Thursday, December 10, 2015

Vindy's Picks 2015 Army-Navy


ONUS PUT ON COLLEGE RESULT FOR NFL TEAM’S DEFEAT
FOXBOROUGH, Massachusetts (CNN)…Tom Brady was mandated to wear Ohio State gear in the Patriots locker room last Thursday, after he lost a friendly wager when da’ Buckeyes beat his alma mater, Big Blew,…rather badly…! New England’s star QB claimed the fact that he hurled on the jersey and personally wet himself while doing so was “purely coincidental”! Brady blamed his team’s subsequent loss to the struggling Philadelphia bEagles that weekend on the forced change-of-attire, leading to “disruption” of his “usual pre-game routine”!

Farther west, Vindy had such a poor Championship Week (altogether now…”Howpoorwas it?!”), ending up  2-8 (123-118-3, .510), even Steelers’ LB James Harrison, who was adamantly-opposed to giving awards for merely playing in games rather than for recognizing only excellent performances, was compelled to offer him a “participation trophy”! With Vindicator still muttering “What The Field-goal???!!!”, we propose…
THE WEBER KID’S 2015 ARMY-NAVY FORECAST
(“Straight Outta’…Spread-Wins!”)
Army +21 ½ over Navy (@ Philadelphia, PA): Two of the three military academies are havin’ strong seasons. Army ain’t one of ‘em. Air Force came within a FG of winning the Mountain Fest Conference, while the Middies, in their first season as part of a conference, played but also lost the AAC Championship game at Houston. West Point beat just one FBS team…Eastern Michigan (whose only victory came over 2-win Wyoming), and put only one other victory in the books, a 21-14 win over FCS Bucknell (which went 4-7 on the year), while dropping the opener 37-35 vs. FCS Fordham (a first-round FCS playoffs loser). Keydets have lost by this many just once…a 44-3 defeat by Duke, catching the Blue Devils off a 9-7 triumph vs. Boston College. Otherwise, Army was competitive in its losses (though posted a crapshoot-worthy 4-4-1 ATS in I-A competition). The Sailors, who covered 7 of 10 FBS games, have 6 of their 9 wins by at least this many, including 38-point toppling of FCS Colgate (which is currently 10-3 and playing in the quarterfinals this weekend), but are poor 1-7 in last 8 layin’ more than two touchdowns. With a spread this big, rushing and passing yardage differences are negligible. Turnovers will likely be the key to the Platoon’s cover. Swabbies are plus-15. Soldiers are minus-8. Army will also have to improve upon its 79% red-zone success, with Navy converting on 94% of its possessions inside the opponents’ 20. West Point gave up a minimum of 31 ppg in 4 of its last 5 contests. On the year, omitting the 58-point outlier vs. EMU, Cadets scored an average of 16.75 ppg. Two of da’ last three years in this series were decided by 7 or less, and Army has one obvious advantage over all of Navy’s other foes…. they’ve seen the option…regularly!Navy 34 Army 17
BETWEEN THE HASHMARKS
BTW, had we just chosen solely a side rather than risking a side and a total on the ‘Bama-Florida match, we’d been even worse at 1-8 versus 2-8!
In September, the yearly freshmen pillow-fight at West Point went horribly-wrong, sending dozens to sick-call after a bunch of “tomorrow’s leaders” inserted hard-objects, including helmets, into pillow-cases! Wow! Talk about “friendly-fire”!!! “I am an Army of onebrain-cell???!!”

Prior to the start of the season, Craig Thompson, Mountain West commish, said he’d like Army-Navy to be played earlier in the year because if the Middies were the highest team among the Group of Five conferences in the CFP rankings, other potential bowl teams (and their bowls) would go into a holding pattern until the game was decided. Thompson’s undesirable-scenario almost played-out as the Sailors would likely have been the best Group-of-Five club had they beaten Houston for the AAC Title!
Not long ago, Florida State RB Dalvin Cook broke the school rushing record and exclaimed he thinks he’s entitled to da’ Heisman Trophy “because I’m Dalvin!” Is it just us or is anyone else in the readership flashin’ back to…”I’m Rick James, B*tch!” Or maybe he wants to star in a 007-flick…”My name’s CookDalvin Cook.”

Da’ Clemson Tigers rejoiced in their berth to the College Football Playoffs by throwin’ a pizza-party, spurring us to quip…”Better pizza, better playoffsDabo John’s!
Black Shirt: The coveted-tee clearly goes this week to Florida WR Antonio Callaway for the 85-yard punt-return for touchdown, helping an otherwise anemic Gator offense put enough points up to send the total to the predicted “over”!

“Locked in a Box?”:  Yep…Vindy put the weekly kiss-of-death on Northern Illinois (+11) as the Huskies got rocked by Bowling Green, lowering our lock record to 4-10 (.286).
Shoppe Talk: Vindicator has checked himself into the Shoppe and slipped his head into one of those hunting- trophy plaques in light of the ongoing failure to pick a winning side or total as his most-preferred selection of the week!

Vindy’s Army-Navy Best Bets: none    Last Week: 1-1 Season: 41-34-1 (.546)
Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be back circa December 18 with Part One of our infamous bowl predictions!

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