NIU007
Legend
Posts: 34,303
Joined: Sep 2004
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I Root For: NIU, MAC
Location: Naperville, IL
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RE: Biggest Upsets of 2019
(10-16-2019 06:29 PM)quo vadis Wrote: (10-16-2019 03:36 PM)NIU007 Wrote: (10-16-2019 03:21 PM)quo vadis Wrote: (10-16-2019 03:15 PM)NIU007 Wrote: (10-16-2019 09:20 AM)quo vadis Wrote: You pack a lot of 'wrong' in to a short post:
1) I don't follow G5 football? I watched four G5 games this past Saturday alone - USF vs BYU, Cincy vs Houston, Temple vs Memphis, and Boise vs Hawaii. I'll watch USA vs Troy tonight and Marshall vs FAU on Friday.
2) I didn't say that Toledo shouldn't be favored by 30 over "anyone", I limited my comment to FBS competition. Both Toledo and BG had beaten FCS teams by more (that's a third thing you are wrong about, as BG was not winless going in to the Toledo game).
And I explained why: Toledo had beaten three bad FBS teams, teams ranked below 75 in the computers, and hadn't beaten any of them by more than 7 points. They had played a bad P5 team, Kentucky, and lost to them by 14 points.
Yes, BG is a bad team, one of the worst, but we are talking shades of badness here, so to me, not much reason to think Toledo was going to beat them by a huge margin. They hadn't done it to any of the other bad teams they'd played, because they themselves had given no indication of being much good (is last year's 7-6 record why they are a "MAC favorite" this year? Doesn't say much for the MAC does it?).
Maybe the Vegas oddsmakers don't "know MAC football" and so overrated Toledo's chances?
Last year Toledo beat WMU by 27, Ball State by 32, Kent State by 22, and CMU by 38, almost in consecutive weeks. They have most of the same players this year, which is why many picked them to win the MAC west, the stronger of the 2 divisions, while BG was picked near the bottom of the weaker MAC East.
I get that, but it's also true that Toledo was 7-6 last year and didn't come close to winning the MAC, they finished 3rd in their division. So it's not like they were returning a murderer's row of great players.
In any event, if someone last week had told me I would have to bet the Toledo - BG game, and that I had to bet BG but without knowing the official line, after looking at this year's results I would have insisted on about 10 points. Given Toledo's play so far this year, that's what the line IMO should have been. Nothing like 27 points, they hadn't beaten any of their three bad FBS opponents by anything like that margin.
If you were following the MAC you would have known to bet the farm on BG then. Would have been easy money.
MAC teams MANY times score not very much against P5 teams, even mediocre ones, and then put up 40+ against a MAC foe. NIU has done that many times. We've single-handedly made the MAC look bad doing that. And Toledo can always put up points.
I get that. But what would have stood out for me is that against three bad G5 teams, one MAC, one MW, one BYU, Toledo hadn't been able to win by more than 7 points.
What stood out to me is that BG had lost by 52 to Kansas State, by 28 to La Tech, 52 to Notre Dame (and they didn't score against Kansas State or Notre Dame), and even moreso, by 42 to Kent State, a team not known for offense (although Kent State has played a very tough schedule so far this year).
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