College football is back

Hello again. Sorry I haven't written a blog as often as I would like. I've been working hard this summer not only on college football but helping Mom take care of stepdad and her house which is in possibly the most beautiful place in America.

I never realized the absolute beauty of Manitou springs growing up but as I get older and the tourists come from all over the world, I finally understand the appeal.

There have been many life events that have taken place. A Hmong wedding, a breakthrough NBA season and the realization that handicapping is more about playing defense and offense. New friends, old friends revisited, a backgammon game that started off innocent but turned into a 6 week bankroll and stomach turning (for the good in the end) event, swapping pieces in the wsop while never playing a hand.

I'll try to get to all of that in the future. Today is the eve of 2025 season. I believe no one could have possibly put in more effort into a season than me, I work hard every summer but college football has become the task that never seems to end in the place that we have landed in 2025.

I dug up some old notebooks and in 2011-13 I would put in exactly one hour for every team and anything past that was just kind of a waste of time.

This season if I had to give a fair estimate that process is now 3 hours per school and instead of 123 teams we have 136 and 138 in 2026.

The portal is immense but so is the financials. I figured I'd walk you though this seasons off season process.

I began the day after the national championship game. I began looking into the new coaches for each team and grading not just them but the staff they have collected and a new caveat arrived. How much money does the school have? We will get to that soon but what became alarming is the size of the contracts has grown in the power 4 not just for HC but his OC and DC and vise versa in the smaller programs.

Clemsons new DC makes more than FIU or CMU's entire staff combined for instance. I found that interesting as it's relatively new.

The process of researching new coaches lasted 3 weeks but it was mid nba season so probably could have knocked this out in a week.

Then a full season of review began in March. I don't do normal season reviews. I start with teams I had bad reads on the previous season. The one thing that became clear is that my preseason reads were great and at some point I pivoted. Shame when you see something like that.

Then I start a review of all 1-134 and start grading every teams game performance with a simple A-F rating. Did they show life late? Where did the peak? I also grade coaches this way.

This takes a full month. This is I believe the most important factor in correcting not only performance of the handicapper but the staff he might handicap for years going forward.

April I start writing the entire notebook. I decided to write subjective paragraphs about the head coach instead of my normal background info.

This takes 2 weeks, consider it a header to a letter about each team. Tedious 2 weeks when you have coaches who have been at a program 20+ years and also guys who are on year 3 that you know there's a good chance year 4 is in serious doubt.

Mid April is when the portal begins for me. There's 4k names to log onto every team page. Many will never play a down and others are the entire programs future to the season. This is a slow and long process.

The portal is a telegraph into what the program is trying to do, what they hope to improve and in some cases just where they can shore a units strength or weakness up.

One thing that became clear and I was unhappy as hell about is I had to start handicapping budgets and financials of these schools. Some were spending 30 million and there in state rival was spending 4.

Along with a partner at ras we looked into every evaluation for every player that went to p4 and then what was a realistic budget small schools were working with. You nowadays could make a 1-136 power number based just on NIL. Fascinating!

June is my happy month. Sweat friends at wsop and start copying authors of college football previews. I'm a artist and the notebook is my canvas, it comes to life around here, every season. I never lose my lust to read and rewrite in my own language. Oh yeah I fit a wedding in here.

I also start down the podcast route. Bud Elliot summer school is just fun. The beat writers give you little tid bits but refuse to be too critical. Busy bee does g5 coverage and they break down so much of what was a guessing game a decade ago. Shout out to both, hell yes!

July I'm in full work mode. Rewrite phil steele, get the ras crew every Thursday for a hour to discuss what I've learned. Start to rate Defense power numbers first takes 2 weeks in between rewriting Phil steele who is fucking awesome after all these years as he's never broken character in 30 years or whatever.

Mid July I make my first real numbers and take a look at them and no I'm not as close as I hoped. Offensive power ratings next one week. Tempo ratings and projections, the next week. Find that happy medium.

Last week of July is my favorite as it's RSW time and if I was a smart man (you may have noticed) id only bet RSWs, bowls and totals weeks 4-15. I was taught RSW creation from someone who once said, "if I was smart Id only bet futures, preseasons and spring training" so this is when the season becomes a map.

The earlier they put these our the more they get hit and that bothers me but also not enough to have decent volume and I've actually never had a negative experience of any kind betting RSWs and it takes me ten days to create, shape and get down. It's Christmas!

First week of August I make 4 sets of numbers for week 0 and 1. Top of my head, my numbers, a projection site and then a matchup number. Combine all 4 and I have a final number to work with.

August 10-22 is betting and we are now here... And this is where it all begins. Year 17 no losing seasons and praying all this works pays off. Someone is going to get bloody in this time of war.

I'd like to thank all that make this all possible every season these days. Ed golden, Jeff R, Mike R, Nolan, Jake, Trav, John who have all carried me when needed. Media Bud Elliot, cover 3, Ed Feng, Bill c, phil steele, workers bee pod, athlon, athletic writers, the 207 bear writers I follow religiously. Thank you for making many days go by quicker than some.

Let's have a season. Your friend, Eddie