Let all the Bulldog faithful rally behind the men who now wear the red and black with two words, two simple words which express the sentiments of the entire Bulldog Nation: Auburn Sucks.
The Hoop Dawgs look like a lock to make the dance this year! đ¤
For those of you that played last year, email invites have been sent to you.
HOUSEKEEPING: RunYourPool has been bought by Splash Sports. The good news is that your username and password from last year will apply for the new app.
Same rules as last year, 1 bracket per entry. Of course, brackets aren’t ready yet as we still have the final regular season games and conference tournaments to go. Just getting a headstart on the fun this year!
Any problems? Just email me at dawglicious22 at g mail dot com
As many of you noted yesterday, there’s a popular perception that Saturday will be Manball, defense, and trying to play sound, controlling football. The projections from Frenau’s BCF Toys seems to agree that 55.5 is a bit robust, and coupled with Kirby’s history of not beating a man when they’re down (unless your name rhymes with Tennessee), it could be a place where Georgia not only doesn’t cover, but doesn’t allow a game to exceed the projected 55.5 point total. Since offenses are finding their rhythm, it’s the first game of the year, and the transfer portal has opened up a world where offenses are featuring over 50% new players, betting the under seems to be the safe route this weekend.
Also impressed that preseason #1 Texas is projected at a comfortable 80% to lose to Ohio State. Sunday would be a great day to try out those noise cancelling headphones and avoid social media for, say, a week. Whoever wins that one is going to insufferable, to say the least.
Consider this your Fabris Pool handicapper, though I’ve noticed that Week 1 is the only week of the year where I ever win in the Pool, and that’s what I call dumb luck. How did Week 0 go?
Three that didn’t beat the projected spread and three that didn’t hit the projected Over/Under.
This is why I don’t wager real money on sports betting, folks.
In case you didn’t already know, Georgia is a lofty favorite for this weekend’s home opener against Marshall. Between being the first game, likely (hopefully) using the contest as a means to get in meaningful reps for the 2s and (again, hopefully) 3s, one has to wonder if the folks in Vegas are aware of Kirby’s history of opting to not run the score up against massive underdogs. It’s almost like he’s being…nice.
According to the current BetMGM odds, Georgia is a 39.5-point favorite over Marshall with a point total of 55.5 for their game this Saturday. Notably, head coach Kirby Smart is 0-12-1 against the spread (ATS) in games in which his Bulldog team entered as more than a 38-point favorite.
Kirby Smart has a great winning record as the Bulldawgs head coach, but if you told me he was 0 for anything, I’m fine with this stat.
Marshall’s home opener for the fans of the Herd will likely be a “who’s on first, what’s on second” kind of endeavor, as the vast majority of the team will be new personnel as the result of a massive turnover and portal haul following a coaching change in December.
What’s your bet? Would you bet the farm for Marshall to beat the spread? Or is this a year where Kirby’s out for blood and will use the game to make a statement?
As of today, 19 days from Georgia kicking off and only *17* days from Week 1 action, we have 81 GTP Refugees signed up! Not too shabby, and well over halfway to last year’s total pickers.
Week One starts on Thursday 8/28 and runs through Labor Day with 12 games to prognosticate upon.
Click the link above to join in on the fun. Should you have any questions or concerns, you can email me at dawglicious22 at g mail dot com.
Last year, we finished the regular season with 146 intrepid GPTers making picks and taking their licks.
At the old shop, the good Senator had 302 pickers, so the drop off was expected as we launched GPT Refugees. I’d love to see our numbers grow, so invite others to come to the blog and sign up!
First games to pick will be Week 1 Thursday 8/28. Week 0 games aren’t available on our Pickem site, but looking at this lineup, only the most degenerate gamblers among us would want to pick from these:
Gross. But the degenerate in me wants to pick the Maui Wowie at home against Intellectual Brutality, lol
Email invites went out last night for all those on file from last year. If you don’t get one, that’s ok. Check spam, or click on the link above to register.
If you have trouble registering, holler at me at dawglicious22 at gmail dot com.
More details, rules, and reminders on how the Pickem works later, but for now…
I think Alabama being only a 8.5 point favorite is a little generous, but with the portal and all, who knows? Given how rosters are more fluid than ever, I donât see how the oddsmakers can even prognosticate this far in advance.
I posted something yesterday about a Twix in where the poster said that a collective of teams who underwhelmingly didnât beat the spread were âoverratedâ. As EE commented, thatâs some Olympic sized long jumping to a conclusion on overrated versus underrated, and I agree. Personally, my summary of this post can be this, and you can read the rest after:
Kirby Smart doesnât care about the spread, and could give two shits if you do. Unless itâs Tennessee, where Kirby tries to make a point against the Vowels, or if heâs looking to prove a point altogether.
I think we covered in 2022 against TCU, right?
I looked deeper into the Dawgs historic trek through the ATS tracking from 2016 forward, and I tend to notice a couple of trends:
If a team is highly regarded and highly ranked, it doesnât equate to beating Andreas. Likely, the spread is bigger because said team is held in high regard, so the spread is wider and less likely to be beaten.
If a team is good but not highly regarded, they are likely to beat the spread more often. The number 1 percentage for beating the spread in 2024 went to Arizona State. Case in point.
If your curious, hereâs the percentage of games where Georgia beat the spread in the last nine years:
2016 – 46.2% 2017 – 73.3% (7th best in all of CFB)
2018 – 57.1% 2019 – 57.1% 2020 – 40% 2021 – 66.7% (tied for 14th best in CFB)
2022 – 53.3% 2023 – 38.5% 2024 – 28.6%
So the lowest performance came in 2024. Highest was in 2017 and 2021. What does it mean? Well, hell if I know, but I think I see something here.
In seasons where Georgia has a top flight defense, coupled with an efficient offense, itâs not unusual to see Georgia beat the spread. This is likely because the defense is keeping points off the board while the offense is putting points on the board. Sounds elementary, but think about 2017, which was lead by arguably the best backfield Georgiaâs ever seen as a collective in Michel, Chubb, and SwiftâŚplus a lights-out defense featuring shut down guys like Deandre Baker and Roquan Smith. They had a good defensive line, too. Fromm was a good game manager and as we know that makes it hard to beat a team with that much talent on both sides of the ball, plus a deadly accurate and reliable placekicker in Rodrigo Blankenship.
I donât think I have to elaborate on 2021, which featured an even better defense and a great offense. 2022 and 2023 had better offensive production, but the defense declined slightly in 2022 and 2023, so that narrows the gap when it comes to point spreads.
When it comes to the Fabris Pool, I typically always bet against the Dawgs, except when it comes to Tennessee and Auburn, which seems to be Kirbyâs historic whipping boys. I definitely bet against the spread against Kentucky, though I was wrong in 2023 when Beck had his great coming out party that night in Athens. Tech has now become a similar bet for me of late.
Iâll do a follow up to this to see if some of my assumptions above hold true, because I donât have the time at publication here to look at individual games in that 9 year timeline.
Still, I believe that Kirby, whether in Manball mode or otherwise, favors explosive plays but sound game management and clock control, attempting to minimize the defensive snaps and keep the defense fresh to cause havoc in the game. Whether Georgia covers or not is of little consequence to Kirby, and if Georgia is low or high in this metric definitely doesnât make them over or underrated.
Itâs just how Kirby rolls.
What do you think? How do you bet the Dawgs? What do you notice?
Numb. Unemotional. Withdrawn. Those are the feelings your humble commish experienced this weekend, and that was before the damn game in T-town. I guess it’s a protective shield I’ve built for myself and my loved ones after years of practice, but it works and I’m ready to see what Kirby can do over the next two weeks to get our Dawgs clicking for sixty minutes, rather than the second half.
As for halves, we are nearing the half way point of our season, and some of us have had very unDawg-like nice first halves! Especially StuartDawg, who paired a tie-breaker Week 5 victory over 10-2 SUhatter94 with a leap into first place in the season standings! Nice job, Stu!
Bam!Zoom!
Plenty of season left, y’all! Lick those wounds and let’s take it out on the Barn this week.
Your humble commish,
Dawglicious
P.S. Week 6 games post on Monday once lines are finalized in the site
Just a friendly reminder we do have a Friday night pick this week between the Hokies and the Hurricanes.
Speaking of hurricanes, I wanted to get this reminder in just in case Helene heads towards my house (or yours) and knocks out the internets. If you’re in the path, be careful, y’all.
128 players in the pool! Still time to get in to make a run at the season championship (unlike FSU).
UGA grad Mrs. Dawglicious did some grad work at FSU, but not enough to have feelings about the Noles’ implosion
1) Just in case you would like to opt-in to email picks reminders from FunOfficePools, it’s very easy!
Click on the “Your Profile” tab in the top right, and it will take you to this screen where you can opt-in for reminders to pick games:
Click “Update Profile” and you’re all set!
2) On another note, each week could come down to the tiebreaker game total score. The site allows 5 levels of tiebreaks (which could be more or less than what the SEC has put in place this year; I haven’t devoted the brain space to memorize those yet). Here are the five:
That should take care of weekly bragging rights in case we have a logjam of folks vying for the top spot.
