Wednesday, October 07, 2009

College Football Predictions For October 10th (and surrounding days)

I know I have quite the following who are awaiting this new weekly feature with baited breath. I hope nobody uses this for purposes of gambling because that person would lose a lot of money and end up like me - no job, overdrafted bank account, phone turned off. The bottom line is: I'm terrible at this so don't try to imitate me. For your own health.

Last week I showed my biases. Florida State made me look bad. Houston made me look bad. Boise State made me look bad and they won. North Carolina made me look really bad but Maryland bailed me out. Or Clemson bailed me out. However you want to look at that. But my upset picks on the whole? Pretty gaddam awful.

I went 37-15 last week and predicted Indiana to upset Ohio State. Which was actually a better pick than my Cal over USC mistake. You know what? You could probably do OK the rest of the year betting against the Berkeley Bears and the Seminoles no matter what I say. My estimation of Jahvid Best is low at this point and Christian Ponder is, in fact, a terrible QB. So now that I got that off my chest, here are the picks. Winners are in purple and I don't do research. I go from memory and don't read the lines:

TUESDAY – Why did this happen? Who was asking for a Tuesday night game and why do schools feel it is believable when they release statements saying anything in college sports is done in the interests of the athletes?
Troy 31, Middle Tennessee State 7 - No, I didn’t predict this. It already happened.

THURSDAY
No. 21 Nebraska at No. 24 Missouri - My next door neighbors all went to Nebraska and I want them to lose but I feel like Blaine Gabbert has gotten a little too much pub this week and he's over-rated.

FRIDAY
Louisiana Tech at Nevada - I read somewhere a couple of weeks ago that La. Tech is good and I picked them last week based on that. I'm picking them this week because they've always done right by me.

SATURDAY
Boston College at No. 5 Virginia Tech
Eastern Illinois at No. 14 Penn State - Is Eastern Illinois in the Big 10 now?
No. 17 Auburn at Arkansas - I'm shaky on this. Auburn's not really that good and now people are starting to believe in them. Long-term? That's folly. Arkansas was really good last week but I still hate them. Fuck 'em.
Miami (OH) at Northwestern
Purdue at Minnesota
West Virginia at Syracuse - Paulus is fascinating. He seems talented and I wonder if the UFL or CFL will give him a chance. He has a good arm and he's not tiny. He seems very uncoached, though, and I hope he throws even more INTs here. Maybe he can go for 7 this week.
Vanderbilt at Army - These are two very bad teams but I have faith that Army is worse.
Michigan State at Illinois - Zook fucks everything up. I wasn't wrong about Michigan State's lack of heart last week. But they won anyway. Isn't Michigan in trouble for practicing too much? Why was Forcier having a heart attack in the 4th qtr like he had never gone to conditioning drills? RichRod, I don't care that you stiffed West Virginia because, honestly, they should have paid you shitloads to stay. But you need to make your skill guys work out more than the NCAA rules allow, too.
Eastern Michigan at Central Michigan - Sure, why not?
Georgia at Tennessee - I've got a funny feeling on this one. Mark Richt might just flame out entirely this year. He might look good in garnet and gold sweaters next year or the year after. You know, some kind of phony, hokey redemption when FSU reaches a BCS title game in 2012?
No. 15 Oklahoma State at Texas A&M - A&M, it turns out, is god-awful. So is Oklahoma State, though. And it's time for a real upset.
Iowa State at No. 16 Kansas
Kentucky at No. 25 South Carolina
Houston at Mississippi State - Damn. It's tough to pretend to know what you're talking about all the time. I want Houston to win because I keep writing about Case Keenum in my Heisman columns.
Ball State at Temple
New Mexico at Wyoming - Wyoming won on the road last week to make me look bad.
No. 3 Alabama at No. 20 Mississippi - Mt. Cody erupts! I'm staying away from the RBs this week because Richardson would have needed 96 carries last week to reach my prediction and I don't think it really matters who gets the rushes. Both RBs are really good and at least one of them will truck Ole' Miss. This game seems more important to The Tide than the Rebels. In the sense that 'Bama needs to keep invested in every game so that they don't lose their way and miss the SEC title game. So it's important as a measuring stick to the Crimson Tide.
Wisconsin at No. 9 Ohio State - I want to pick against The Ohio State University Buckeyes every week but I don't think I should. Also, because my dad was from Ohio I feel like sort of a traitor for not liking them at all. He didn't care about the Buckeyes, either, though, so why should I care? He went to FSU and played football there but rooted for Notre Dame. Kids from the Depression Era all rooted for Notre Dame. I still hate Notre Dame and I don't feel bad about it.
No. 13 Oregon at UCLA - Tough game for Oregon. No, really, UCLA is not that bad. And Masoli might be out for this one. I turn the games off when he sits so I have no idea who the backup is.
Baylor at No. 19 Oklahoma - A suitably big game for Bob. Put your points up now, Sooners. Texas will erase you.
Georgia Southern at North Carolina - Hahahahahahaha! Butch Davis, you could be thinking about retirement by now if you'd stayed in Miami.
Texas Southern at Rutgers - Ummm, whatever.
Connecticut at Pittsburgh - Still not a vote of confidence. Wannstedt was great as D-Coordinator on the Cowboys. But Butch Davis was better. And he's still better. But Coach Dave has a good position here and I don't think he'll leave it anytime soon. He's smart like that. Win 9-11 games/year and just keep doing it. Pitt won't do better and Wannstedt will be in the bushes after this one so it's a good situation all around. But I still don't think much of him as a coach.
Navy at Rice - Go Middies!
Indiana at Virginia - Hmmm. UVa is still awful. And Indiana looked OK against Ohio State. I'll follow my formula and just choose the team I want to win. Probably wrong but go Hoos.
Gardner-Webb at Buffalo
Bowling Green at Kent State
Marshall at Tulane - Sorry, Green Wave. McConaughey is a good coach.
Duke at North Carolina State - Should actually be a good game. I can't look up his name right now, because that would be research, but that one DE/LB guy on N.C. State just missed my Heisman rankings.
Arizona State at Washington State - Woof. This is a bad'n.
Utah at Colorado State
Ohio at Akron
Maryland at Wake Forest - I would pick them anyway but I really think the Terps will get on a little bit of a roll now and end up a bowl team.
Florida A&M at No. 11 Miami (FL) - He hasn't had many chances in his time as head coach but I don't get the feeling Randy Shannon is a "pad the stats" kind of coach. That's the one thing I don't like about him. Because I equate the desire to run up the score with the killer instinct it takes to close out games against better teams.
Florida International at Western Kentucky - I! D! K!
Stanford at Oregon State - I'm over it with Toby, got it? He brings up bad memories of Touchdown Tommy Vardell. I like this Owusu kid but I want Stanford to go down on flames, blow bang style.
North Texas at Louisiana-Lafayette
Kansas State at Texas Tech
Western Michigan at Toledo
Colorado at No. 2 Texas - These assholes will run up the score. No apologies. Actually, the reason the Big XII seems so much better than it really is (SEC, too) is that every coach in the conference is constantly trying to run up the score as much as possible. The ACC and Big East could use some more of that. Cincinnati is the only team I consider to act that way in either of those conferences. And look at the new hype they're finding.
No. 10 TCU at Air Force
Southern Miss at Louisville
No. 1 Florida at No. 4 LSU - With or without Tebow I think it's Geaux Gators! in this one. The extra week to prepare seems to help out really good coaches a lot.
No. 22 Georgia Tech at Florida State - They are due.
Idaho at San Jose State
Utah State at New Mexico State
UTEP at Memphis - It's really humid in Memphis but not really in El Paso, right?
East Carolina at Southern Methodist
Michigan at No. 12 Iowa - Iowa is not good. No matter what anyone tells you, okay? Iowa is not good.
No. 18 Brigham Young at UNLV
Arizona at Washington
Fresno State at Hawaii - Specific prediction: CSU-Fresno 72 - Hawaii 51. Ryan Mathews will get 4 rushing TDs, a long receiving TD, and some kind of a fluke return TD. By next Monday morning (it will take at least that long for highlights from this game to trickle out) he will be revered around the country in the way that Reggie Bush was after destroying Fresno a few years ago.

That's all folks! NFL / Fantasy preview tomorrow. I might add my predictions on Michael Crabtree's future contributions later today.