I was pretty terrible with my picks last week. 32 correct, 27 incorrect (255-118 on the year). That's a bad record for college football. I'm white, so it would be good enough to get me through 5 years at Notre Dame but after that? I wonder if Bob Stoops can really resurrect that program. It's iffy. I really hate all the commentators who bring up the stringent academic requirements at Notre Dame being an impediment to recruiting. What does that mean? Do Notre Dame players have a higher mean SAT than Stanford players? Because I could swear that I've seen Stanford beat USC twice in the last 3 years, once as a 41-point underdog. So did the stringent academic standards keep Notre Dame from going after Jim Harbaugh as their head coach? It's not like football players on any major programs recruiting list are held to the same standards as regular students. You might have the few freakish athletes that are also abnormally intelligent (the best I can think of for football is Robert Smith, who starred at Ohio State after The Cure broke up for the first time, but I'm sure there are lots of others) but, for the mostpart, these programs are all recruiting from the same pool of players. I have never read a feature or rumors page that had a top recruit choosing Florida over Notre Dame because the classes at ND are too hard. You can say anything you want to about party schools but you know where the party is for the football team? Anywhere in town when they win. So Notre Dame is more likely losing recruits to losing than they are too high academic standards. And if you want to pull graduation rates into this discussion (Texas, Florida and Oklahoma are abysmal in this regard) then, please, have the balls to point out that Miami has a higher grad rate than Notre Dame. Bet Miami gets back into the Top5 before Notre Dame, too.
I've been watching this stuff all year, I swear. Last week I wiped out on an overdose of trying to find a spot for Boise State in the National Championship game. If college football had a real playoff (32 team+ field) I would put BSU in my final 4. On the other hand, I blew the Stanford USC prediction last week and it seems really obvious in hindsight, doesn't it? I kind of expected Miami to lot to UNC-Chapel Hill and I said so in the column last week. It still hurts. My fave Heisman contenders both stumbled last week. Ryan Mathews got hurt and Case Keenum lost. No trophies heading their ways after all. Keenum should take comfort in the fact that he's probably going to end up the top QB in next year's draft. His game has the least holes of any of the top prospects. Maybe Mathews proved his worth even more through injury than he would have by playing. Whatever it was that fucked up my record, TCU ground my whole thesis into dirt to begin with by shattering Utah (most impressive win of the year so far by ANYBODY, by the way). Enough looking back, lets slap some purple color on my winners and be off! I'll try to get the NFL thing done before halftime tonight but I make no promises. I'm trying out highlighting instead of changing the font color but I end up with weird patterns because there is no choice for "no highlight" just a choice to highlight in white.
WEDNESDAY - I totally missed these games. I'm so used to the Tuesday and Sunday games I forgot all about the silent but present idiocy of Wednesday night football.
Buffalo 42, Miami (OH) 17
Central Michigan 35, Ball State 3
THURSDAY
Colorado at No. 12 Oklahoma State - I had considered a Colorado win here but then I thought about it.
FRIDAY
Akron at Bowling Green
Eastern Michigan at Toledo
No. 6 Boise State at Utah State
SATURDAY
No. 10 Ohio State at Michigan
Minnesota at No. 13 Iowa
Duke at No. 20 Miami (FL) - Miami needs this game, which is embarrassing.
Maryland at Florida State - Whatever shit-sucker bowl FSU gets for winning is beneath the program and the invitation should be rejected.
Louisville at South Florida
North Carolina at Boston College
Chattanooga at No. 2 Alabama
Mississippi State at Arkansas
Florida International at No. 1 Florida
Oklahoma at Texas Tech - At least these two teams are about equal in their relation to each other as they were expected to be in the preseason. Oklahoma is really weird because they have great players all over the field and they all get hurt semi-regularly.
Memphis at No. 24 Houston - They stunk it up last week against a terrible UCF team but Keenum is still the best QB in college football.
Kent State at Temple - Bernard Pierce! Takes over for Ryan Mathews as the best RB in college football that nobody cares about. Temple could end the year in the Top 25. That should earn the Freshman of the Year a few Heisman votes but people that vote for things like that just watch football coverage, not games.
No. 4 TCU at Wyoming - OK, I get it, TCU, you bunch of assholes. You're really good. That's great.
Iowa State at Missouri
Northern Illinois at Ohio
Tulane at UCF - UCF beat Houston last week so they might be on a roll or whatever it is you call it when a bottom-feeder in CUSA beats a good CUSA team and then plays another bottom feeder the next week.
Connecticut at Notre Dame - Just keep doing what you're doing, Coach Weis.
No. 8 LSU at Mississippi - LSU won't get a BCS bowl, anyway, so they might as well lose now.
No. 14 Penn State at Michigan State - I though about it.
North Carolina State at No. 15 Virginia Tech
No. 16 Wisconsin at Northwestern
Air Force at No. 22 Brigham Young
Virginia at No. 23 Clemson - Clemson should win by 50, which means Spiller won't do anything this week. He'll play for 1 quarter.
Purdue at Indiana
UAB at East Carolina
Rutgers at Syracuse
UTEP at Rice
Baylor at Texas A&M
San Diego State at No. 21 Utah
Arizona State at UCLA
Army at North Texas - Army just barely beat VMI last week. North Texas just fired their coach, didn't they? It's the no-research zone up in this blog so I don't know for sure.
Florida Atlantic at Troy
Southern Methodist at Marshall
Arkansas State at Middle Tennessee State
No. 19 Oregon State at Washington State
Louisiana Tech at Fresno State - No Mathews = No Win.
Colorado State at New Mexico - I'm sure this is a heated rivalry or something.
Louisiana-Monroe at Louisiana-Lafayette - Game of the week!!!!!!!!!!!
Vanderbilt at Tennessee
No. 25 California at No. 17 Stanford - I haven't checked but I hope to God that Jahvid Best is not playing again this year.
Tulsa at Southern Miss
Kentucky at Georgia - If Georgia can beat Ga Tech then all is forgiven. Mark Richt should still bolt for FSU when the chance arises.
Kansas State at Nebraska
Kansas at No. 3 Texas
No. 11 Oregon at Arizona - Arizona makes me fall asleep when I see them so I might have been missing some things with them. I think Oregon's got a lot of players who are better than anybody on the Arizona roster.
Hawaii at San Jose State
Nevada at New Mexico State
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