Week 11 College Football Predictions: There Can Only Be FOUR!
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| Who's a good boy????? |
Week 10: 3-2, Season Record 45-20
First, I apologize for missing last week. I know most of you depend on this blog for survival, and I promise I won't put you through those withdrawals again. Second of all, everyone pour one out for Laquan Treadwell. That's a terrible way to lose a football game, and an even worse injury for a kid to go through. Treadwell did everything he could to make it into the endzone, but sometimes your foot breaks in the most painful way imaginable and you drop the ball less than a foot from the goal line. Unfortunately, barring some kind of crazy end of the season scenario where everyone in the SEC West loses 2 games, Ole Miss is probably on the outside looking in for the playoffs. But they will probably get to play a fun Capital One or Cotton Bowl game, so there's that.
Oklahoma 45 - Baylor 32
Oklahoma has had some ups and downs this year, they probably should have lost the Texas game (DAMMIT) and they probably should have won the Kansas State game. But at home against a seriously underwhelming Baylor team I've gotta think they'll rally here to keep the hope of a Big 12 championship alive. Baylor hasn't looked good since early last year, honestly. Bryce Petty seems to have regressed for some reason, you wonder if that spine injury isn't giving him problems. Outside of one stupid, ridiculous quarter where TCU seemingly put their Junior Varsity archery team out on defense, this does not look like a team that should win a conference.
Notre Dame 34 - Arizona State 24
I'll admit I'm actually looking forward to this game. Notre Dame has a pretty solid team and Everett Golson seems to get better every week. I admittedly don't know much about Arizona State, but they have a strange record. They beat Utah and Stanford at home, and USC away, but they also lost to UCLA 62 to 27 at home. I don't really know what to make of that. If somebody can defend that loss, I'd love to hear the argument. Neither of these teams will probably make the playoffs, but should still be a fun game. Come for the Top 10 matchup, stay for the Lou Holtz stories.
Auburn 45 - Texas A&M 17
Man, I really don't know what to say about A&M right now. The Texas fan in me wants to laugh maniacally at their downfall. And the rest of me looks on at their season like a car wreck, it's ugly and sad, but there's so much spectacle! Auburn just narrowly avoided a wreck of their own when Laquan Treadwell went down. Auburn under Gus Malzahan is seriously the luckiest team I've ever seen. Between last year's Georgia and Alabama games, and this year's Ole Miss and Kansas State, I'm not betting against them until Malzahan is suspended for recruiting violations. I think we all know this is a realistic possibility.
TCU 38 - Kansas State 30
This feels wrong since I picked Kansas State to win the Big 12 earlier in the year, but TCU looks like a very solid team and it's an away game for the Wildcats. Kansas State still has a tough road ahead if they want to take the conference, but a win here isn't going to come easy. In their last two home games, TCU outscored their opponents 124 to 36. Both of those were Big 12 games. Should be a good game, but I expect TCU to get it done at home.
Alabama 24 - LSU 23
This game could really go one of two ways. Either LSU shows up and plays a close game, or they drink a little too much swamp bourbon on Friday and Alabama rolls. I think it's option #1 as LSU should be pretty pumped up after the Ole Miss victory two weeks ago. LSU still has a pretty weak offense, but playing in Baton Rouge is no fun at all for opposing teams. The Tigers can absolutely win this game if they get a break or two on special teams or defense, but Alabama is a better overall team. I think Saban and Kiffin have a winning gameplan, but it's going to come down to execution. If Yeldon or Sims have a fumble or two, all bets are off.
Michigan State 30 - Ohio State 27
My hatred for Ohio State is strong, so strong it's even overtaken my love for Urban Meyer. I really REALLY want the Spartans to win this game. It's not saying much, but they're my favorite Big Ten team. All I really know about them this year is that Oregon blew them out in the second half, which is not good. But Ohio State almost lost to Penn State which is somehow even worse. Wait, is Braxton Miller playing? I have no idea what's going to happen here.
Oregon 31 - Utah 30
I have it on good authority that they are still playing football on the west coast. I haven't seen it with my own eyes, though. So until I get some concrete proof, I'm just going to assume that this game will be played on NCAA Football 2014 at a house party in Salt Lake City. If so, Marcus Mariota is pretty tough to stop unless you put a spy on the QB, but the defense in that game was pretty broken so it's tough to do anything except hope for a crazy play and a pick. Probably going to be a lot of scoring, and I expect the bro playing with Oregon to win and then tell the Utah guy that it was a good game but he should probably try to run some different plays besides HB Draw and Verticals.
Texas Football
Man, I honestly can't wait for this season to be over. Not that I don't like watching us play, it's just an emotional rollercoaster that I can't handle from game to game. In a game where Vinny Testaverde's 3rd string son played, we played Texas Tech way too close for my liking through two quarters. There's a lot of discussion going on over whether we should open the playbook up more or just focus on teaching Swoopes the fundamentals of the position, I fall pretty firmly on the latter choice. Won't do a lot of good to call a play with 4 different routes and a complex blocking scheme if Swoopes can't properly do the 7 step drop needed for timing. On the plus side, we did what we were supposed to with the running game and stepped all over Tech's face with Malcolm and Jonathan.
This week, we play an up and coming West Virginia team stinging sorely from blowing a 4th quarter lead to TCU at home. Clint "So Tricky" Trickett did his normal amount of trickiness, but did so many tricks that he eventually tricked himself and threw two picks. I think our pass defense will be able to hang with them most of this game, again the story of the year is whether or not our offense will show up. WVU is capable at times of playing with enough energy to shut down an offense, and even if they can't do that all game, a few critical stops might be all they need against us. I want to call this one our way, but I just don't know if we can pull it off against a spunky bunch of Mountaineers.
WVU 27 - Texas 13
