I have been in corporate America for a little over 2 years now with a pretty badass private company. One of the cool things they do every year is a company-wide football pool. The prizes are pretty crazy, I believe the winner after the regular season gets $1000, and almost EVERYBODY gets into it.
A little background/how it works, each week you pick a combination of 10 NFL or CFB games against the spread, from CFB Week 1 through NFL Week 18 and the system keeps track of your record. Best record after these 19 weeks gets the prize. I thought it would be fun to follow along as I make my picks this year. I am self-admittedly terrible at CFB and NFL betting, so fade or tail, but keep reading these things.
Here’s the picks:
I won’t get into all of these games, but I’ll give you my thinking on a few I like.
#11 Oregon +17.5 vs. #3 Georgia
Two things I have learned about the Oregon Ducks football program, the jerseys are always fire and they are fast as fuck. *Flashbacks to Marcus Mariota dropping dimes and running all over the field* In fact, their jerseys make them even faster, just a fact. I digress, the Ducks have a lot to prove here in the first game of the season, off a rollercoaster of a season last year. Georgia is obviously coming off a CFB Playoff championship, the highest of highs, and I’ll be damned if they aren’t due for a little hangover game. Give me the Ducks with the points here, they’ve got a chip on their shoulder and a lot to prove.
#19 Arkansas -5.5 vs. #23 Cincinnati
Can we please call Cincinatti’s season last year what it was? A fluke. The “Cinderella” team that was undefeated, so they had to be included in the CFB Playoff. In my opinion they were overrated last year, and it looks like they are starting the season overrated once again. Losing their QB, and best DB among others, they are due for regression. While I hate putting my faith in Arkansas of all teams to get off to a hot start, I think they win handily here. Ark has your typical SEC big boys up front and will push Cincy around all game. Not to mention a stud QB returning in KJ Jefferson I’ll take Arkansas with the points here.
#7 Utah -2.5 vs. Florida
Last one, Utah -2.5 over a rebuilding Florida team. I think Utah has an outside chance to sneak into the CFB playoff this season, not as high as some others think. While I hate betting against a storied SEC program in Florida, I think the experience coming back for Utah on offense is going to be the advantage here, both Tavion Thomas and Cameron Rising are returning, and the defensive unit aren’t slouches either. Give me the Utes.
That’s it. Regardless of how this goes, CFB is BACK and I couldn’t be more excited to continue this series as the season goes on. Might just go undefeated. See y’all for the update after the week.
