Week 12 Musings

First of all, sorry for all the typos. The gold continues. 4-7-1 last week, I'm woefully under .500, about 15,000 leagues under the sea with no chance in hell of ever reaching the surface, because if I was ever going to do that, I'd have to actually pick a game correctly. Some real zingers this past week too. Texas Tech. Florida, otherwise known as the most clueless offensive team in the country. Hey Urban! I think your team sucks! Did you here that? Your team smells of manure, and your players enjoy having lewd relations with one another! This is after they effeminately prance around the field ultimately making fools of themselves and you. I dare you to look knowlingly at the sky and cause a lightning bolt to strike me down as I type this!

I also gave you Colorado St, who was completely obliterated 7 real time minutes after their kickoff with BYU. It's a wonder I didn't give you the Redskins and the team under for the Eagles on Monday night as well. Or the under on the number of times the Illinois basketball team got beat to a loose ball or contested rebound in their game agaisnt Texas. Or the under on trillions of dollars the government might spend. Or the under on number of times Obama uses the term "working families". Or the over on Less Miles's ACT score. I have to double check to make sure I didn't tell all of you to take a short position on gold, or a long position on cat feces.

This song pretty much sums things up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgSPaXgAdzE

Or this one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KynpC1e9I9E

1. Northwestern +8 v Illinois(Wrigley): I realize that Dan Persa is injured and out for the year(too bad...he's a hell of a player), but I don't care if they throw Rusty Lisch or Gary Hogeboom, or Shitbag McFuckface out there at quarterback, we've all seen this story played out with Ron Zook before. Whenever Illinois is having a non-spectacular year, and appear headed to some sort of second tier bowl, they collapse in ways that you forgot a team could collapse. At least 3 times Illinois has headed north to play Northwestern needing a win to get bowl eligible, and each time they've failed miserably. The Zooker is going to have to get these kids to bounce back from yet another epic failure, as they somehow managed to lose to Minnesota at home last week, gaining fewer than 400 yards on what might be the most offensive and putrid defense in the country. Now they face NW, who will probably find a way to win. Gameday is coming to Wrigley so the game will get some exposure. Even more reason to fail miserbably for the Cryin Ill lie and whine.

2. Penn State -10 v Indiana(Washington): Indiana whored out one of their home games for a big paycheck to play the Nittany Lions at the Redskins home stadium, and it's probably a good thing too, because I'm guessing there aren't a whole lot of Hoosier fans who want to associate themselves with the football program after they gave up 80+ last week in Madison. How many Indiana "football fans" do you are planning to make that trip? Not even friends and family. Maybe Bill Lynch's wife, but that's about it. Wisconsin scored on every single drive last week. They had a total of 13 drives. They scored 11 TDs and kicked a pair of field goals. Sometimes you can make a case that a team might be embarrased and will show up the following week with a good performance, but how in the world can you bounce back after taking such a brutal beating? Penn State played a lot closer to Ohio State than the score indicated last week, they played well offensively except for a couple of turnovers, which Indiana doesn't have the capacity to force. Also, IU's passing offense is greatly exaggerated, as they've pretty much resorted to dinks and dunks, and Penn State has the defensive talent to make them look foolish. The Hoosiers won't put up any defensive resistence either. Ha! I guess I was pretty much the master of the obvious just now!

3 Troy +22 @South Carolina: I really have a hard time seeing how South Carolina gets up for this game, or how they can even justify playing their top players(especially Marcus Lattimore) in it. They are in a horrendous sandwich spot, coming off their most important win in school history and with hated rival Clemson and then the SEC title game on deck. Troy is also coming off an embarrassing home loss to FIU last week, so South Carolina will likely get an inspired effort. Keep in mid that they have already played at Oklahoma St and lost only by 3 earlier this year, so they are capable of hanging with a good team on the road. This is one of the worst situational traps I've seen in a long time.

4. Pitt -3 @South Florida: USF is off 3 consecutive wins, including one against all odds helped by a kickoff return and a hail mary pass last week at Louisville. Give them credit, they won the games, but they are certainly not a good team. They've actually been a much better road team than home team...their last 2 home games include an outright loss to Syracuse and a one point squeaker against Rutgers where they failed to cover as an 11 point favorite. Pitt, on the other hand is coming off a tough loss at UCONN amd has had a couple additional days to prepare, not that Wanny will take advantage. It's true though that Pitt is a superior team to South Florida in just about every facet, and they need to win this week if they have any plans to win the Big East and get blown out in whatever bowl they qualify for. Pitt is due for a good game, and unless Skip Holtz is a super genius, USF in is line to shit the bed a bit.

5. Northern Illinois -14 1/2 @Ball State: NIU has really proven themselves as quite a juggernaut in the MAC this year. If you take away their opener agaisnt Iowa State in which starting QB Chandler Harnish was held out in favor of some jitterbug pipsqueak who couldn't throw the ball 8 yards, they only blemish is a 5 point loss at Illinois. Other than that, it's been death and destruction for just about everyone else on their schedule. They've already clinched the MAC west so there is some concern about motivation, but they are so much better than Ball State that I don't think it will matter. Ball St has looked like a legit D-1 team only a couple times this year, and never at home. Perrenial league doormat Eastern Michigan beat them there, winless Akron took them to OT and they lost to Liberty. NIU should roll...I'm thinking 47-17.

6. Ole Miss +16 @ LSU: I've liked LSU lately, especially as a dog, but they are back in their uncomfortable favorite role. LSu is ranked 86th in the country in yards per play, Ole Miss is ranked 33rd. You'd look at the results from these two teams last week and think that LSU(a 51-0 winner) should plow through the Rebs(a 52-14 loser), but look closer. LSU gained a grand total of 278 yards against the vaunted Lou-Mon defense, good for 4.5 per play, which is amemic. When they aren't motivated, they are awful on offense, and they are much better at night than in the afternoon, though that angle is a bit overblown. Ole Miss got embarrassed by Tennessee and Derek Dooley of all people last week, but that was mostly a result of 5 terrible turnovers. This is a rivalry game, and Ole Miss will be motivated to redeem themselves. LSU might sleepwalk a bit, similar to how they did when Tennessee should have beat them back in October.

7. Stanford -6 1/2 @ Cal: Yes, I'm going against home Cal here....probably not a good idea. That would especially appear to be the case when you review what Cal did last week. Had they gotten any semblance of a competent QB performance last week they certainly would have beaten Oregon, as their defense was magnificent against the previously unstoppable Ducks. Having watched parts of that game, although credit must be given to Cal, Oregon just seemed to be out of synch. I think they will be hard pressed to repeat that kind of perormance against another solid attack this week.Offensively, Cal is in big trouble because Brock mansion simply cannot throw the ball, and harbaugh knows it. You can;t hang with elite teams two weeks in a row with a grade school level quarterback. He was 10-28 for 68 yards against a mediocre Oregon pass defense for goodness sakes! Stanford is coming off a clunker of their own, having never really gotten going at Tempe agaisnt the Sun Devils last week. They are also coming off a embarrassing home loss to Cal in the Big Game last year, so Harbaugh will be bent on revenge. Like I said, fading home Cal is risky, but it looks like the right side to me.

8. Virginia Tech -2 @Miami(Fl): Stephen Morris is the new QB for Miami and he's getting a lot of pub because of the big plays the Canes have seen since Jacory Harris started having his female problems. But the truth is he's only completing 53% of his passes and has 3 INTs to go along with his 3TDs. Miami's D has been solid, but this VT offense has been very efficient both in the running game and the passing game. When it comes down to it, I just don't think Miami has the chops to pull off a win against a good VT team here.

9 @Iowa +3 v Ohio St: Iowa must be played as a home dog. They are much too good a team to be sdogged at home by anyone, let alone a Buckeye squad that almost certainly will have issues moving the ball on them. Iowa actually has what appears to be the more explosive offense, they are at home, and the defenses are close if not even. Ohio St under Pryor has had major difficulties on the road, and I think they run into them again. Statistically these teams are very similar and Iowa is coming off two flat performances in a row...they are due to play a crisp game, and if they do, i don;t think OSU is good enough to overcome that.

10. Army +8 1/2 v Notre Dame: ND got lucky last week against Utah..don't let that 28-3 score fool you. They gained a grand total of 256 yards. I figured they would have difficulty moving the ball on Utah with Tommy Rees and without Rudolph, Riddick and Allen, and I was right. I just didn;t see the turnovers and special teams things happening. Army is a solid squad this year, they are already bowl eligible. They give their best effort against a bunch of backups who have already been torched by navy. Army is the poor man's Navy, so rather than win by 18, I think they'll merely provide good competition for ND, and that's all we need.

11. Rutgers +13 1/2 @Cincinnati: Although I'm not a big fan of Rutgers, with the way things are going for Cincinnati, I'm not sure how you fail to take these points here. Zack Collaros should be back, but he was back last week when WV pounded them, and they are 3-5 with him at the helm anyway. Defensively, Rutgers is good enough to put up a fight, and they have enough offense to score some points on Cincy's piss poor pass defense. Way too many points to lay with a team that has potentially given up.

12. @Texas A&M +2 1/2 v Nebraska: Hopefully this line will move to where you can afford it at 3, but I'm not sure that will happen, so I'll pull the trigger at this line. I'm going to continue to ride A&M and the Taneyhill train. It's true that Nebraska is ranked #1 in the country in pass efficiency defense, but they have played virtually no teams that can throw it effectively. This will be their top test in that regard. A&M's defense has been very good this year, though their inability to stop the run at Baylor last week concerns me. However, they have stopped more potent offenses than Nebraska, holding Okie St and Arkansas both to season lows in yards gained. If they can bottle up Taylor Martinez like Texas did, they have a great shot of winning the game because I think they'll get theirs on offense, and they have stopped the straight ahead running game very well this year.

Others: Michigan can;t stop anyone from running the ball. Wisconsin (-4) comes in woth the best line in the country...it should not be pretty in that phase of the game. Not playing it because it looks so obvious, but DRob ia having all kinds of problems staying healthy.....I hate betting on Clemson(-14), but they are definitely doing things right on D. They've given up 7,13,16,13 and 16 in their last 5 games, and Wake's offense is as pedestrian as the rest of 'em. They also are feeble on defense, so Clemson might finally be able to move it on someone....Gonna go with Colorado at home against Kansas St, since they are getting points at home and Kansas St can't sop the run to save their lives(last in FBS). Colorado likes to run it with Rodney Stewart, so they'll just pound away at home. I like fading Oklahoma on the road, so I probably will go with Baylor, and Navy will probably play down to their competition, as they always do. Even though Arky St is sad, I'll still take the points.

That's it, take care!!!!