Thursday, September 11, 2008

Fearless Dilettante Football Predictions - Fresno Is Lovely This Time of Year Edition



Sometimes you have to go places you'd rather not go. But handicapping must continue no matter the venue. To wit:





Xavier Hawks 31, Little Chute Mustangs 14. Rocky Bleier Field has new sod. Expect the Mustangs to be wearing a lot of it after they leave tomorrow night.

ACTUAL RESULT: XHS 10, LITTLE CHUTE 0. Mrs. D suggests that next year the Hawks consider scheduling a bigger Chute.





Irondale Knights 27, Cooper Hawks 13. These schools are the red-headed stepchildren of their respective school districts and both have a reputation for being also-rans. Things are getting better for the Knights. Cooper, not so much.

ACTUAL RESULT: IRONDALE 41, COOPER 14. A mini Cooper, apparently. Irondale scored the first 40 points before calling off the dogs.

Mounds View Mustangs 21, White Bear Lake ("Go Bears") Bears, 16. This is one of the best and nastiest rivalries in Minnesota high school football. It will be a close game, but go with the home-standing Mustangs.

ACTUAL RESULT: MOUNDS VIEW 42, WBL 7. A most surprising result. Mounds View has a pretty good team this year but the Bears usually put up more of a fight than this.





Carroll University Pioneers 34, Beloit Bucs 17. So apparently Carroll College is now a university. I wasn't aware of that. Doesn't matter what they call themselves, they always beat my Bucs.

ACTUAL RESULT: CARROLL 10, BELOIT 0. Can't win if you can't score. The Bucs kept it close but that doesn't mean much in football. And next week mighty Monmouth comes to town.



Wisconsin Badgers 27, Fresno State Bulldogs 24. Outside of Ohio State, this may be the toughest game the Badgers have all season. Fresno has a long history of knocking off the big boys, including a victory over the Badgers in Madison a few years back. I've had a hunch that this year is the best chance the Badgers will have in a long time to make a run for the national title, with Ohio State, Penn State and Illinois all coming to Madison later on. For that scenario to happen, they need to win on Saturday. The guess here is that they will.

ACTUAL RESULT: WISCONSIN 13, FRESNO STATE 10. Only saw part of the first half, but it apparently turned into a war in the second half. The Badgers did what they had to do to win, though, in a really tough environment.


Minnesota Golden Gophers 56, Montana State University and Christian Science Reading Room 13. Only a truly desperate Big Ten university would schedule a team as weak as Montana State as an opponent. The Gophers have been truly desperate lately. If this goes wrong, look for Brewster to get Lakeland Dental Academy on the docket for 2009.

ACTUAL RESULT: MINNESOTA 35, MONTANA STATE 23. I don't think this will do once they get into the Big Ten. Next week's game against Florida Atlantic (a pretty good team that beat the Gophers last year) should tell us a lot more about these pesky Gophers.

Green Bay Packers 27, Detroit Lions 17. Every year we hear that this is the year the Lions will turn the corner. At some point they may realize they are in a round room.

ACTUAL RESULT: BELOVED PACKERS 48, MOTOR CITY KITTIES 25. Strange game, especially when you aren't able to watch it. The Pack is up 21-0, then down 25-24, then score a bajillion points in the last 7 minutes of the game because the Lions implode. One thing - maybe people will start putting their Favre jerseys away, since it's pretty clear that Aaron Rodgers is a capable NFL quarterback. We'll learn a lot more next week when the Cowboahs come to town.


Purple Helmeted Love Warriors 17, Indianapolis Colts 16. Suddenly the Colts looked old and confused last week against the Bears. Typically those Vikings are simply confused, so give them the edge at home.

ACTUAL RESULT: COLTS 18, PURPLE 15. The idea in the NFL is to score touchdowns. The Vikings only seem dimly aware of this. About the only people who can be happy with this result are people who have Ryan Longwell on their fantasy teams. I'm sure glad that I'm not Brad Childress or Tarvaris Jackson.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mark says ...

Minnesota Golden Gophers 56, Montana State University and Christian Science Reading Room 13. Only a truly desperate Big Ten university would schedule a team as weak as Montana State as an opponent. The Gophers have been truly desperate lately. If this goes wrong, look for Brewster to get Lakeland Dental Academy on the docket for 2009.


How do you explain Wisconsin's scheduled game against Cal-Poly? Honestly, UW's non-league football schedule makes Al McGuire's non-league basketball schedule from the 1970s (you know, St. Leo, St. Thomas, etc.) look brutal.

Anonymous said...

The Cal Poly Game is easily explainable, as is Penn State's Game against Coastal Carolina(Ranked 192 in current Sagarin Ratings), and many others who are playing AA schools or whatever they are called these days.

A 12th Game was added for college football recently. Many schools have struggled to get a school to play the 12th game. For the big BCS schools, having a home vs. away game is huge from a revenue perspective. Getting someone to come to your house to play is not an easy thing. Cal Poly (Ranked 112 on the Sagarin List)was available on late notice, and they are now on the schedule. Not an exciting game, and not typical, as most Big Schools get their patsy's out of the way early. At least Cal Poly is a competitive lessor division school, and it's the only lessor division school on the Badgers schedule. You can debate the relatively weak opponents of Akron and Marshall, but at the least the Badgers are going on the road to a ranked Fresno State team this weekend.

By the way Montana State is currently ranked 153 on the Sagarin Ratings, making them a considerbly worse opponent than Cal Poly.

I think Mr D. may need to make a post entitled "Know your patsies"

Mr. D said...

Tell you what, first anonymous - I promise to bash the Badgers when the Cal Poly game comes up.

Know your patsies? Sure, that's a possibility, second anonymous. We're getting to know a lot of them this season.

Anonymous said...

The vast majority of teams in the Little Ten are patsies.

Anonymous said...

Mills is ripping the Badgers again!!! The guy bleeds Warrior, er Eagle Blue and Gold. He's right, but he should save the argument for the entire NCAA, not just Wisconsin.

Kansas's loss at South Florida is a reason why the BCS Schools don't venture out that often. Perhaps Scoop will get his wish, and the Badgers will lose to Fresno, thus proving once again why cupcakes in September tend to be a more appealing diet for the major schools.