, this is probably a game for you to watch.  We wouldn’t be surprised if the total after the horn sounds is over 100 points.