Category Archives: Gaming

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Bowls

After streaming a flick the other night — “Kimi” on HBO Max, pretty nifty technothriller — the realization came I hadn’t watched but a couple of plays in the Wake Forest/ Mizzou Gasparilla Bowl. Not that I gave a lump of coal about the game or who won.

Yet then realized how different this year’s Bowl Season has been. Something’s been missing.

Yes. No Joey the Vig’s Bowl Pool. Which would have me and about fifty others hanging on every fumble, pick and FG every silly Bad Boy Techno Taco Burpee Bowl until way after our bedtimes.

About fifteen years ago I was at a holiday party. In the corner of the den the TV was tuned without sound to the Fruit Company Cumquat Bowl or some such. What did happen to my benefit was Syracuse either made or missed a FG — who can remember details — which kept the kid alive for top spot with the Vig. I let out a scream, raising my hands in triumph, walked through the house like Ali after downing Liston.

Only The Professor, another annual bowler bozo, understood.

The Vig passed away suddenly a couple of months back.

Joey the Vig was a fictional ID fashioned for my pal John up Michigan way. A retired teacher, he loved numbers and odds and charts and data bases and football. He’d host such contests. A 13 run pool in baseball. Monthly pick ’em pool during football season.

And, my favorite, the Bowl Pool.

Not only because I could milk it for some blogs. I won it a couple of times, pocketing a little moolah.

So, to honor and in memory of dear friend Johnny Wags a/k/a Joey the Vig, find herewith America’s Premier Pigskin Prognosticator taking on the challenge of picking the winners for the remainder of the Bowl Season.

And, yes, it’s twu it’s twu, Against The Spread. (As set by Vegas Insider on 12/24.) Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Bowls

Seedy K’s Eccentric Wasabi Fenway Bowl Primer

Here’s everything you really don’t need to know about Saturday’s bowl matchup between U of L and Cincy.

But ought to.

What up with Wasabi?

No, it’s not a reference to that greenish, pea-ish horseradishy stuff you dab your Saba Roll in to make it more spicy. (Though I couldn’t help myself with the photo up top.)

Nor is it the name of the hottest new boutique on fashionable Newbury Street.

Also, not a reference to Southie pol Giuliani Wasabi, who is rumored to be declaring for the next mayoral race.

Ready for it? Hope so, don’t want to push my luck beyond the point of clever. Continue reading Seedy K’s Eccentric Wasabi Fenway Bowl Primer

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week XII

Driving about this morning, I was listening on Channel 309 Jam On to a group that is actually named Pigeons Playing Ping Pong.

What they were playing was a seriously pedestrian tune titled “Porcupine,” but I never moved on to something else.

Which anecdote, to be brutally honest, has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the precipitous decline in my predictioneering prowess last weekend.

But is conclusive empirical evidence how far your scribe will go in a lame obviously failed attempt to be alliteratively cute.

I was rewarded for my lack of energy to change the station with an interesting Frank Zappa tune that followed.

Which is yet another, so what?

Coming off a 5-0 slate in Week X, here’s what happened last time out here.

TCU won again in Austin. UK failed to Krogerize the Dores in a home L, the next great power in college pigskin. My Cards fell in Death Valley to a former recently great power in college pigskin.

But . . . All hail to the Baby Blue Tar Heels who defrocked the Demon Deacons.

And DePauw, which recaptured the Monon Bell with a decisive 49-14 plundering of rival Wabash.

2-3 for the weekend. 37-24 on the year.

Forever Onward!

This week’s winners: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week XII

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week XI

Upon double checking last weekend’s results, this tally does appear to be correct.

UCan won yet again, this victory over UMess. Tulane’s Green Wave continue their surge. Kentucky showed Mizzou. Georgia, as anybody with any sense should have known would happen, manhandled Rocky Top.

And the University of Louisville Cardinals won their fourth straight, with a dispatch of L’il Jimmy Madison.

Pass the Dolly Cakes, s’il vous plait.

Double checking what was written in this space last week, as if that was really necessary, your inveterate Pope of Predicticators proved yet again why he remains the Pontiff of Perfecto Prognosteration.

Because all those results were anticipated and reported in advance.

5-0 for the weekend = 35-21 for the campaign.

It’s good to be King.

This weekend’s winners: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week XI

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week X

There is an arch nemesis residing in the Chinstrap Nation. His persistent schadenfreude is such that he chooses never to miss an opportunity to berate your prodigious prognosticator for the occasional miscue.

So, last weekend, as the Noon games were winding down, your Pope of Predictionators decided to head him off at the pass, communicating to him that somehow incorrect choices had already been made in 60% of the weekly picks.

And he needn’t need to musktwiddle it out to the cyberverse, thank you very much.

Syracuse hadn’t yet recovered from its first L the week before in Death Valley, and fell to the Golden Domers in the Carrier Dome.

Auburn — Why on earth would someone allegedly sound of mind dub them to be the victor? — fell to the Razorbacks in Jordan Hare Stadium. Which is reported to have been bereft of spectators by the 4th Q. Thus the Toomer Toilet Paper Removal Corps got the week off. And, in the aftermath, to the surprise of nobody, Bryan Harsin was relieved of his coaching duties.

And Miami, under the guidance of Mario the Savior was down 3-6 at UVa, with under a minute to play.

But, lo and behold, in a barn burner of a snoozefest, the ‘Canes scored and prevailed in OT#4, on a two point conversion.

Which set the stage for two phenomena in my neck of the woods.

One, a day of joy for the Red & Black Faithful, as the Cards whopped Wake up one side o’ the head, the other and over under sideways down. While the Cats were checkmated on Rocky Top.

Both of which were correctly crystalballed here.

3-2 for the weekend. 30-21 for the season.

This week’s winners: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week X

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week IX

So, here’s how it works around here at Seedy K Sports Tower, located somewhere between the Old Sears Building and the Old House Restaurant.

On Tuesdays, your nationally renown predictarian, often referred to reverently as the Pope of Predictioneering, is provided with reams of data by his Algorithmic Analytics Support Staff. After consuming said digitally generated assessments, his picks are promulgated.

As part of that raw data, there are built in codified tweaks to favor those whom said expert favors.

Or so it is supposed to be.

Heads are now on the chopping block, but not quite rolling on the floor . . . Yet. But soon. Because, someone who shall soon be standing in the unemployment line at 6th & Cedar failed to program properly.

Otherwise, He Whose Name Is On The Line Weekly a/k/a BW/LTCD would have picked his ever faves, the upticking Oregon Ducks, to best former Quack mentor Chip Kelly’s UCLA Bruins.

But noooooooo. So the miscreant creating that mistake be beggin’ for spare change soon enough in the parking lot outside Dirty Krogers a/k/a DK (pronounced decay).

Had he been doing his job, last week would have been what they call across the pond referring to that other football, a clean sheet.

LSU. ✓

Rutgers. ✓

Clemson. ✓

Louisville. ✓

Week VIII’s final tally thus was 4-1, making the season’s total read, 27-19.

Your favorite Master Forecaster forges forward: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week IX

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week VIII

The Hedge giveth.

The Hedge taketh away.

Long live the Hedge.

Will Levis played significant minutes. All but a small interlude in the 3d Q, wasn’t it?

Cats powered over Cowbell State.

The Hedge giveth. Check mark for the kid.

Bryce Young also played significant minutes. Not only played but was magnifico. Part Fran Tarkenton. Part Peyton Manning. Part Vince Young against Southern Cal.

But Tennessee knucklekicked its way to victory when the reigning Heisman winner’s counterpart Hendon Hooker managed to drive his team within FG range in, oh, fifteen seconds.

The Hedge taketh away. X mark for the kid.

Speaking of hedging as we were where might your less than perfect predictioneer have been when the news of Devin Leary’s season ending injury broke?

Not paying attention. Obviously.

Thus depleted, NC State fell.

Michigan prevailed. Okie State did not.

The yin and yang of life on the hot seat.

2-3 for the weekend. A fair to middlin’ 23-18 for the campaign.

But still full speed ahead.

This weekend’s winners: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week VIII

Seedy K’s Pigskin Prognostications: Week VI

Who among us would dare the rest to believe he or she might have agreed with this statement before the season began?

Five P5 coaches will be fired before Auburn’s Bryan Harsin?

Right. And you, the guy over in the corner who almost had the audacity to start to raise your arm, credit for not following through.

Plus, there’s nothing that in and of itself is the paradigm for the current state of college pigskin than the termination of favorite homie Paul Chryst at Wisconsin, that bastion of old school rock solid midwestern values.

As if we didn’t know it is a new day when Money Talks and Anybody The Admin Wants To Walks.

Who’s got next? Anybody below?

(Did I fail to mention how I did last week? Yes, talk about avoidance. 1-4, awright, now let’s move on.)

This week’s winners: Continue reading Seedy K’s Pigskin Prognostications: Week VI

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week V

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, and May It Please The Court:

Rarely do I present a slate of games to predict that is thematic in nature.

Actually, never before.

But, college pigskin aficionados, this is Week Roman Numeral 5 of the current campaign. Trends are on the cusp of beginning to commence to evolve. P5 Coaches have already been fired. Count ’em, 1, 2 3. It’s time to discover which schools got it, which don’t? To separate the wheat from the chaff. To learn whose leading the Dead Man Walking crew.

Which contingents are the real contendas — other than, oh, I don’t need to tell you the trio — and who are the pretendas?

Including your inveterate, flackjacketed prognosticator. Last week I went 4-1. Only the Demon Deacons let me down and Kansas, Southern Cal, UK and the Cardinals didn’t.

(By the by, was it not I who advised Louisville would “roll”? I inquire as my arm is being surgically encased in a cast after cracking while patting myself on the back?)

I stand 17-9 for the season.

But it’s time to ask of the teams competing below, and for you ask of me, the phenomenological query, “You for Real?”

Note that the only game being projected with more than a spread of four is U of L’s, the Cards traveling to the Land o’ Chowda as a headscratching almost two TD fave.

I dunno about that. What happens in Vegas is ofttimes mystifying.

“You for Real?” Weekend winners: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week V

Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week IV

So, a couple of Cougar wideouts were duking it out on the bench, mirroring Houston’s losing performance on the field, while I was checking my pick sheet to try to remember my prediction.

Which was said looooooooooooooooser.

And I was scratching my head, wondering why I made such a foolish choice? Not that I got it wrong, that happens all the time, this is the business I’ve chosen. But that, after my shtick had been splayed out — the real purpose of this whole endeavor — I’d picked the team I don’t really care for with a coach I don’t like to prevail?

Which is a testament to the mindless 15-20 minutes of illogical contemplation I give this feature for your bemusement on Wednesday afternoons.

Meanwhile some dude, trying to one up that LSU doofus counterpart, walked into Bevo’s pen and jumped aboard, during the Longhorns’ game. Was he just intent on becoming a Ghost Rider in the Sky?

You can’t make this absurdity up.

Plus there’s the compounding of the felony by that guy who may be, could be, likely would like to be the head coach of his alma mammy. Purdue had just about sealed a road win in the Carrier Dome. Yet, started to snatch defeat from the proverbial jaws of victory, when a dunderhead was a bit too trashtalkitive really late after scoring what he delusionally believed would be the winning TD. When his coach jumped on the dumboni, arguing with the zebras, thereby doubling the penalty yardage against the Boilermakers to thirty.

On a short field, ‘ Cuse got the W. Which was predicticated here. After which win, Dino Babers carried his hot seat to midfield and handed it over to Jeff Brohm during the handshake. Arkansas, Kentucky and Bellarmine — on a winning FG with :44 left also prevailed.

Weekend: 4-2. Season: 13-8.

More winners: Continue reading Seedy K’s Peerless Pigskin Prognostications: Week IV