LITTLE ROCK — While offering five college games weekly for the discernment of participants, Poolsville identifies the best and worst of SEC football and presents the opportunity for therapeutic commiseration, all for only $10 annually.
The founder of the non-profit, call him M.D., came up with the simple Poolsville premise — pick the winners straight up — and employs the point spread only to identify underdogs worth extra points if they win.
Sounds easy enough and yet, with four weekends left in the regular season, the leader is only 31-14 and once this year, the 0-5s were 10 times the 5-0s.
Suffice it to say, M.D. has a knack for sniffing out competitive games around the country for the 170-plus participants. Pressed about his secret, he was vague: “It is a top-secret mathematical formula that picks the best teams playing the best games with the highest probability of upsets.”
In other words, games with a high level of interest and an in-doubt outcome — criteria that has excluded Arkansas.
“There has been only one season when Arkansas did not make one game,” he said. “I believe it was 2005. This season is looking like season two for no Razorback games!”
In ’05, Arkansas was winless in the SEC until sweeping the Mississippi schools in November. This year, the Razorbacks are 0-5 and will be a double-digit underdog in at least two of their last three games.
Although Poolsville is based in Little Rock and most members live in Arkansas, M.D. does not play favorites. Thirty-four SEC teams appeared in the pool last year, followed by 30 from the Big 12, 28 from the ACC, 22 from the Pac-12, and 19 from the Big Ten.
Even more SEC teams could be involved, he said, but the league is “hurt by having a team (Alabama) that is too good to make the pool very often.”
That said, Alabama makes its first appearance of the year this week vs. LSU. As a two-touchdown underdog with a superb defense, an LSU victory is worth three bonus points.
Until joining Poolsville several years ago and regularly experiencing woe is me moments — Washington recently working diligently for a last-play field goal and then missing and losing to Oregon in overtime comes to mind — personal knowledge of the worst beat occurred Jan. 22, 1984, and involved a late friend.
Sportscaster Jim Elder and a pal pooled resources and bought a $100 square on the Washington-Oakland Super Bowl.
The payouts included $2,250 per quarter for matching up the numbers and they drew 4 for Oakland and 3 for Washington. Late in the half, the Raiders led 14-3 and lined up to punt.
Elder sweated the snap, the rush, and the fair catch inside the Washington 10 with seconds to play. Take a knee, home free. Instead, Joe Theismann’s screen pass was intercepted by Jack Squirek and returned 5 yards for a TD with seven seconds to play.
Nothing could hurt worse, or so it seemed.
Fast forward to last January when Richard Diamond moved to first in the pool, replacing Chris Patterson who was 0-5 on New Year’s Day.
Sitting pretty in the contest and a Georgia fan to boot, Diamond was in the stands in Atlanta when his Bulldogs opened a 10-point halftime lead on Alabama. A Crimson Tide victory would cut deep, but Diamond had more wins than Ben Baldwin in the pool — the tie-breaker — and the $800 for first would be a nice consolation prize.
Besides, cashing in would be poetic justice since Diamond lost the Poolsville championship the year before when Clemson rallied from a 14-point deficit and scored the winning TD with one second to play.
Now for what Paul Harvey famously labeled, “… the rest of the story.”
Baldwin’s only path to the Poolsville championship cash and the 10-inch-high, gold-painted trophy was for Alabama to win … in overtime and earn the bonus point always awarded for an OT victory.
Done.