Monday, September 13, 2010

Week 2: Wrap-up

Week 2 is in the books, and the TFG was silent on what was arguably the biggest story of the weekend: the 20-13 upset of Ohio by Toledo. Going into the game, Toledo had less than a 1-in-5 shot of winning, but still managed to pull off the upset, holding the high-flying Ohio offense to a mere third of its predicted output. This is bad news for Ohio, as they were hoping to gain some momentum going into this week's game against in-state rivals Ohio State.

Also, I'm being told that some team in Blacksburg, Virginia was defeated by a team in Harrisonburg, Virginia. I'm also being told that it was a I-AA team over a I-A team, which means it's outside the scope of TFG analysis and therefore uninteresting. (Seriously, though, I might have to put some logic in my system that detects when an ACC team is playing as the favorite and reverse that logic. Especially when it's two ACC teams playing each other. They're like a vortex of anti-prediction.)

Justin
Accuracy: 39-6 (86.7%)
The Good: I'm generally pleased with how TFG performed this week, getting Air Force/BYU correct, predicting that Georgia Tech/Kansas wasn't going to be the complete romp that conventional wisdom predicted, and knowing that both Penn State/Alabama and Miami/Ohio State were going to be completely lopsided ballgames that generally wouldn't be worth watching.
The Bad: I don't have too much to complain about here. The ones I got wrong were generally predicted to be close ones (see: Rice at North Texas) or involved some unexpected last-minute heroics (see: Michigan at Notre Dame).
The Ugly: Let's just pretend I never dismissed North Carolina State out of hand and said that the NCSU/UCF game wouldn't be worth watching, mmkay?

Eddie
Accuracy: 37-8 (82.2%)
The Good: I agree with Justin here.  RBA knew that the Miami/Ohio State and Alabama/Penn State games weren't going to be as good as ESPN wanted you to believe.
The Bad: I made the mistake of injecting the human element into my Georgia Tech pick.  Not only was the game closer than the experts would predict, but Kansas actually pulled off the upset.
The Ugly: Picking Oklahoma State as a +28 point favorite in a game that they really should have lost.  Troy got zero points on two trips inside the oSu 10 yard line down 34-30.