Prediction City (population 1)

Well come back here to this weeks episode of Prediction City... last weeks episode we saw me hit a dismal 3 for 5 on my prediction for the games... if you missed my predictions last week I can sum them up in one picture

 This means that I'm now back to 80% overall on the season and I'll need to step that up. Unfortunately I've got some tough match-ups to predict this week too. I guess I'm going to have to use the Minnesota Vikings at the bottom of this trash can to help push off of and get back to work. (I'm a Vikes fan so I'm allowed to "trash" my own team) I actually had someone comment on my blog for the first time earlier this week and I was impressed! About time some of the people not happy with my predictions at least say something.

Thanks Timmy "Tough" Tribble for my first comment. He's referring to the fact that I put him in the category for best name in the UMAC in my Preseason Preview and also saying that I've given them some motivation to keep winning games! While the motivation I'm am giving them is unintentional and just comes from my predictions of who I think is going to win, I can't help but feel special anyways. To think that small town radio star Joshua Miron could inspire a whole team to do better is very humbling. All jokes aside I wont pretend to not be impressed with how IWC has played this year. So thanks T.T.T. for letting me know about the power of my blog and if you read a few paragraphs down prepare to be really motivated!

Alrighty Lets Get Into Those Games!!

Martin Luther @ Morris

This just isn't fair... Both of these teams don't have a UMAC victory yet. I thought I had a tough one with Crown and Morris, but now this one might be even harder. Martin Luther's only win this year comes from a team that has forfeited their last few games due to low numbers. I find this crazy... I called a section playoff game on Tuesday with a team that had 14 players... they still played the whole game. Got killed, but that's beside the point. They still gave it their all so I really should look at this game as if Martin Luther is also without a win. I like Morris is this Match-up... I think they deserve this win. They played a tough game @ Crown and I think they'll play a good one here. It should be another close game though and I still have a tough time picking against Martin Luther here... but I just got to. I'm relying on the same theory I had when MacMurray got killed by Scholastica so I figured.. well they wont win their next game. That theory didn't pan out the first time but I'll give it another shot. GO MORRIS! Don't let me down here.... If you're a Martin Luther fan reading this, I apologize and I do think you still probably have a better shot than Morris does to win this game, but I gotta help out Morris here.

Final Score

Morris 31 Martin Luther 30

IWC @ Greenville

To quote again the great T.T.T. "Greenville is next!" you're right Greenville is next and you've got them at their place. I like everything I've seen from both of these teams this year. Obviously at the beginning of the season I kinda had IWC on the bottom end because of how they did last year, but they've become a contender here in the season. Greenville I predicted was going to have an "Off Year" but I still figured they were in the top 3 or 4 and they are there right now. So who's got the talent here in this game I've got to give it to Greenville. I think they've got more athleticism than IWC and they've also got a solid system on offense that they've run for years... Now from what I have seen though, I haven't been impressed with their defense. That being said I think they've still got the edge on this team out of Iowa. Coach Park has really turned that program around very quickly and they're on the up and up, but just not enough to win this game. Sorry Tribble

Final Score

Greenville 36 IWC 22

Crown @ MacMurray

Hmmm MacMurray proved me wrong last time and Crown proved me right last time. So although my heart tells me to go with Crown here I've gotta pick MacMurray. They're at home and Hall is running well right now. Crown did get their first win last week, but I think they might have to wait a little bit longer for that second one.

Final Score

MacMurray 31 Crown 26

Northwestern @ Westminster

I would've had my eyes on this match-up more if Westminster had won last week or if Northwestern had lost. Now that neither of those happened I can go into Northwestern winning out mode. I did think Westminster was the number 2 or 3 team in the UMAC but now they look more like a number 4 and Northwestern is still looking like a number 1 or 2. I'm no math major, but I'll have to go with Northwestern here and I think they might win by a decent margin.

Final Score

Northwestern 42 Westminster 26

Eureka @ Scholastica

Sadly I will have to inform everyone this will be the first home game I have missed in five years. They thought it would cool to schedule the high school section playoffs round two at the exact same time as this game and three hours away. Since radio is my full time job I will have to lean towards keeping my career over covering this game. (Though I thought about it for a bit) This game hopefully wont have much to cover considering there isn't much anyone to cover Scholastica's wide receivers. (See what I did there?) If you just go off of previous games this should be an absolute blow out, but I always error on the side of caution when I say there should be a blow out. Scholastica has played down to opponents  before and they need to keep their eyes one game at a time or they could be in trouble. Now that I've just warned them though, hopefully they'll keep their eyes on this game.

Final Score

Scholastica 40 Eureka 14

Well there you go folks... I'm on the rebound looking to get some of those bad picks from last week. So I can only handle one incorrect pick this week. You guys can fight it out to decide who that is.

PS. Don't worry if you think I'll use your comment in my next post... because I probably will! So feel free to comment to give me something to talk about!

Back Down To Earth Recaps

Bummer... Turns out I am human. I was starting to feel like I was Wolverine for a while, but just like him looks like I can die (feel free to google if you don't get my Marvel reference there... Spoiler they just killed him off) I can't pretend like 3/5 is even good so I guess I have to accept my first loss. Congrats to those teams that decided to ruin my reign of terror 👏 you've earned it. 

Let's start by recapping the only game anyone really cared about from last weekend! That of course was who was going to get that first big win between Crown and Morris. I had faith in Crown and that faith paid off! This I saw as a tough one to predict, but I persevered. What does this game mean going on to the rest of the season? It means they had their shot at a win and now might have to just work on devolpment for next year. Mavencamp had an alright day in the air, but his completion percentage and interception thrown didn't make up for his 3 touchdowns. Morris did have the lead here in the 4th quarter and with their defense being relatively solid I was kinda surprised they didn't hold out for the win. Crown's Michaud had himself a day and a half with gaining 163 yards and two touchdowns. Most of those yards coming from that big 65 yard touchdown for the first points of the game. That rush game just killed Morris and I think they missed their shot at a win this year, but I guess we will see.

Next let's recap that CSS vs Martin Luther game. I actually had a chance to watch this game on my ginormous 5 inch iPhone screen and I didn't need anymore bigger screen to see the domination in this game. I'm going to be honest, I actually felt bad watching towards the end of the game when Scholastica stopped celebrating touchdowns and just handed the ref the football and walked to the sideline. I expected the game outcome, but what I didn't expect was that Scholastica didn't bite on like any of the fake handoffs. They basically just hit Rothe in the backfield on so many plays. Robinson dominated this game and he showed he can cut on grass too. It was nice to see all the back-ups get some decent playing time and I think that helps the team prep for late in the season and next year. I'm glad CSS was able to find O'Neil a few times in the endzone. He is just too strong of a mismatch on a lot of teams and has that yards after contact ability that gets those extra yards that are needed for big drives. Mike Theismann is the story of the game with a perfect 7 of 7 on extra points. Ok maybe not the story of the game, but still good. Tyler Harper had a productive field day, got that touchdown rush I called, and threw a bunch. Britton who's worked so hard over the years got some time in the game and he looked pretty good. Was perfect 1 for 1 with 54 yards. The only negative thing I saw from Scholastica here was turnovers... Way too many fumbles in this game and they've got to fix that issue asap. Martin Luther has to find a pass game if they want a shot at another win this year. 10 yards is brutal in a whole game... The story of this game was Scholastica's ability to kill that rush game also, Mangan had the most tackles, but the whole defense played too well to single anyone out. 

The third game I'm going to recap is one that bugged me more than any of them. (Maybe because I got it wrong) I just can't believe a team can go from losing 55-7 in one week and then destroying a team 58-27. How?! How?! The answer here is clear as Mudd... Zach Mudd that is. He had a solid 2 touchdown game, and Patrick Hall was dominate per usual. This team looked like a high powered, breaking big runs type of team. Granted it was against Eureka, still every win is a win and you take them as you get them. Darn you MacMurray. At least I didn't say you were going to get blown out, so I'll take a few scraps of dignity with me on this prediction. 

Ughhh IWC... I... W... freaking... C. There is just something in my nature that picks against you and I pay for it every time. Why? I don't know, but it's killing my percentage this season. I'm not going to pretend like I even watched this game, but looking at the box score it didn't look like a super clean game. Both teams had two touchdown passes to two interceptions. Great defense or bad decision making? I can't tell from the box score, but what I can tell is once again IWC is on the way up and maybe I'm over estimating Westminster. We will find out this Saturday as they both have some big tests. 

Now to a game I got to watch and I was happy I did. Greenville vs Northwestern was a prime example of second half adjustments. Greenville looked like they just had to many athletes for Northwestern to stop. Fletcher put the team on his back. Easily his best game of the season. 20-34 4 touchdowns and the big thing here... No interceptions. If he isn't throwing picks he is solid at that qb spot. Greenville had that option running well in the first half and then it came down to not converting on 3rd down to keep drives going in the 2nd half. Northwestern made the adjustments to stop the rushes, but Greenville would've been fine if they could've just gotten some big third downs. Or even gotten some more 4th down conversions... I mean 1-5 is pretty bad. It's usually not a good sign if you have 5 4th downs that you go for it on, but if you're going to you better convert at least half. Surprising stat of this game was Northwesterns terrible 3rd down conversion rate... 4 for 15 is quite bad, and they still pulled off the win. Down 14 at half they didn't give up. Their defense has to be proud of that second half and that'll make them a tough opponent for Westminster this weekend.

Well there's some recaps for you folks on a week I wish I could redo... But oh well. Congrats to all that proved me wrong, enjoy it while it lasts...