Friday, September 22, 2006
Week 4 Picks/World Combat League
I only went 6-4 in my picks last week, but it was good enough to win my company's office pool and the cool $35 that came with it. Still not up to the level of accuracy I'd like to see, but this did get me back up over .500 for the year (15-14-1), which is more than I can say for the Astros, who have not been over .500 since June 22.
Before I get to my Week 4 picks, I wanted to say something about the World Combat League event happening tonight in Austin. I have been looking forward to this for almost two months, since I bought my brother Nate and I a pair of tickets to WCL for his birthday way back in late July. Chuck Norris, yes THAT Chuck Norris, is the Owner/Founder/CEO/Promoter for WCL.
To promote WCL, Chuck Norris showed up at the Texas/North Texas game. The moment they showed Chuck Norris on the Godzillatron I was fully expecting the lethal combination of these two forces to instantly kill everyone in the stadium with the simulated force of a roundhouse kick. In addition, I expected the mere presence of Chuck's facial expression on Godzillatron alone to scare the earth off it's rotational axis, thus killing everyone on earth with the exception of Chuck and Chuck's hot girlfriend, who Chuck swallowed whole 5 minutes prior to showing up on Godzillatron. Chuck swallowed his girlfriend whole so that he could protect her in his stomach from the force of the earth being thrown off it's axis, and then regurgitate her after killing everyone on earth. Together, they could repopulate the earth with a race of Chuck Norris. (Yes, Chuck Norris is his own race, he's not white, he's not black, he's not hispanic... He's simply Chuck Norris). Fortunately, due to the fact that Chuck wanted all 50 people who bought tickets to World Combat League to actually show up, he decided to have mercy on us and did not kill everyone in the stadium that day.
I digress... Onto my ten college football picks against the spread for week 4.
Iowa St/TEXAS (-20) TEXAS - The Horns will take a 3-7 point lead into the half before wearing out Iowa St over the course of the 2nd half and winning by 3 TD's. I'll stick with my preseason score prediction of 38-17.
Louisiana Tech/TEXAS A&M (-23.5) LOUISIANA TECH - I made the mistake of picking A&M to cover a similar spread against Army last week. I won't make that mistake again this year.
Penn St/OHIO ST (-17) OHIO ST - In the score tiebreaker, I'm taking Ohio St 34-14 in this one.
usc (-16)/ARIZONA USC - Arizona has looked awful so far this year, already losing to LSU 45-3. Maybe Mike Bell really was that good and we shouldn't be surprised that he is Denver's starting RB right now.
wisconsin/MICHIGAN MICHIGAN - After last week's beatdown of Notre Dame (my favorite game of the year to watch so far), I truly believe Michigan is the real deal, and it would not surprise me if Michigan has a better record than Ohio St when they meet at the end of the year to effectively decide the Big 10 championship.
notre dame (-2.5)/MICHIGAN ST NOTRE DAME - I was surprised to hear Michigan St has actually won 7 of the last 9 meetings between these two, and who could forget the OT thriller last year in South Bend, won by Michigan St 44-41. If the spread was 3.5 I'd take Michigan St here, but I think Notre Dame wins by a FG and covers by half a point.
Arizona St/CAL (-7.5) ARIZONA ST - Not that I didn't already have enough reason to hate Cal after the 2004 BCS fiasco and my aforementioned stance on Jeff Tedford, but they embarrassed me for picking them to win against Tennessee on opening week. Look for a similar effort on the road this week by Tedford's underachievers.
Colorado/GEORGIA (-27) GEORGIA - Before making this pick, I had to double-check to make sure -27 wasn't just the first-half line.
Louisville (-8.5)/KANSAS ST LOUISVILLE - Since Tuesday, the line on this game has jumped from 8.5 to 14. Needless to say, I'm not the only one that thinks Louisville will win by a lot more than 8.5 points. After seeing what they did to Miami, if you're looking for a legit team in the Big lEast, it's Louisville, not the more trendy pick of West Virginia.
Alabama/ARKANSAS (-1) ARKANSAS - Made this pick based strictly on home field advantage.
I'll be back soon... that is if I survive being in the same arena as Chuck Norris for 3 hours tonight.
Before I get to my Week 4 picks, I wanted to say something about the World Combat League event happening tonight in Austin. I have been looking forward to this for almost two months, since I bought my brother Nate and I a pair of tickets to WCL for his birthday way back in late July. Chuck Norris, yes THAT Chuck Norris, is the Owner/Founder/CEO/Promoter for WCL.
To promote WCL, Chuck Norris showed up at the Texas/North Texas game. The moment they showed Chuck Norris on the Godzillatron I was fully expecting the lethal combination of these two forces to instantly kill everyone in the stadium with the simulated force of a roundhouse kick. In addition, I expected the mere presence of Chuck's facial expression on Godzillatron alone to scare the earth off it's rotational axis, thus killing everyone on earth with the exception of Chuck and Chuck's hot girlfriend, who Chuck swallowed whole 5 minutes prior to showing up on Godzillatron. Chuck swallowed his girlfriend whole so that he could protect her in his stomach from the force of the earth being thrown off it's axis, and then regurgitate her after killing everyone on earth. Together, they could repopulate the earth with a race of Chuck Norris. (Yes, Chuck Norris is his own race, he's not white, he's not black, he's not hispanic... He's simply Chuck Norris). Fortunately, due to the fact that Chuck wanted all 50 people who bought tickets to World Combat League to actually show up, he decided to have mercy on us and did not kill everyone in the stadium that day.
I digress... Onto my ten college football picks against the spread for week 4.
Iowa St/TEXAS (-20) TEXAS - The Horns will take a 3-7 point lead into the half before wearing out Iowa St over the course of the 2nd half and winning by 3 TD's. I'll stick with my preseason score prediction of 38-17.
Louisiana Tech/TEXAS A&M (-23.5) LOUISIANA TECH - I made the mistake of picking A&M to cover a similar spread against Army last week. I won't make that mistake again this year.
Penn St/OHIO ST (-17) OHIO ST - In the score tiebreaker, I'm taking Ohio St 34-14 in this one.
usc (-16)/ARIZONA USC - Arizona has looked awful so far this year, already losing to LSU 45-3. Maybe Mike Bell really was that good and we shouldn't be surprised that he is Denver's starting RB right now.
wisconsin/MICHIGAN MICHIGAN - After last week's beatdown of Notre Dame (my favorite game of the year to watch so far), I truly believe Michigan is the real deal, and it would not surprise me if Michigan has a better record than Ohio St when they meet at the end of the year to effectively decide the Big 10 championship.
notre dame (-2.5)/MICHIGAN ST NOTRE DAME - I was surprised to hear Michigan St has actually won 7 of the last 9 meetings between these two, and who could forget the OT thriller last year in South Bend, won by Michigan St 44-41. If the spread was 3.5 I'd take Michigan St here, but I think Notre Dame wins by a FG and covers by half a point.
Arizona St/CAL (-7.5) ARIZONA ST - Not that I didn't already have enough reason to hate Cal after the 2004 BCS fiasco and my aforementioned stance on Jeff Tedford, but they embarrassed me for picking them to win against Tennessee on opening week. Look for a similar effort on the road this week by Tedford's underachievers.
Colorado/GEORGIA (-27) GEORGIA - Before making this pick, I had to double-check to make sure -27 wasn't just the first-half line.
Louisville (-8.5)/KANSAS ST LOUISVILLE - Since Tuesday, the line on this game has jumped from 8.5 to 14. Needless to say, I'm not the only one that thinks Louisville will win by a lot more than 8.5 points. After seeing what they did to Miami, if you're looking for a legit team in the Big lEast, it's Louisville, not the more trendy pick of West Virginia.
Alabama/ARKANSAS (-1) ARKANSAS - Made this pick based strictly on home field advantage.
I'll be back soon... that is if I survive being in the same arena as Chuck Norris for 3 hours tonight.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Tough Week
Well it was a tough Saturday for me, so it took me six days to recover to where I am finally able to refocus and come up with objective thought's on Texas' 24-7 loss to Ohio St. last Saturday night. It was doubly tough as I only went 3-6-1 in my college football picks over the weekend. It was so bad, I'm going to call myself the cooler as far as making picks goes until I get it turned around.
On to the Texas/Ohio St. game... it must be discussed. Several things stood out to me as I watched this game from my season tickets in row 53 of the upper deck. First, I had a bad feeling going into the game when I looked on the sidelines and saw Drew Kelson standing there in street clothes. I'm not one to make excuses, I just knew it would be a tough night for the Texas defense when they were without 3 of their best 11 players for the entire game (Tarell Brown, Drew Kelson, and Sergio Kindle) and without a 4th (Marcus Griffin) for a majority of the game with an ankle injury suffered in the first quarter.
Now onto position breakdowns: At QB, Colt McCoy exceeded expectations in the passing game, going 19-32 for 154 yards with one TD and one interception on a very bad decision/throw. The interception cost Texas 3 points, but McCoy played well enough for Texas to win, and that's all you can ask of a freshman making his second career start in such a big game. The biggest criticism of Colt right now is that he needs to make better decisions on the zone read as to when he should hand the ball off and when he should keep the ball and run it himself. One play that comes to mind is a 3rd and 1 where Colt would have had 8-10 yards had he kept the ball, but instead he handed it off to Charles for a 5 yard loss forcing a punt.
The running backs and offensive line played better than any other position group on the field. The Texas running game was good some of the night, and dominant the rest of the night. Selvin Young played his best game as a Longhorn with the exception of one dropped screen pass, and Jamaal Charles played well, but not spectacular. Neither player fumbled the ball once, which was a good sign.
The WR's/TE's were MIA for most of the night. With a young QB, it's imperative that they step up their level of play against an inexperienced secondary and that did not happen. On more than one occasion, the Texas WR's and TE's had opportunities to make tough, makeable catches but could not get the ball secured. And then there's the Billy Pittman fumble at the 1 yard line, easily the biggest play of the game. Completely inexcusable, and there's really nothing else to say.
On defense, pretty much the only unit that played well was the defensive line. Brian Robison, despite battling a case of pneumonia throughout the week, was the best player on the Texas defense, recording two sacks and a TFL. The Texas run defense was surprisingly solid, only allowing 79 rushing yards on 27 carries. (Note: this is the first loss ever for Mack Brown at Texas when outrushing the opponent after 73 straight wins to begin his career at Texas when this is the case).
The back 7 on defense can all be grouped together if you ask me, because none of them played well at all, with the exception of Marcus Griffin prior to injuring his ankle in the 1st quarter. The pass defense was the worst it has looked since Carl Reese was patrolling the sidelines in 2003. One thing to point out about a game like this is it shows just how valuable a guy like Cedric Griffin was to the defense. The guy was a four year starter who was solid in all aspects of the game, and the 2nd game after he is gone, our secondary has it's worst performance in years. Huff got all the headlines, but Cedric Griffin was just as important to our defensive success last year.
I came up with four plays that could have resulted in a swing of 20 points and allowed Texas to escape with a win (and believe me it would have been a Houdini-like effort to escape with a win):
1. Billy Pittman's fumble at the one yard line - Cost Texas 7 points
2. Aaron Ross failing to bump Ted Ginn on the last play of the half, a 30 yard TD pass to Ginn. If Ross bumps him, it not only disrupts the timing of the play but allows Ross to stay with him step for step AND gives the safety more time to arrive with help over the top - Gave Ohio St. 7 points
3. Colt McCoy's INT at the beginning of the 3rd quarter - Gave Ohio St 3 points
4. Greg Johnson's missed 45-yard FG - Cost Texas 3 points.
So it would have taken pretty much a perfect game with no mistakes to beat Ohio St. They didn't make any mistakes, and Texas made way too many, as the list above shows.
I guess that's about all there is to say. I'm not counting Texas out of the championship race yet. There are 7 teams ahead of Texas right now, with a couple sure to lose this weekend, and so long as 6 of those teams lose by the end of the season, Texas will be right back at the top. This is provided Texas can win the rest of their games, and I still see a loss at Nebraska right now, but at the same time, Texas will be favored in every game they play the rest of the year.
Time to rebound with my picks for week 3. It's a very exciting week in college football, and I will have my HD DVR working overtime to record as many games as possible while I travel to Houston with my brother and wife to attend the Texas-Rice football game with my sister, the Rice grad.
Game
Texas (-31)/RICE: Texas (sorry Laura, it's a blowout)
army/TEXAS A&M (-27): Texas A&M (buzz-cut alert in San Antonio tomorrow)
lsu/AUBURN (-3.5): Auburn (Lester Miles the difference)
Michigan/NOTRE DAME (-6): Michigan (Man I hope Michigan wins this game outright)
ou/OREGON (-4.5): Oregon (OU still sucks)
miami/LOUISVILLE (-4): Miami (undefeated in 6 straight games as the underdog)
texas tech (-1.5)/TCU: TCU (good run game usually beats Tech, wrong team favored)
nebraska/USC (-18.5): Nebraska (USC more worried about covering Bush payments than this spread)
florida (-3)/TENNESSEE: Florida (Tennessee missing 2 def. starters just like Texas last week)
clemson/FSU (-4.5): FSU (both teams might be unranked by the end of the year)
Here's to all hell breaking loose in college fooball and everyone ending the year with 2 or more losses.
On to the Texas/Ohio St. game... it must be discussed. Several things stood out to me as I watched this game from my season tickets in row 53 of the upper deck. First, I had a bad feeling going into the game when I looked on the sidelines and saw Drew Kelson standing there in street clothes. I'm not one to make excuses, I just knew it would be a tough night for the Texas defense when they were without 3 of their best 11 players for the entire game (Tarell Brown, Drew Kelson, and Sergio Kindle) and without a 4th (Marcus Griffin) for a majority of the game with an ankle injury suffered in the first quarter.
Now onto position breakdowns: At QB, Colt McCoy exceeded expectations in the passing game, going 19-32 for 154 yards with one TD and one interception on a very bad decision/throw. The interception cost Texas 3 points, but McCoy played well enough for Texas to win, and that's all you can ask of a freshman making his second career start in such a big game. The biggest criticism of Colt right now is that he needs to make better decisions on the zone read as to when he should hand the ball off and when he should keep the ball and run it himself. One play that comes to mind is a 3rd and 1 where Colt would have had 8-10 yards had he kept the ball, but instead he handed it off to Charles for a 5 yard loss forcing a punt.
The running backs and offensive line played better than any other position group on the field. The Texas running game was good some of the night, and dominant the rest of the night. Selvin Young played his best game as a Longhorn with the exception of one dropped screen pass, and Jamaal Charles played well, but not spectacular. Neither player fumbled the ball once, which was a good sign.
The WR's/TE's were MIA for most of the night. With a young QB, it's imperative that they step up their level of play against an inexperienced secondary and that did not happen. On more than one occasion, the Texas WR's and TE's had opportunities to make tough, makeable catches but could not get the ball secured. And then there's the Billy Pittman fumble at the 1 yard line, easily the biggest play of the game. Completely inexcusable, and there's really nothing else to say.
On defense, pretty much the only unit that played well was the defensive line. Brian Robison, despite battling a case of pneumonia throughout the week, was the best player on the Texas defense, recording two sacks and a TFL. The Texas run defense was surprisingly solid, only allowing 79 rushing yards on 27 carries. (Note: this is the first loss ever for Mack Brown at Texas when outrushing the opponent after 73 straight wins to begin his career at Texas when this is the case).
The back 7 on defense can all be grouped together if you ask me, because none of them played well at all, with the exception of Marcus Griffin prior to injuring his ankle in the 1st quarter. The pass defense was the worst it has looked since Carl Reese was patrolling the sidelines in 2003. One thing to point out about a game like this is it shows just how valuable a guy like Cedric Griffin was to the defense. The guy was a four year starter who was solid in all aspects of the game, and the 2nd game after he is gone, our secondary has it's worst performance in years. Huff got all the headlines, but Cedric Griffin was just as important to our defensive success last year.
I came up with four plays that could have resulted in a swing of 20 points and allowed Texas to escape with a win (and believe me it would have been a Houdini-like effort to escape with a win):
1. Billy Pittman's fumble at the one yard line - Cost Texas 7 points
2. Aaron Ross failing to bump Ted Ginn on the last play of the half, a 30 yard TD pass to Ginn. If Ross bumps him, it not only disrupts the timing of the play but allows Ross to stay with him step for step AND gives the safety more time to arrive with help over the top - Gave Ohio St. 7 points
3. Colt McCoy's INT at the beginning of the 3rd quarter - Gave Ohio St 3 points
4. Greg Johnson's missed 45-yard FG - Cost Texas 3 points.
So it would have taken pretty much a perfect game with no mistakes to beat Ohio St. They didn't make any mistakes, and Texas made way too many, as the list above shows.
I guess that's about all there is to say. I'm not counting Texas out of the championship race yet. There are 7 teams ahead of Texas right now, with a couple sure to lose this weekend, and so long as 6 of those teams lose by the end of the season, Texas will be right back at the top. This is provided Texas can win the rest of their games, and I still see a loss at Nebraska right now, but at the same time, Texas will be favored in every game they play the rest of the year.
Time to rebound with my picks for week 3. It's a very exciting week in college football, and I will have my HD DVR working overtime to record as many games as possible while I travel to Houston with my brother and wife to attend the Texas-Rice football game with my sister, the Rice grad.
Game
Texas (-31)/RICE: Texas (sorry Laura, it's a blowout)
army/TEXAS A&M (-27): Texas A&M (buzz-cut alert in San Antonio tomorrow)
lsu/AUBURN (-3.5): Auburn (Lester Miles the difference)
Michigan/NOTRE DAME (-6): Michigan (Man I hope Michigan wins this game outright)
ou/OREGON (-4.5): Oregon (OU still sucks)
miami/LOUISVILLE (-4): Miami (undefeated in 6 straight games as the underdog)
texas tech (-1.5)/TCU: TCU (good run game usually beats Tech, wrong team favored)
nebraska/USC (-18.5): Nebraska (USC more worried about covering Bush payments than this spread)
florida (-3)/TENNESSEE: Florida (Tennessee missing 2 def. starters just like Texas last week)
clemson/FSU (-4.5): FSU (both teams might be unranked by the end of the year)
Here's to all hell breaking loose in college fooball and everyone ending the year with 2 or more losses.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Week 2 College Football Picks
Well, first things first. I went 6-4 last week in my picks, which I'm a bit disappointed with, but I look forward to coming back strong this week. About the only game that truly surprised me over the weekend was how terrible Cal looked against Tennessee, or how great Tennessee looked against Cal. I should have known ever since the 2004 Holiday Bowl that Cal can never perform when people are watching them. Let's be honest, their claim to fame is a close loss to USC in 2004; they have yet to win any games of significance to this day under Tedford.
While we're on Tedford, I would like to comment real quick on how overrated I think he is as a QB coach. Somewhere along the way, he developed a reputation as a developer of great QB's, but the reality is, he has a reputation as a developer of QB's who go very high in the draft and then end up as complete busts in the NFL. Let's just take a quick look back at some of the QB's who have studied under Tedford and a synopsis of their career in the NFL.
Trent Dilfer - #6 overall pick in 1994 draft. Career stats: 107 starts, 55.7% comp., 106/117 TD/INT ratio, 71.3 QB rating.
Akili Smith - #3 overall pick in 1999 draft. Career stats: 17 starts, 46.6% comp., 5/13 TD/INT ratio, 52.8 QB rating.
Billy Volek - Career stats: 10 starts, 60.3% comp., 26/13 TD/INT ratio, 86.9 QB rating. Not bad, but when you consider the fact that when he was finally given a chance to start, he performed so poorly in the preseason that the team put him on the trading block before the end of the preseason and signed Kerry Collins to take his place.
Joey Harrington - #3 overall pick in 2002 Draft. Career stats: 55 starts, 54.7% comp., 60/62 TD/INT ratio, 68.1 QB rating. And of course you have to mention he put up these awful stats in spite of his team drafting a WR with 3 straight first round picks and a RB with another first round pick. It's not like he had a shortage of talent around him to work with.
David Carr - #1 overall pick in 2002 draft. Career stats: 59 starts, 57.8% comp., 48/53 TD/INT ratio, 73.7 QB rating.
Kyle Boller - #19 overall pick in 2003 draft. Career Stats: 34 starts, 55.6% comp., 31/32 TD/INT ratio, 69.2 QB rating - benched this season in favor of Steve McNair.
Aaron Rodgers - thought to be in contention for #1 overall pick in 2005 draft, then falls to #27 pick in the draft, I'll give him an incomplete because he hasn't played yet, but based on this track record of other Tedford QB's, my guess is he will crash and burn like the rest of them.
OK, back on topic now, my week 2 picks against the spread:
GAME FAVORITE WINNER
Ohio St./TEXAS: Texas -3 OHIO ST
NOTRE DAME/Penn St: Notre Dame -11.5 PENN ST
Auburn/MISSISSIPPI ST Auburn -20.5 MISS ST
LSU/Arizona LSU -14.5 LSU
Georgia/SOUTH CAROLINA Georgia -3.5 SOUTH CAROLINA
OU/Washington OU -15 WASHINGTON
Clemson/B.C. BC -1 CLEMSON
CAL/Minnesota Cal -6 MINNESOTA
TEXAS A&M/uLaLa A&M -20.5 TEXAS A&M
Ole Miss/MISSOURI Missouri -8.5 OLE MISS
I will do my Texas/Ohio St preview in a separate column. A game of this magnitude deserves it's own post. Stay tuned.
While we're on Tedford, I would like to comment real quick on how overrated I think he is as a QB coach. Somewhere along the way, he developed a reputation as a developer of great QB's, but the reality is, he has a reputation as a developer of QB's who go very high in the draft and then end up as complete busts in the NFL. Let's just take a quick look back at some of the QB's who have studied under Tedford and a synopsis of their career in the NFL.
Trent Dilfer - #6 overall pick in 1994 draft. Career stats: 107 starts, 55.7% comp., 106/117 TD/INT ratio, 71.3 QB rating.
Akili Smith - #3 overall pick in 1999 draft. Career stats: 17 starts, 46.6% comp., 5/13 TD/INT ratio, 52.8 QB rating.
Billy Volek - Career stats: 10 starts, 60.3% comp., 26/13 TD/INT ratio, 86.9 QB rating. Not bad, but when you consider the fact that when he was finally given a chance to start, he performed so poorly in the preseason that the team put him on the trading block before the end of the preseason and signed Kerry Collins to take his place.
Joey Harrington - #3 overall pick in 2002 Draft. Career stats: 55 starts, 54.7% comp., 60/62 TD/INT ratio, 68.1 QB rating. And of course you have to mention he put up these awful stats in spite of his team drafting a WR with 3 straight first round picks and a RB with another first round pick. It's not like he had a shortage of talent around him to work with.
David Carr - #1 overall pick in 2002 draft. Career stats: 59 starts, 57.8% comp., 48/53 TD/INT ratio, 73.7 QB rating.
Kyle Boller - #19 overall pick in 2003 draft. Career Stats: 34 starts, 55.6% comp., 31/32 TD/INT ratio, 69.2 QB rating - benched this season in favor of Steve McNair.
Aaron Rodgers - thought to be in contention for #1 overall pick in 2005 draft, then falls to #27 pick in the draft, I'll give him an incomplete because he hasn't played yet, but based on this track record of other Tedford QB's, my guess is he will crash and burn like the rest of them.
OK, back on topic now, my week 2 picks against the spread:
GAME FAVORITE WINNER
Ohio St./TEXAS: Texas -3 OHIO ST
NOTRE DAME/Penn St: Notre Dame -11.5 PENN ST
Auburn/MISSISSIPPI ST Auburn -20.5 MISS ST
LSU/Arizona LSU -14.5 LSU
Georgia/SOUTH CAROLINA Georgia -3.5 SOUTH CAROLINA
OU/Washington OU -15 WASHINGTON
Clemson/B.C. BC -1 CLEMSON
CAL/Minnesota Cal -6 MINNESOTA
TEXAS A&M/uLaLa A&M -20.5 TEXAS A&M
Ole Miss/MISSOURI Missouri -8.5 OLE MISS
I will do my Texas/Ohio St preview in a separate column. A game of this magnitude deserves it's own post. Stay tuned.
