NFL Pick Against The Spread Contest, Week 2

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I know this is the pro section, but you guys brought up ND. I'd be interested in what you ND fans think about the fact that black athletes seem to be shying away from Weis and ND. I'm not talking about Demetrious Jones, as good players leave many schools when a young player loses out to a freshman golden boy who will likely occupy a starting position for four years. That's no surprise and kids of all ethnic backgrounds leave programs in that situation. I'm talking about the fact that there are fewer black kids playing and seemingly fewer being recruited every year. Does it have something to do with the Willingham thing? Or is Weis not a friend to the black man? Or is it just coincidence that Weis thinks the most talented kids that he wants to recruit happen to be white? Just curious what ND fans think about this.

I'm not sure what it might be. I am by no means an expert in high school recruiting, so I'm sure my opinions aren't completely dead-on. I'm sure the Willingham thing didn't help, but in all honesty, I'd think that Charlie Weis would have more cache anyway compared to Ty Willingham (maybe I'm wrong.) They're still a private, Catholic school in Northern Indiana, so I'm not sure whether that weighs against a mid level black recruit's decision to go there instead of, say, Illinois (my alma mater) which may be less intimidating since there's already a system for accomodating black athletes, plus it's a public institution like most of the other major athletic universities. When it comes to high-level national recruits (most of whom, especially at skill positions and on defense, will be black), Notre Dame simply cannot compete with USC, Florida, LSU, Ohio State, or any of the other major powerhouses. Why would you go to ND when none of its players seem to get drafted, and they haven't won a bowl game since the early Clinton presidency? So if Notre Dame is getting outcompeted at the national level, and if they're getting outcompeted at a regional level, where exactly are the high-level recruits going to come from?

Now, there's certain countervailing forces working against that as well. Notre Dame has a national following, especially amongst Roman Catholics. If I were to be offered an athletic scholarship, I'd choose ND over any other school, honestly, because of my religion and because I grew up watching ND games every weekend with my grandpa growing up. I imagine there's a lot of stories for (white) kids like me with either Italian (Catholic), Polish (Catholic) or Irish (Catholic) immigrant parents or grandparents, who watched football to become assimilated and watched ND because they were on and because they were a Catholic institution. Then they passed that on to their children and grandchildren. There's leacy systems at every institution, but NDs are something slightly different and (arguably) more significant.

That's my two cents, and feel free to disagree with any of it.

Coast is less a man than a god.

Thanks IrishBoy, but iI's a marathon, not a sprint. There will surely be 2-7 weeks to go with 7-2 weeks. I don't get too high after a great week or too low after a bad one. It's a grind.

Doc, there is a site.....sportsinsights.com......which collects data from several offshore sportsbooks. It doesn't necessarily count every bet made everywhere (Las Vegas books aren't in these totals), but it does represent 50 thousand or more bets on each NFL game made offshore, so it is representative of where the money is going on any given game. You can sign up for a basic account there free and get the basic data.

Coast2Coast wrote:

Thanks IrishBoy, but iI's a marathon, not a sprint. There will surely be 2-7 weeks to go with 7-2 weeks. I don't get too high after a great week or too low after a bad one. It's a grind.

ta.

We saw last year on picks that the overwhelming majority of people were at 50% +/- 5%. I think the winner came in at 58%. Is that the experience in the Las Vegas competition as well.

Umm, I think I'm in last now?

Bad Mahi Mahi wrote:

We saw last year on picks that the overwhelming majority of people were at 50% +/- 5%. I think the winner came in at 58%. Is that the experience in the Las Vegas competition as well.

Most of the guys on the board we were on hit around 50%, but that was for both pro and college and that was picking any number of games they wanted. So in theory, it was their best bets every week. In this contest, picking a required five games every week only in the NFL, I would expect a slightly lower overall % . The Vegas competition has hundreds of people who make their living at this. The majority in that contest are above the breakeven % of 52.4%. There are several in that competition every year who do better than 60%. Last year's winner had 58 points over the 17 weeks, so that works out to a record of 58-27, or 68%.

I was about 60% on my pro picks last year. I sucked picking college games and that brought down my %.