Betting on sports is a fickle beast. About a year ago, I thought I had a genius plan. I'm going to share this plan, and I'll bet you think I'm a genius too. In college football there are a ton of games each week. There are web sites you can go to and bet on them. They say it's legal, I'm not 100% sure. So my thought was, I don't have to bet on every game, I just have to choose the five games that I think are locks for this week. Even out of just the five games that I thought were absolute locks, I only have to win 3 out of the 5 to come out on top for the weekend.
Walter Iooss Jr./SI
Here was the problem I didn't think about at the time. As it turns out, the people who make the lines for these sports bets, may possibly know more than me about these games. It's inevitable; when they say a team is going to win by 5 points, you would be shocked how close these games seem to always turn out to the Vegas lines. So these "locks" I thought were so guaranteed, were made just for suckers like me. After all, these guys probably spend each week analyzing the data and history for all of these games to come up with such a good number, and I would just look at it for a second and think it was a lock.
As you can imagine, my first weekend I lost every single game. I still think betting on sports can be fine if you can do it responsibly. One of the big things I liked about betting on games was that if you happened to be lacking on sports games to watch that weekend, putting a few bucks on a game can make it as exciting as your own team's game that weekend. I remember that first week when I bet on five games, I was going absolutely nuts over a Wisconsin vs. Indiana game, two teams I couldn't care less about.
I think you can have a good time betting on sports if you follow a couple of simple rules:
Rule 1: Your total money betting should only be an amount of money you can afford to lose each month.
So if you set aside an entertainment budget, part of that budget can be moved from something else like movies or going out to dinner one less night, and use it for sports games. The thing about this rule is you have to be able to stop if you have lost that much money. Once betting on sports gets to be stressful because you have bet too much money, it's not fun anymore.
Rule 2: Spread out your betting allotment.
If your allotment is $30 a week, don't spend it all on one game, even if you think that one game is a lock. First of all, trust me, there is no such thing as a lock. It seems like the most confident games I have ever bet on, I have lost, or they turned out much closer than I thought. If you spread out your money into 3 games for $10 each, you can enjoy three games for the same price.
Rule 3: Don't try to play catch-up, and don't try to ride your winning streak.
Every once in a while I would bet on a few early games, and if I lost, I'd scramble to look for more games to try and recoup my losses. Other times I would win the first few games, and look for more games to increase my winnings, and end up losing what I won, plus what I originally put in. If you can't deal with losing your games, or winning your games, you shouldn't bet any money to begin with.
Rule 4: If you can't follow the first three rules, don't bet.
If you get into betting a few games, and you realize you are getting a little to crazy, you shouldn't be betting. Close your account. It's much better to enjoy the sports you already like than to take it too far, and lose money you can't afford to lose. Here is a good website to go to for you or anyone you know who might have a gambling problem: http://www.gamblersanonymous.org/
I have had this argument with several friends about the fact that college football is 10 times better than pro football. In fact as far as I can think of, there is only one reason pro football might be better, and I'll get to that in a little bit.
Let me start with what is currently the most obvious reason college football is better. You never have to worry about a lockout or players strike. I wish I could tell you that a work stoppage in professional sports is a once in a lifetime thing, but truthfully, this sort of thing happens once every few years in one of the major sports. Over all this argument between the players and the owners splitting the revenue, neither side seems as concerned about who is providing the revenue, the fans. It would be a real shame for the college players who left school early to jump to the NFL to waste this football season not playing in college or the pros.
David Bergman/SI
College football players are also much more exciting than pro football players. Guys like Charlie Ward, Michael Vick, Reggie Bush, Vince Young, and Tim Tebow were so much fun to watch in college football. The jury might still be out on some of those guys' NFL careers, but even if they do become top-level NFL players, they will still never be as exciting during the games as they were in college. I remember staying up for the late games to watch what kind of nasty moves Reggie Bush would put on teams, watching Michael Vick create huge gains out of broken plays like he was in a video game, and Vince Young running for first downs at will in the 2006 Rose Bowl. No matter how good an NFL player is, the NFL offenses are often very plain, and exciting plays are at a minimum. In college, the offenses can have a lot more exciting plays, and have players creating their own play, which never gets old.
Lucy Nicholson/Reuters
The option-offense is something you will never see as the featured offense in the NFL. For those who are unfamiliar with this offense, basically it comes down to 3 plays. Option 1, after every snap, the big fullback runs straight up the middle, and the quarterback has the option to give him the ball or keep it himself. If the quarterback keeps the ball, the running back runs right behind him, and the quarterback has the option to run the ball himself, or pitch it back to the running back. The best part about this offense, is that the defense knows exactly what their game plan is, and it is still crazy hard to stop. I went to watch a Navy football game live this year, a team that runs the option-offense, and it drove me crazy seeing them do this all day, and having no idea who had the ball. I would get excited to see a player get tackled, only to realize that actually the guy running 30 yards up the field is the guy who actually has the ball.
One thing that bothers be about the NFL, or any pro sport for that matter is the player turnover. In the NFL, your team drafts a player, you see him develop as an NFL player, and by the time he gets really good, he's a free agent and signs with another team. I just don't like rooting for your favorite player, and the next year he's on your rivals' team. In college, once you get a player, he usually sticks around for 3-4 years, and then moves on to the NFL. It's a short time you get with these guys, but when they leave for the NFL you still get the idea that they are one of your guys. I always like following my favorite college football players in the pros, even if they are not on my favorite NFL team.
I think it's only fair for me to talk about the one reason the NFL is better than college football. College football could never pull off fantasy football, which for many people has been the best part of the NFL season. Since I started playing fantasy football, I started watching games that ordinarily I never would have cared about. It also gives me more knowledge about the NFL than I would have had just watching my team's games. I'm not even sure college fantasy football is legal with the rules of using a college football player's likeness, which is why you'll never see it on ESPN or Yahoo!, but I have seen magazines try and pull off college fantasy football, and it looks like it wouldn't even be fun. The highest rated players aren't the best players in college football, but rather the guys who play the worst opponents.
All in all, I'll take college football over the pros any day, and unfortunately this season, we may not have a choice with the continued NFL work stoppage. I just wonder if the NFL doesn't play this year, will more people be watching football on Saturdays when they decide to come back?
The chicks might dig the long ball, but the Phillies might have the best pitching rotation of all time. Two offseasons ago, the Phillies traded one of the top two pitchers in the Major Leagues Cliff Lee, so they could trade for the other of the top two pitchers in baseball, Roy Halladay, apparently because they thought they had a better chance of signing Halladay to a long term deal. So Halladay signed the big contract, and pitched unbelievable for the Phillies last year, with 21 wins, a 2.44 ERA,and threw a no-hitter in the playoffs.
This is in addition to the Phillies other ace they had last year, Cole Hamels, whose 12-11 win-loss record, really didn't reflect how good he pitched with a 3.06 ERA and over 200 strikeouts. Hamels really started to look like the Phillies ace he was before Lee or Halladay came along.
So, the Phillies figured even with Halladay and Hamels, they needed some more pitching power. They went out and traded for Roy Oswalt, long time veteran of the Houston Astros. Like Hamels, Oswalt had an average record at 13-13, but also like Hamels, Oswalt had a great ERA and high strikeout count.
With Halladay, Hamels, and Oswalt returning this season, the Phillies already locked in the top starting pitching rotation in all of baseball. Still not satisfied, the Phillies signed Cliff Lee again as a free agent. Cliff Lee has by far been the best pitcher of the last two postseasons with the Phillies and Rangers. He also had a great season along with the other three Phillies starters. With the Phillies starters, I don't know how other teams are going to be able to win a series against them. The Phillies did lose outfielder Jayson Werth to the Nationals, and I think second basemen Chase Utley's injury is looking pretty bad the way people in the media are talking. Either way, the Phillies pitching rotation makes them one of the most fun teams to watch this season.
It's that time! NCAA Tourney March Madness is here! To prove I'm not an expert, and see who really is, I have started a bracket group on the espn.com tournament challenge. I'm going to send a $25 gift card to Buffalo Wild Wings to the winner! Whether you have watched hundreds of games this year, or pick your bracket based on the mascots, everyone is welcome! To sign up you must sign up for a free espn.com account. The Tournament Challenge is under the fantasy sports section, and you can search for the group Not Exactly An Expert, where you can fill out your bracket. You must have your bracket filled in by Wednesday. Remember to tell your friends about it, and as always, check for updates on notexactlyanexpert.blogspot.com.
Duke and North Carolina advanced to the ACC basketball tournament finals for the 512th time yesterday, and will play the ACC Championship about an hour from now. This made me think of all of the rivalries I really enjoy watching. What really makes rivalries great to me are the tradition that goes into these games. Players and coaches come and go, but the rivalries that are truly great stay strong no matter who is on the team, and it seems new stories are created with each new meeting. I'm going to list a few of the rivalries that I look forward to every year.
Duke and North Carolina Basketball
Duke and UNC basketball might be my favorite rivalry. I will always take a college rivalry over a professional one, because you don't get a whole lot of the switching teams other than the occasional transfer student, and most of the time transfer students will go from a small program to a bigger program, or the other way around, and there is not a whole lot of lateral movement like you might get in the pros. The thing that makes Duke and UNC a great rivalry is that these two teams rarely have down years. The best high school basketball players always seem to take a look at going to these two schools, so the talent keeps pouring in year after year. Including today's game, this will be 15 years in a row that one of these two teams played in the ACC Championship, and out of those 15 games, 14 of them were won by either Duke or UNC.
Duke and Maryland Basketball
I know, you don't have to say it. Duke and Maryland is not as big of a deal as Duke and UNC, and everyone knows it. You get the idea though that this rivalry gets a little nastier. Maryland fans have known to be pretty intense with the burning couches and starting riots, either in celebration because of a vicotry, or in anger because of a loss. In 2001, Duke forward Carlos Boozer's mother got hit in the head by a water bottle thrown by fans after Duke just finished a huge comeback win over the Terps. Former Duke guard J.J. Redick once said Maryland is the only place in the country that he didn't want his parents to travel to the game.
This rivalry really started to take shape in the late 90s into the early 2000s. Maryland started to become a national contender, and UNC happened to be going through a couple of down years, and for a few years Duke and Maryland held the top billing in the ACC. The Duke fans often chanted "Not our rivals" at a home game after this rivalry started gaining more momentum with the national media, but players such as Boozer, and Jason Williams have admitted that while they were at Duke, it was a bigger rivalry than Duke and UNC. The one thing this rivalry has that most don't is a David and Goliath feeling. Most rivalries stay heated because the two teams are on equal ground, but Duke recruits far more heralded high school basketball players, while Maryland is more known for having 2nd tier high school players, but guys who have high work ethic, and reach higher levels of skill during their time at Maryland. Duke and Maryland will never be as big of a rivalry as Duke and UNC, but it's still a big rivalry, and a game worth watching every season.
Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees
These two baseball powerhouses compete in everything, not only with who wins the games, but also who gets the best free agents in the offseason. I have heard stories that these teams sometimes make decisions not only to make sure their team gets better, but also to make sure the other team doesn't get any better in the process. The thing that baseball rivalries have that other sports don't, is that these teams will meet anywhere from 15-25 times a year including possible playoff games. Baseball is a long season, and it's nice in the dog days of the summer to have a mid-week 3 game series between these two teams, especially if your team isn't doing all that well that season.
The fans of these two teams might hate each other more than any other rivalry. I once went to a 3-game series in Boston between the Angels and Red Sox, and after the National Anthem, the Red Sox fans started chanting "Yankees Suck!" I couldn't believe that the Angels were playing, and the fans didn't even care about them, they were still chanting about the Yankees.
I'm not a fan of either of these teams, but if I had to choose a team to pull for in this rivalry it would be the Yankees. The Red Sox fans bother me more because they call the Yankees the "Evil Empire," and accuse the Yankees of "buying their championships" by offering free agents huge contracts rather than drafting and developing their players, when in reality the Red Sox are no different. The Yankees at least know what they are. The Yankees always have the highest payroll in baseball, but the Red Sox are usually right there at #2.
Army Navy football
There are tons of college football rivalries I could pick, like Ohio State/Michigan, Texas/Oklahoma, Tennessee/Florida, or Alabama/Auburn, but I love this rivalry because it's less about money than any other one. Even in college games for big programs, it's about doing something to get to the pro level and get paid. The Army and Navy players aren't going to the pros, they are going to the military. This game will never have the top football players, but it does have a lot of history, traditions, and is rich with pomp and circumstance. The crowd is packed with former and current military servicemen and servicewomen in uniform, and the President of the United States often attends this game, and makes speeches in the locker rooms to the teams. The best part of this rivalry to me, is that these teams may have as intense of a rivalry as anyone, but they all know that at the end of the day, they play for the same team.
Redskins and Cowboys
The thing I like about this rivalry, is that no matter how good one team is, it seems like these two teams always play each other close. This rivalry is similar to the Red Sox/Yankees rivalry for me. Like those teams, the fans hatred for each other seems to push this rivalry far more than the teams. The owners seem to one-up each other often as well, with both wanting to have the most seats, the biggest stadium, the biggest scoreboard, or the best free agents. These teams also happen to have a combined 8 super bowl wins as well.
USA vs. Europe in the Ryder Cup
For those of you who aren't huge golf fans, I'll explain this one a little bit. Every two years, the USA and Europe each have 12 representatives for their golf team, and play team matches against each other. The best part about these matches is that they are so different than a normal golf tournament. In a normal tournament, there are no teams, everyone is just playing for themselves, but in the Ryder Cup, it turns into a team sport. All of the teammates are working together and helping each other throughout the match. Also, golf is not traditionally a sport where players show a lot of emotion, and this also changes for this event. Golfers are jumping around, getting pumped up, and high-fiving their teammates as they make good golf shots. As far as rivalries go, I think this is the one where the rivalries mean as much to the players as it does the fans. If you have a few minutes, watch these highlights of the 1999 Ryder Cup, and look at the golfers getting into these matches.
These are my favorite rivalries to watch, not necessarily the "best rivalries". What are your favorite rivalry games to watch? Share them in the comments section.
Usually when I write these things, I run it by a few sports fan friends of mine before I publish it. I did this with my friend Steven before I wrote this article, and it lead to an hour long argument. Keep in mind, Steven and I were both Communication Studies majors in college, so in our eight years of knowing each other, neither of us have ever admitted defeat in an argument to the other.
It's almost NCAA tourney time. Time to get out your brackets, which is arguably the best "fantasy sport" ever. Recently, there have been discussions about expanding the tournament field, currently at 68 teams, to 96 teams. For a long time, I thought this idea was silly. 96 is too many, I said. Actually, I thought 68 was too many. I didn't really know why I thought that. I guess I just heard 96, and in my mind I was used to 64, I liked 64, and 96 is nowhere close to 64. I follow a college basketball team that recently has been on the tournament bubble often, meaning at the end of the season, they are very close to whether or not they will be chosen to play in the tournament. But the reason I have started to turn to a 96 team tournament is not about my team, but about Virginia Tech.
For the record, I do not like Virginia Tech sports. I especially hate Virginia Tech football, for the same reason I don't like a lot of the teams that I don't like, which is that they had a moment when all of the sudden, everyone and their mothers decided that they have been fans of this team their whole life. The Boston Red Sox are a team I also do not like for the same reason. Around 2003, everyone was a Red Sox fan all of the sudden, because they could see the Red Sox were about to break their near 100-year streak of losing the World Series. All of the sudden, people kept popping up, saying they have been Red Sox fans forever! No you haven't. You hopped on the bandwagon when Johnny Damon and Kevin Millar joined the team, and pretended to be a part of an 80-year long struggle. If you don't know who Mike Greenwell is, you are a phony.
The Virginia Tech magic moment revolved around Michael Vick. Michael Vick was the most exciting football player in college football history. You could not plan for Michael Vick. He did what he wanted, and teams had no choice but to let it happen. All of the sudden, everyone is a Virginia Tech fan. Am I making this up in my head? Impossible, because suddenly applications for Virginia Tech went through the roof over night. Virginia Tech was a safety school, and Michael Vick rolls around, and it's one of the hardest schools in the state to get into.
So, I hope I have proved my point that I promise I do not like Virginia Tech, so here is my actual point of this article. Usually 20 wins in a good conference gets you a spot in the NCAA tournament. Virginia Tech finished the season 23-8 in the ACC, arguably the toughest basketball conference year-in year-out. Sometimes teams get left out because they have a losing record in conference play. The Hokies finished 10-7 in the ACC by selection day. Sometimes teams get left out because they didn't beat any good opponents. The Hokies beat Miami and Wake Forest when they were both ranked in the top 25, and also North Carolina's team full of All-Americans, even if they were in a down year. Sometimes teams get left out of the tourney because they have a losing record in their last 10 games. The Hokies finished 6-4 in their last 10 games. The Hokies however, were not invited to the NCAA tournament.
The Hokies would not have won the NCAA tournament that year, but they earned the right to play in the tournament. They deserved the right to try to make the Sweet 16. They were not given this opportunity, but do you know who was? The University of Arkansas Pine-Bluff Golden Lions. The Golden Lions didn't win 23 games that season. They didn't beat any top 25 teams either. They started the season 0-11. But the Golden Lions won the SWAC conference tournament by beating such college basketball powerhouses as Mississippi Valley State, Alabama State, and Texas Southern. I don't even know what SWAC stands for, and I refuse to find out.
Each year when the NCAA tournament selection committee is selecting teams, their mission statement is to choose the best 64, or 65, or 68 teams to play in the tournament, depending on the year. Conference tournament champions are guaranteed to make the tournament however, so UAPB made the tournament even after a 17-15 record in one of the worst conferences in Division I basketball. I don't care how you spin it, UAPB did not deserve to play for the NCAA Championship more than Virginia Tech. If you include these automatic bids to the tournament, there is no way the best 68 teams will ever play in the tournament. If you include 96 teams, I think you can make a much better argument that the best 96 teams are playing. I would rather some of these lesser conferences lose their automatic entry into the tournament, but knowing that is unlikely, I think a 96-team field is a better compromise. Let teams like Virginia Tech get their chance to make a sweet 16, even if they never had a realistic shot to win the championship.
A 96-team tournament would include an extra weekend of March Madness, more money for the TV stations, and if you correctly pick all the games in a 96-team bracket, than you are some sort of crazy sports genius, even though we all know the old lady in the office picking her winners based on the mascots always seems to win the office pool. I don't expect a lot of support on this argument, but if I can get one person to change their mind on this one, I'll consider this post a success. Write me a comment if I've showed you the light, or also if you think I've finally lost it.
I guess it's not taping games anymore. I guess it's DVR'ng games, or maybe it's just recording games. Technology has made taping games much better... and also much worse. The reason it's better is because digitally recording games is much easier. The technology of digitally recording the games allows for more easily adding the additional time in case of overtime, and you can tape two games at once, or tape a game while watching another important game. More importantly, there is no danger of taping over your wedding video.
This article however, is more about how technology makes recording games much worse, because people have trouble following proper taped game etiquette. Getting in touch with people is far easier than ever before, which makes avoiding the outcomes of games more difficult than ever. A few years ago, I went to a college football game where my team lost a rivalry game they weren't supposed to lose. I think I had 3 phone calls, 6 text messages, and 10 facebook posts from friends enjoying a good laugh at me, all before I made it back to my car. Now I was at that game, but most of these people calling or messaging me didn't know that. As soon as the game went final, they were armed with their technological devices, ready to rub it in.
So, all devices need to be turned off during taped games. People who get as crazy as me about finding out the outcome of a game before your ready have all learned this the hard way. If I know someone is calling me, I am making assumptions about what happened in the game, even without answering it, just based on who called. I hope no major emergencies happen while I'm recording a game, or I'm in trouble.
The worst part of recording a game, is knowing someone already knows the outcome. Their facial expressions, their tone, and their comments, are all things that make me think they are spilling the beans. People will give away things about the game without realizing it, and I'll give you my worst instance of this case. Two years ago, my wife (then girlfriend) asked me to go to a movie with her Saturday night. Normally, this would be no big deal, but this particular movie happened to be about the eternal struggle between teenage werewolves and vampires. I was to buy the tickets when I got off of work that day, and we would watch the movie that night. There was a problem. We live in a town with one movie theater, and the teenage vampire-werewolf movie was sold out for that night. I called Shannon with the terrible news, and she said that it was no problem, but to go ahead and buy the tickets for the next available showing. But there was a problem, and it was a big problem. The next available showing was Sunday at 1:00, the same time as the Redskins and Cowboys game. I thought of mentioning this, and then I thought better of it, knowing we recently had a DVR system installed. We had some friends staying in town this weekend; friends who were not interested in whether the vampire or werewolf got the girl. They chose to stay at my house to watch the Redskins and Cowboys game. Knowing that I get signals whenever I know someone knows the results of a game, the people staying at my house were given strict instructions, that we would call when the movie was over, and they would watch the remainder of the game at a local sports bar.
The plan seemed bulletproof. None of the people staying to watch the game were big pro football fans, so I was confident the instructions would go off without a hitch. The movie ended, and I can't remember whether the vampires or werewolves won. As promised, we called with plenty of time that we would be coming home. I had Shannon walk in the door before me as a last-second precaution, just in case the freinds were still watching the game. They were. I was not happy. I yelled from outside the door that I was not happy. I could hear the explanation offered; that it was the last two minutes of the game, and they didn't want to miss it. They had no idea how much information they just told me.
By knowing there were only two minutes left, and that they did not want to leave, I knew it was a close game. After all, if there was a 30-point difference in the score, the fact that there were only two minutes left wouldn't make much of a difference. This also let me know that when I was watching the game, I didn't need to get too panicked if we went down a couple of scores, or too excited if we went up a couple of scores. This made the first 58 minutes of the game much less exciting. I watched it anyway. The score went up and down a few times, and finally I got to the two-minute warning, with the Redskins driving the ball down the field, less than one touchdown down to the Cowboys. This was the point I could finally get excited again. The first play after the timeout, Jason Campbell threw an interception to Dallas, and the game was over. As far as my excitement about the game was involved, I got one play out of it.
If you want to avoid ruining your friends day, make sure never to talk to someone about a game unless you are sure they got to watch it live. Wait for that person to call you, or check their facebook status to see if they are commenting on the inevitable poor performance of the officials of that game. With that being said, I'm recording the ACC tournament game at 7 pm tomorrow night, so don't tell me about it! If you have similar extreme measures of avoiding contact during games, or have your own story about someone ruining your recorded games, tell me about it in the comments.
