THE BODOGS ARE BARKIN: Week 1 Picks

The dawn of football season also means the start of another year of parlays, teasers, and backdoor covers. Since I’d feel bad taking advantage of someone as clueless as Billy I have enlisted my fellow degenerate gambler Mikey for a weekly picks column during the season. My only introduction for him is that he beat Billy in the basketball game 50 twice in one night (which is essentially 21 or Hustle…whatever you call it in your part of the country)…and it wasn’t even close. I mean he took him behind the woodshed. I can also tell you this bothers Billy to this day even though it’s probably been close to a year since he’s touched a basketball. When Mikey joined our dynasty fantasy football league this was the intro Billy gave him:

“Everyone got an email with a rough introduction of Mike. I’m going to tell you a little more about him. Michael is North American scum. Every time your mind or body does something, especially on the fly, you're one up on Mikey. Like if somebody throws a lucky charm at you, and you duck, +1 you. If you ever looked at Magic Eye as a kid and you saw the picture pop out, another victory. And I would never in a thousand years ever, ever, ever lose to Mikey in 50 again.”

Nothing more really needs to be said…other than a reiteration that Mikey whooped Billy in 50. Badly. More than once. With many witnesses.

Back to gambling—the way we run it is we pick ten college games a week. We pick each of the games on our own so some may overlap, most will not. Each game is worth 1pt and one game is declared a lock and is worth 2pts. Each point is a set dollar value (in our case $5). We’ll update the standings week to week and if you care at all you can figure out the money that’s exchanged. I'm not going to post it because I want Mikey to be blindsided by the debt at the end of the year.

Mattare’s Lock of the Week: Navy (-7.5) over Louisiana Tech

Navy has one of the best rushing attacks in the country and their most dynamic quarterback since Chris McCoy in the mid-90’s. Louisiana Tech gave up 301 rushing yards last week. Yikes.

The Other Nine:
North Carolina (-4)...South Carolina (+8) ...Duke (-1)
Notre Dame (-3)...Mississippi St (+14)...UCLA (+10)
Air Force (+3.5)...Indiana (-1)...Colorado (-4)

Mikey's Lock of the Week: North Carolina (-4) over UConn

"Not really sure why I made UNC my lock, I actually think this game is going to be pretty close. Maybe its because I won 35% of my college games last year or maybe its just the unbelievable confidence I have in Butch Davis when he's not on the Browns. Either way I advise everyone else to bet on UCONN."

The Other Nine:
South Carolina (+8)...Duke (-1)...Notre Dame (-3)
Iowa (-7)...Tennessee (-10)...East Carolina (+6.5)
Houston (+16)...LSU (-12)...Ohio St (+7)