Welcome Back, Big Ten

And now, some games. The Mountain West and the Big Ten conferences join the pool, which is nice to see, but I enter their reemergence hesitantly, as I should, after what we’ve seen from the always willing participants so far. I have 13 games this weekend, and as crazy as it may seem, this is my comfort zone. Maybe it takes some time to become accustomed to this kind of madness, but I look at 4, 5, 6 games and think to myself, what am I going to do with that? It should be noted that there are limits on the high side to my level of content, as I am generally opposed to anything more than 20, for no other reason that a person placing actual bets on my system could have a winning record, like say, 13-12 in a week, and still lose money on the juice, which is not an issue with 20 or fewer plays. In the end though, I take all the games in one season as a whole, so in which weeks they are stockpiled or notably absent will make no difference to me. And this week’s 13 games? Well, assuming there are no cancelations, they will account for 26.5% of my total action so far, so this is a big deal, and furthermore we know, or at least we think we know, that even more football will be starting up soon.

This is enough substance that I’m inclined to write less and just watch this week, and then sort it all out later after I’ve had time to either celebrate or despair. Here they are:

Friday

Wisconsin -19.5 at home vs Illinois

Saturday

Clemson -46 at home vs Syracuse

TCU +6.5 at home vs Oklahoma

Penn State -6.5 on the road vs Indiana

Oklahoma State -3.5 at home vs Iowa State

Pittsburgh +11 at home vs Notre Dame

Alabama -21.5 on the road vs Tennessee

Virginia Tech -10 on the road vs Wake Forest

Iowa -3.5 on the road vs Purdue

Rice -3.5 at home vs Middle Tennessee

South Carolina +6 on the road vs LSU

Michigan -3 on the road vs Minnesota

Air Force -7 on the road vs San Jose State

Let’s go!