Just kidding about the famous part. Here’s this week’s look at 25 observations from the sports and wagering world.

1. A mob-connected bookmaking operation in the poker room at the Borgata in Atlantic City? Who ever would have thought that something as nefarious as sports gambling was going on in a casino poker room?
2. Hold all tickets! Betting was suspended in Wednesday night’s Cornell-Drake contest (game 741-742 in your schedule) when it was determined that Drake was hosting not the Cornell Big Red from the Ivy League, but the Cornell Rams or Mount Vernon, Iowa, a Division 3 school that is a member of the Iowa Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
3. These casino marketing types certainly know their target market. In the visitor’s locker room at the Chicago Bulls’ United Center, the walls are covered with advertisements for a Hammond, Indiana casino. The ads advertise favorable odds and the proximity of being a mere 20 minutes from Chicago. The post-Tim Donaghy NBA is fine with the arrangement, citing the need for teams to enhance their revenues.
4. We have a new measurement for the ineptitude of Notre Dame’s offense. The week before Notre Dame Navy’s putrid defense allowed 59 points and 581 yards in regulation to 1-AA Delaware. The week after Notre Dame Navy allowed 62 points and 635 yards in regulation to North Texas, the worst team in the worst conference in 1-A. Navy allowed Notre Dame scored 28 points on 309 yards in regulation against Navy.
5. That wild 76-62 Navy win over North Texas saw some stunning numbers. In the second quarter Navy outscored North Texas 35-28 on yardage of 400-220. Again, that was the second quarter only. The teams exchanged TD’s in the last minute of the first quarter, so in less than 16 minutes of play, they combined for 11 TD’s.
6. North Texas’s game this week at Arkansas State was moved from Saturday to Thursday to accommodate the opening of deer season in the Natural State. They’ve got their priorities in order in Jonesboro.
7. My colleague Dave Fobare had North Texas +16 in the Navy game. When the Mean Green were up 42-24 in the second quarter Dave probably didn’t think he would need a back door TD to get the cover, but he did.
8. Dave has a very good free selection phone broadcast that you might want to check out. It is a free call at 1-770-618-8700. Another good free 24-hour broadcast is handled by Erik Scheponik and Matty Baiungo at 1-404-250-7555. Neither one of those numbers exercises any telemarketing, caller ID, etc. They’re just valid information available 24-hours on a recorded message at no charge, so check them out.
9. The 10-0 Kansas Jayhawks will have to win out to have a chance at the BCS title game, but they look like the likely pointspread champions for 2007. KU has covered the spread in all nine lined games. There was no pointspread in their 62-0 win over 1-AA SE Louisiana.
10. The Big 12 is the home for another pointspread anomaly in Nebraska. The Huskers last six games have resulted in a 49-point cover (Saturday’s rampage over Kansas State), a 17-point failure, a 17 1/2 point cover, and non-covers of 30, 34 1/2, and 29. Have we mentioned lately that college teasers are a bookie’s dream?
11. Why are there pointless non-conference matchups like Florida Atlantic at Florida, Louisiana-Monroe at Alabama, and Western Michigan at Iowa on a weekend that should have hard-knocking conference affairs? You can thank the 12-game schedule for that. A lot of weight room enhancements, volleyball uniforms, and associate athletic directors are being paid for with those three games.
12. Have you noticed that the Pac Ten hasn’t played any such meaningless games lately? The Pac Ten took the 12th game and went to a full round-robin schedule, with every team playing everyone else. But this Denver Post reporter is incorrect when he writes that they’re the only BCS conference to play a round-robin schedule. The Big East does it too, but with only eight football-playing members that’s pretty easy to pull off.
13. The Big Ten mandates that all football at conference schools be finished by this weekend. That means that all 11 conference teams have played 12 straight games without a rest. That’s not a policy that takes the physical well-being of the players into account, but if it changes the real reason will not be concern for the players, but the opportunity to slide the Big Ten Network an extra weekend of programming.
14. And there’s a better chance that, as in last year’s BCS Championship game between Florida and Ohio State, Big Ten schools will be at a competitive disadvantage in bowls against sharper teams that had a shorter layoff. There are 13 regular season games being played the same weekend as the five conference championship games. So 36 teams, the majority of them heading to bowls, will be two weeks fresher than any Big Ten club they may face.
15. The 12-point spread presents a challenge in Thursday night’s Oregon Ducks-Arizona Wildcats game in Tucson. Arizona is once again falling into the horrid start, strong finish pattern they’ve exhibited under Mike Stoops. But Oregon certainly won’t be sitting on the ball if they’re up 7 or 10 late, as they need to be impressing the pollsters. BCS guru Brad Edwards reports “style points mean a ton to Oregon in the final three games.”
16. Have we mentioned that Herschel Walker wants to fight Steve Spurrier? Walker’s known for some bluster when it comes to the combat sports. Walker once claimed that he was invited to try out for the US Olympic Karate team until it was revealed that such a team didn’t exist.
17. Georgia Tech’s Chan Gailey, who interviewed for a pair of NFL head coaching jobs last winter, doesn’t appear on the lists of coaches fighting for their job. But his new athletic director is hardly offering staunch public support in the face of anti-Gailey sentiment among influential Yellow Jacket boosters.
18. Redskins fans clamoring for the season’s first touchdown pass to a Washington wide receiver were rewarded with three such occurences on Sunday. Jason Campbell connected for scores with 32-year old James Thrash twice and 37-year old Keenan McCardell once, but it wasn’t enough as the ’skins went down to a 33-25 defeat. McCardell and Thrash, huh? Washington, where washed up players go to fade away.
19. If you had the Redskins in a teaser avert your eyes, just move on to the next item. Down a point with 2:25 remaining, and with no timeouts in their quiver, Washington was smart enough to let the Eagles score on first and goal, and the Eagles were dumb enough to punch it in. Washington got the ball back down 8 with a chance, rather than watch the Eagles run out the clock. It didn’t work out for the Redskins, and it didn’t work out for those with Washington teasers, but it was the proper strategy. And that’s notable, because the Joe Gibbs Redskins are not always known for their proper strategy.
20. Three NFL teams entered last weekend with only a single pointspread cover on the season. Two of them covered in grand fashion, the Rams by 18 1/2 and the Broncos by 19. The pathetic Ravens remain the lone team in the league with one cover and one cover only.
21. The San Francisco 49ers are averaging a putrid 218 yards per game, putting them on a pace to have the worst NFL defense since the 211-yards per game Seattle Seahawks of 1992. Alex Smith is averaging a mind-boggling 4.7 yards per pass attempt and throwing his coach under the bus.
22. The Niners problems simply don’t end. They can’t pick up the tempo of their offense because many players have to have each play repeated twice in the huddle. Six first downs sounds pathetic, but that was their output both Monday night and a few weeks ago against the Ravens. This team can’t even get an off-day players’ outing right. Visit the Niners site and scroll down for details on the “shark hunt” that seemed like a good idea at the time and ended up with a bunch of cranky 300-pounders out on the chilly ocean for 6 hours longer than they had planned.
23. It’s ugly across the bay, as well. The Raiders have lost five straight, not quite keeping pace with the Niners seven losses in a row. But things have been worse.
24. We let you know over the weekend that it isn’t just Republicans looking to take away your right to wager on the internet. And further proving that it isn’t just Christian convervatives, folks in Israel are saying “gambling is a threat to the integrity of sport, and a threat to society”. Whatever.
25. There’s a ton of great college and NFL action this weekend, and my newsletter The Maximum Profit Football Weekly has it covered. The Max has 12 pointspread selections completely and thoroughly analyzed. To subscribe for only $74 through the Super Bowl, call 1-770-649-1078.

Thanks for reading this far. Good luck this weekend. And be careful.