Thanksgiving Musings Part 2

Nice work by A&M to leave their great fans with the enduring memory of a losing effort against one of the weaker Texas outfits of the past 20 years. The game went about how I thought it would: Texas would try to run the ball and would fail at it. (86 yards on 37 attempts). Case McCoy would try to manage the game with short passes, and would accomplish nothing in the passing game. (110 yards passing, one completion over 10 yards). Based on that offensive ineptitude, I thought that A&M would need 21 points to cover. Silly me, as I didn't account for the inevitable orgy of turnovers, gadget play fluke TD and obligatory defensive TD by Texas. Oh well....need to catch up in the rest of the games.

2. Louisville +3.5 @South Florida: Both of these defenses are probably going to have the edge over the respective offenses in this one, so it looks like a pretty low scoring game. As a result 3.5 becomes valuable. In this game, I think these teams are extremely interchangeable, and it's a complete tossup as to who comes away with the win. That's with USF QB BJ Daniels healthy, which he is not. Backup Bobby Eveld will start reportedly, and he has been brutal in the games he's played. USF is unlikely tobe able to throw the ball effectively, and Louisville is ranked 9th against the run. USF is coming off a 3 point performance at home last week against Miami, and Louisville is a significantly better defensive team than Miami. I like Louisville in this one outright, although I'm sure that the Cards will find some difficulty moving the ball as well.

3. @Utah -22 v Colorado: Colorado shit the bed last week, laying down, grabbing their ankles and geting drilled by a UCLA team that barely even bothers emplying a defense. They talked all week about how jacked they were to play in the Rose Bowl, and how their win over Arizona gave them renewed vigor. That's pretty laughable...they were down 21-0 before UCLA even ran 5 offensive plays. See ya later. Now they go to Utah, who still needs wins to improve their bowl situation. Their defense is suffocating. If the 102nd ranked UCLA defense can hold Colorado to 6 points, Utah can hold them to negative 27. Colorado's defense is one f the 5 worst in FBS, so you can expect Utah to be scoring at will. This should probably be a 41-6 type game. Basically, it will be as bad as Utah wants it to be.

4. @LSU -12 v Arkansas: Arkansas has played one game all year in a tough environment, and they got curb stomped by Alabama in that one. Now they head to Baton Rouge in a game that LSU's entire season hinges on. Arkansas finds themselves in an unbelievably lucky position: Lose the only game of note on your schedule, win a bunch of nondescript games, and find yourself with a chance to go to the MNC game if you can win just one game. Granted, it's about the toughest game you can fathom, but I'm sure even the Hogs can't believe their good fortune. Everything has broken right for them this year. Texas A&M imploded for them, they played like crap on the road but were lucky enough to be playing Ole Miss and Vandy when they did, got South Carolina at home without Lattimore and without a QB, etc, etc. Meanwhile, LSU has been dominating the regular season, but will se it all for nothing if they lose this one. Defensively, Arkansas has been giving up big plays through the air all year, and LSU if explosive in that regard. Arky will be getting their best shot. If they can compete, my hat's off to them. I'm a big fan of Petrino, but Arkansas has not shown this year that they can compete in this spot. I think LSU handles them easily.

5. Pitt +7 @West Virginia: This is another game in which the two teams are very evenly matched. Pitt has been strong defensively, and WV has has all kind of goofy issues this year, causing the couch burners to throw up their hands in disgust on severl occasions. Throw in the fact that this is a rivalry game, these two teams are evenly matched, if not statistically favoring Pitt a bit, and I'll take the TD. If Louisville can win at Morgantown, Pitt certainly can.


Others(for today): Iowa is getting 9.5 at Nebraska. I think Iowa has enough offense to move the ball effectively on Nebraska's overrated defense, but I'm a bit skeptical of them on the road. They finally won a road game last week at Purdue, but the situation is much worse this week, as Nebraska is coming off a brutal beating at the hands of Michigan last week. On paper, Iowa is the play, but situationally, it shapes up as a bad spot for the Hawkeyes.....I don't play the MAC anymore, but Temple(-17) should blow out Kent State....

That's it for today, I'll have the Saturday stuff later on, hopefully tonight. Take care!