2017 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 4

The President can't stop the coalition. Our quest to pick NFL games against the spread continues into Week 4!

In a week dominated by the headlines of players kneeling or staying in the locker room, a lot of us found ourselves struggling. Adam nonetheless took three of our five disputed games to increase his lead, but we both had pretty bad weeks. Not as bad as my dad, but pretty bad. Meanwhile, Geoff went 3-3 on hero picks this week to move into a first place tie with Adam. You can view the breakdown of how we've picked in relation to each other here, which is important because on our ESPN standings page, Adam has two fewer correct picks than he should because picks listed on Confessions of a Sportscaster take priority over what gets input on ESPN.

As we move onto Week 4 with hopefully fewer hissy fits being thrown by people about players exercising their First Amendment rights in trying to bring attention to a major social issue, Adam and I disagree on just five games out of the 16 being played once again. Without further grandstanding on my part, let's get to the picks!

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 5

We're onto Week 5 and the final week of September, which means conference play is beginning in earnest.

That makes my weekly posts regarding NCSS rankings so much easier, because there are only a few games every week that I need to mention, because only a few are non-conference and thus apply to what's going on.

If you need a refresher on how this metric works, you can view that in my season introduction post. Below is each conference ranked by average NCSS score, with a mention of which games affected the ranking.

2017 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 4

I'm running a couple hours behind this week, but this time it's because we had a game get pushed back to Sunday. But now we are all caught up and ready to take a look at what happened over the weekend in college football.

Last week we started to see a little separation in terms of Playoff Points, and that separation will only grow more profound as we continue to add data points to the spreadsheet, which you can view here, and I'll link to again after going through the conference rankings. If you need a refresher on how these scores work, you can view those in my season introductory post.

2017 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em Week 3

The good news is I had a better Week 2 showing than I did in Week 1. The bad news is, other than Adam, so did everyone else.

Adam still had a strong performance last week though, as I blew a 3-1 lead in disputed picks and Adam finished taking four of the seven. Go ahead, make your memes. But don't the fact that I blew a 3-1 lead distract you from the fact that the Cleveland Indians blew a 3-1 lead in the 2016 World Series. So there.

This week as I try to continue my annual tradition of digging early holes before climbing out of them, Adam and I disagree on only five games out of 16. You can view the ESPN standings here, though entry error has Adam two wins under his actual total on there. I've also got them on a spreadsheet here, broken down based on how we picked in relation to each other.

When "For Christ and His Kingdom" Goes Wrong

Those of you who are regular readers of Confessions of a Sportscaster know this, but I want to open with full disclosure: I'm a North Central alum (and guy who yells "THREEEEEEEEE!" a couple hundred times every winter), and I have no love for Wheaton. But stories like these transcend rivalries. I respect Wheaton College as an institution, and the college will be treated with the utmost respect that it deserves in this post.

That last sentence is hard to follow through on when you consider that the accusations facing five football players at the school could be true.

Yesterday I saw a news story pop up on my Facebook feed that felony charges were being filed against five Wheaton football players for a hazing incident back in March of 2016. The Tribune article I linked to there includes some details from the accuser about what exactly happened. As I understand the timeline to be, police got involved pretty much immediately and began an investigation. The college did too, and considering that got a third party involved, the allegations have some degree of merit.

Photo collage by Lou Foglia (Chicago Tribune)

D3 Football picked up the story as well, and the college issued a full statement last night, but something about this whole situation stinks. I don't think Mike Swider engaged in a coverup, and any parallels to the whole Penn State fiasco don't fit because the bar is way too high. It's clearly a bad situation though, even though we're still at a stage of "innocent until proven guilty." But if after 18 months DuPage County thinks it has a strong case for felony charges, I would imagine there's got to be something there.

The response so far from Wheaton is a little troubling though, and maybe that's why I feel like the situation stinks. Of the five accused players, three of them just played in Wheaton's win over Carthage this past Saturday. At this point, even with my advocation for due process, I'd argue that there's enough here that these players should not see the field this weekend or for the foreseeable future. I'm also an advocate that the welfare of students should not take priority over wins and losses, and keeping these players on the field given their status does the opposite.

I'm hopeful that through all of this, justice is served, the alleged victim finds closure, and that Wheaton College does the right thing.

2017 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 4

It's hard to believe we're already this far into the season, but here we are in Week 4. Conference play has begun for some teams, but it's not there in earnest quite yet. That will start to come within the next week or two, but in the meantime we need to continue to stay on top of this.

There were a couple of game cancellations last week due to weather which forced some changes to NCSS scores. I'll try to stay on top of those with this week's rankings, as well as the updates to everything from Week 3. A primer on how this ranking works can be found in my season introductory post. Let's get to it!

2017 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 3

I was sick over the weekend, so I'm running a little behind where I normally am with these rankings. Fortunately, coming up with the Playoff Points rankings is fairly quick and easy and I'm not that far behind.

Last week's rankings were the first of the season, given that we're not that far into it. Playoff Points are hard to come by this early in the season, but as the sample sizes get larger, so do the average scores. You can view explanations for how all three sets of Playoff Points scores work in my season introduction post.

Let's get to it!