Tag: BlogPoll

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 7 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 10/15/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports136 Comments

OK, Husker fans.  I’m a believer now, or more to the point, I’m a believer in Taylor Martinez.  Also, I’ve buckled on the Boise State/TCU debate – Boise State may very well be #1 in the BCs rankings released on Sunday night, but the TCU defense is just stifling in a manner in a way that I don’t think Boise State can match.  Out of the non-AQ schools, I think that TCU is the best.

Here are this week’s parlay picks (with home teams in CAPS and odds from Bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • MICHIGAN STATE (-7) over Illinois – Incredible beatdown by Illinois over Penn State last that I didn’t see coming at all.  I just wish this week’s game was being played in Champaign.  With Michigan State’s defense holding Denard Robinson in check last week and Illinois effectively having a poor man’s version of Michigan’s offense, I don’t think the Illini are coming out of East Lansing with a win.  Fortunately, Illinois is going to have a very favorable schedule for the rest of the season and it would be a legitimate disappointment if we don’t make it to a bowl this season (which I wouldn’t have said a month ago, when I didn’t think we’d even have a chance at bowling).
  • LOUISVILLE (+3) over Cincinnati – Taking the points with the home team.  Nothing more and nothing less.
  • Arkansas (+3.5) over AUBURN – I think that LSU is the real deal out of the SEC, but I still have a lot of reservations about Auburn.  Arkansas has also been underestimated by Vegas for much of the season. 

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 2-2
Overall Season: 6-11-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • Seahawks (+6.5) over BEARS – The Bears shouldn’t be getting anything close to a touchdown spread based on what we’ve seen so far.  This will be a win for the Bears since Seattle is hellabad on the road, but the score will also be close enough that Lovie Smith will continue to be the coaching chopping block in the minds of Chicago sports talk radio callers.
  • VIKINGS (-1.5) over Cowboys – I can’t tell you how much I’m delighted by Brett Favre falling on his 4-inch sword this week.  People that I know that have spent a lot of time around Green Bay have told me plenty of stories of #4’s adulterous womanizing douchebag ways that have been ignored over the past two decades by a media that insists upon pushing the facade of their All-American golden boy.   Good for Deadspin (an outlet I’ll always be grateful to for linking to this blog regularly when fellow Illinois alum Will Leitch was running it) for pushing to the forefront a clear incident of sexual harassment in the workplace that the mainstream media that just wants to pass off as a tabloid takedown of a “hero”.  (OK, so it might be tabloid takedown, but it’s deserved in this instance.)  That being said, I don’t know how the bookmakers continue to give the Cowboys so much credit – that’s a BAAAAAD team.  It also took the league’s best secondary to keep the newly formed Favre-Moss combo in check on Monday night and they still were able to connect for big plays late.  The Cowboys certainly don’t have anything close to the Jets’ secondary and Minnesota is an extremely tough place to play on the road.
  • Raiders (+6.5) over 49ERS – Good thing that Bay Area fans have the Giants in the NLCS to take their minds off of this craptacular metro area football fest.

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 2-1
Bears Games for the Season: 2-3
Overall Season: 7-8

As always, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on yesterday’s Through the Wire post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)

Frank the Tank’s New Facebook Page, BlogPoll Week 6 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 10/8/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, NFL Football, Sports117 Comments

First off, the Frank the Tank empire is expanding.  In addition to the already-existing Twitter feed @frankthetank111, I’ve created a new Facebook page for the site, so you can “Like” (or “Dislike” on the Wall) the blog to your heart’s content and maybe figure out what some of the commenters here look like.

As for this week’s BlogPoll ballot, I had been holding off on moving Oregon up to #3, but I couldn’t any longer after that dominant performance against Stanford.  Granted, I’m still skeptical of how the eye-popping offensive numbers would look against opponents with top tier defenses.  Note that plenty of people thought that Oregon was going to score at will on Ohio State in last year’s Rose Bowl, but the Buckeyes pretty much hammered the Ducks.

It appears that I’m destined to go 1-2 in my picks each week, which is fairly frustrating with a ridiculous number of games having the Vegas outcome determined by garbage points in the last couple of minutes (i.e. Virginia Tech-NC State last week, Illinois-NIU a few weeks ago).  This is why it’s a good thing that I don’t live within driving distance of a sports book.  Anyway, onto this week’s parlay picks (with home teams in CAPS and odds from Bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • PENN STATE (-8) over Illinois – Direct quote from Ron Zook in today’s Chicago Tribune: “To me, it is exciting the fact we are going somewhere we have never won before.  All that does is make the percentages that much better that you’re going to win.”  As mentioned above, I’m not exactly a gambling savant, but I have a nagging feeling that’s not exactly how bookmakers determine the odds.
  • Arkansas (-6) over Texas A&M (neutral site at Jerry World) – I haven’t spent that much time in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, but what time I have spent there indicates that the Rangers-Rays AL Division Series overlapping with the Arkansas-A&M game across the street for sure on Saturday and possibly the Cowboys-Titans game on Sunday will result in a Traffic Armageddon not seen since the combination of senior citizen and Pennsylvania drivers at Super Bowl XLIII in Tampa.
  • UCLA Bruins (+7.5) over CALIFORNIA – Am I missing something with this line?  Way too wide for my tastes for similarly performing teams. 

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 2-1
Overall Season: 5-9-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • Packers (-2.5) over REDSKINS – Washington isn’t half bad, but let’s not get too carried away here.
  • BEARS (+1) over Panthers – If the Bears were playing ANYONE other than Carolina or Buffalo this week, the Todd Collins era would be an awful shellacking.  As it is, this was the right week for Jay Cutler to have a concussion.  In the meantime, the TV networks will have to update its “The Bears have had 697 starting quarterbacks since Brett Favre first started with the Packers” graphic for the next Chicago-Green Bay game.
  • Titans (+7) over COWBOYS – This feels like the Bears-Cowboys game in week 2 – way too much love from the bookmakers on Dallas here.

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Bears Games for the Season: 1-3
Overall Season: 5-7

As always, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on yesterday’s Through the Wire post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111 and Facebook)

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 5 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 10/1/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports206 Comments

 

I’m still swamped these days, but I promise that I’ll have some new views on the latest conference realignment-related stories soon.  In the meantime, for an old post that seems to be relevant again, here are my in-depth thoughts from back in February on why the Big East ought to go after TCU.  Here are this week’s parlay picks for both college football and the NFL with my obligatory Illini and Bears choices (home teams in CAPS and odds from bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • ILLINOIS (+17) over Ohio State
  • NORTH CAROLINA STATE (+4) over Virginia Tech
  • BOSTON COLLEGE (+3) over Notre Dame

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 1-1
Overall Season: 4-7-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • TITANS (-6.5) over Broncos
  • Redskins (+6) over EAGLES
  • Bears (+4) over GIANTS

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Bears Games for the Season: 1-2
Overall Season: 4-5

Once again, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on the Big Ten Division-palooza post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 4 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 9/24/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, NFL Football, Sports299 Comments

Unfortunately, this is going to be another short post because of time constraints, although I will note that my positioning of Oregon State at #4 instead of Oregon was evidence of my failure at basic click-and-drag skills.  That was a clear mistake that Brian Cook caught and it certainly was not my intent – the Ducks should be at #4.  I’ll have some views on recent conference realignment-related stories coming up next week.  Until then, here are this week’s parlay picks for both college football and the NFL (home teams in CAPS and odds from bodog via Yahoo!):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • PENN STATE (-14) over Temple
  • Oregon State (+17) over BOISE STATE
  • Georgia (PK) over MISSISSIPPI STATE 

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-2
Illini Games for the Season: 1-1
Overall Season: 3-5-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • Lions (+11) over VIKINGS
  • Titans (+3) over GIANTS
  • Packers (-3) over BEARS

Frank the Tank’s NFL Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 2-1
Bears Games for the Season: 1-1
Overall Season: 3-3

As always, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games and non-expansion college sports news.  If you want to talk about conference realignment in general, please continue the discussion on the Big Ten Division-palooza post, while the college hockey discussion should be under the Big Ten Expansion Hits the Ice post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)

Frank the Tank’s BlogPoll Week 2 Ballot, Football Parlay and Open Thread – 9/10/2010

On By Frank the TankIn Big Ten, Chicago Bears, College Football, Illinois Fighting Illini, NFL Football, Sports329 Comments

Well, as evidenced by my BlogPoll ballot this week, I’m setting forth a complete mea culpa on both Boise State and TCU.  Granted, the Virginia Tech defense on that last Boise State drive had more potmarks than an Edward James Olmos side profile, but it was undoubtedly an incredible display of leadership by Broncos QB Kellen Moore.  Now, do I think that Boise State deserves to be in the national championship game as an undefeated team?  I’ll be honest – it would be difficult to rank Boise State over an unscathed SEC, Big Ten or Big 12 team with the strength of those conferences this season.  However, there’s no reason why an undefeated Boise State team should get jumped by a one-loss BCS conference school.

Looking ahead, we’re jumping into one of my favorite weekends of the sports year: a full boat of marquee college football games on Saturday, the start of the NFL season on Sunday, baseball pennant races getting serious (or in the case of the White Sox, getting killed off – gawd I HATE the Twins), the US Open finals (with hopefully a Federer-Nadal matchup on Sunday) and even some quality golf here in Chicagoland with the BMW Championship.  (I attended last year’s tournament in Cog Hill, which seems like 8 decades ago since that was essentially the last time that Tiger Woods looked invincible and there wasn’t any thoughts of him banging IHOP waitresses.  The day that I went, he set a course record score of 62 with a 9 under par with an insanely massive and adoring crowd following him at every hole.  I’m getting a little frightened that we may start speaking of Tiger in similar tones as Bo Jackson as a freakish “what if” athlete as opposed to Michael Jordan, who completely reached his maximum potential.)  Here are this week’s parlay picks for both college football and the NFL (home teams in CAPS, odds from bodog via Yahoo! and note that the Illinois game is offline since the Illini are playing Division I-AA Southern Illinois):

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

  • Florida State (+7) over OKLAHOMA – I’m very surprised that Oklahoma is giving this many points after looking completely pedestrian in what should’ve been a blood money home game against Utah State last week.
  • Michigan (+4) over NOTRE DAME – The prospects of a Michigan turnaround this season was a bit more convincing to me compared to Notre Dame following last week.  I’ll take the points again in South Bend.
  • TENNESSEE (+12) over Oregon – This looks like a classic Admiral Ackbar “It’s a trap!” line – Vegas oddsmakers seem to be banking on people being smitten enough with Oregon’s 72-0 opening performance that they’ll give double digits points even though it’s a road game in a tough SEC environment with over 100,000 opposing fans.  I’m just taking all of the points that I can this week.

Frank the Tank’s College Football Parlay Record
Last Week: 1-1-1
Illini Games for the Season: 1-0
Overall Season: 1-1-1

NFL FOOTBALL

  • BEARS (-6.5) over Lions – The Bears are probably going to be about a 9-7 team, which means that they aren’t necessarily going to be that good, but they also aren’t going to be as horrible as a growing number of national commentators seem to believe.  I still have some faith in Jay Cutler and am not going to stick a Jeff George label on him just yet.  Having Chester Taylor behind Matt Forte will vastly improve the Bears’ running depth and the defense has the ability to harass opposing quarterbacks with Julius Peppers added to the fold.  Now, the offensive line (or lack thereof) definitely scares the freaking bejeezus out of me and it wouldn’t surprise me if Cutler is decapitated by week 3, so that’s kind of a negative.  However, is that enough to dissuade me from my belief that we can at least pound Detroit at home?  Heck no.
  • Colts (-2.5) over TEXANS – There’s no franchise that has collectively wreaked more havoc (AKA fucked me) over the past 5 years on my game picks and fantasy football rosters than Houston.  I’m staying away from them until further notice, especially when Indy is involved.
  • Ravens (+2.5) over JETS – Oh, how I love virtually everything about Rex Ryan.  I love how the world found out via Hard Knocks that he’s exactly like his caricature on Kissing Suzy Kolber.  I love his speeches here and here.  (Just once, I would love to hear Lovie Smith call the Bears a “fucking slapdick team”.)  I love this in-depth piece about him that’s going to run in this Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.  I love his family lineage as the son of Buddy Ryan, who is the architect of the 46 defense and the defensive coordinator of the ’85 Bears.  However, I don’t love the amount of hype heaped upon a team that went 9-7 last year and definitely don’t love the QB play of Mark Sanchez (20 interceptions compared to 12 TDs last year).  Plus, Ray Lewis and the Ravens defensive unit has a mountain of bulletin board material from its former defensive coordinator.  So, I really like taking the points here since I believe Baltimore is winning this game straight-up.

Once again, feel free to use this post as an open thread for the weekend’s games.  If you want to talk about conference realignment, please continue the discussion on the Big Ten Division-palooza post.  Have a great weekend!

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)

BlogPoll 2010 Week 1 Ballot

On By Frank the TankIn Big East, Big Ten, College Football, Sports93 Comments

Nothing too off-the-wall to start out the season with my first BlogPoll ballot:

The preseason poll is always a bit of a superficial guess as to where teams stand, but my main overarching thought is that the general love for Boise State in other rankings is a bit overboard.  I have a hard time seeing the Broncos getting out of the first week without a loss (with a de facto road game again Virginia Tech in Landover) and that’s a team that isn’t going to keep a sky-high position in the rankings if they’re not undefeated (even if they beat Oregon State in their third game of the season).

More importantly for me, will the Illini provide me with any type of excuse to submit a semi-justifiable homer vote at any point this season?  Anyone?  Bueller?

(Follow Frank the Tank’s Slant on Twitter @frankthetank111)